I wish I could say my little stomach bug had become a thing of the past but I ended up having to leave the hospital early. It's frustrating because i think my main symptom is just intense hunger, since food has been hard to keep down. And I think most of you know I don't do well when I'm hungry! But it is hard to know for sure, all the symptoms seem to run together. So I took a tuktuk home and instantly took a nap (falling asleep to The Proposal movie with Sandra Bullock). I would be a little concerned if I were the only one feeling this way, but several of us have been going through the same so we're all thinking its just a minor adjustment bug. (And the ones that had it at first are now feeling better so that gives me hope!)
After I arose from my slumber, I convinced Kitty and Halley to join me on a jaunt to the Nakumatt (superstore area that has the casino) with a goal of getting A. money from my debit card and B. foods that were familiar to me. After making a call to bremer only to find out that they couldn't give me an explanation for my problems, we entered the casino to give it a try. I was a bit frazzled all the way around at this point and anxious to find a place that could help me withdraw money so I was DELIGHTED when the transaction went through!
Unfortunately, they had made a copy of my passport AND front side of my credit card and insisted on keeping it. We were not too pleased with this sketchy situation and insisted on walking out with the copy they had made. They told us it was "company policy" to keep it for their records and said that they would return it if they would be allowed to cancel the transaction. But they said that it would take two weeks for the 10,000 shillings to be put back on my card (over $100), and I didn't like the sound of that either. I felt like if I walked out with that copy, I would never see that money again. Kitty was brilliant and called Jevis to come assist us while I tried to debate with the employees/managers. Their story didn't make any sense and I tried to explain to them how frustrated/frightened I'd been with the thought of having no other access to money oh and soon the emotions came over me and lickidy split i got worked up and started to tear up a little bit. Oh goodness did they ring the alarms at this one! A manager/owner guy shuttled quickly over saying "don't cry don't cry...you can take your copy and your money" ...Why didn't they offer that in the first place? They tried to explain how this policy was for my (the customer's) benefit so that I wouldn't have to bring my passport for any further withdrawals, but I wasn't buying it. We hurried out of there before we caused any bigger scene and went on to try and find something edible.
I picked up: Pringles, Skippy peanut butter and Kelloggs Corn Flakes. Even that didn't sound good at the time and we got home and I went right up to my bunk for another nap session! I woke up in time to give dinner a go and stuck to my Pringles and they sat well with me! I was so pleased to get any sort of caloric intake at this point!
After dinner we all stayed huddled in the living space and to candle light (the power went out -which happens frequently here) we did a form of hot seat where we just asked each other different get-to-know-you questions.
Nikki brought a guitar and after our little heart-to-hearts Neil whipped it out to play us a song he wrote about the sickliness of the household, it was quite the comedy and very entertaining!
Quick swahili lesson:
mzungu = white person
Thats all for today! Hoping I'll be able to tell more about my adventures and less about my struggles tomorrow!
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