Night One

Wasn't the best first night I could've asked for in Cameroon. Woke up not more than one hour after collapsing in bed, covered in a hot soaking sweat with intense itching of my face and arms. They told us we didn't need mosquito nets for Mbingo because the altitude is so high that the mosquitos are less of a problem, but I guess we didn't account for the night in low-lying Douala. Anyone who knows me knows that if there if you invite me to an evening bbq I will serve as a human citronella candle, in that I will keep the mosquitos away from everyone else. Nevermind when covered in my own sweat. And so I awoke with huge welts on my face and arms, the only places exposed out of the covers. A good twenty welts. Good thing I took my anti-malarials. And there was no telling when my shower-wet head turned into my sweat soaked hair. Needless to say, I covered myself with an industrial amount of DEET and spent the rest of the night weighing getting under the sheets in the 200 degree humidity versus an hourly blood-letting. When all was said and done, I spent most of the night peeping from above my musty sheets wondering why nature let the cockroach on the wall outsize the lizard on the window screen. Then, later, where they both disappeared to.

 

Apparently my forehead wasn't covered well enough.