walk the dock

The wards are slowly filling back up, with more and more beds occupied with patients waiting for their turn in the operating rooms. Even so, D Ward is still dark and quiet, a testament to just how slow the last few weeks have been. As a result, we don't need all our charge nurses every morning, and I've drawn the short straw: admin days.

Don't get me wrong; having an office day isn't all bad. I get to sleep in, for one. My alarm doesn't go off at six, and whenever I do end up rolling out of bed I don't have to make my way to the dining room; the dear, dear, HoJ will have brought me breakfast and a glass of orange juice, and they'll be waiting for me on the counter. (Yes, I know I'm lucky. Even luckier is the fact that, not only do I get breakfast delivered, I never, ever have to cook dinner. Who else is ready to sign up for Mercy Ships?!)

However, being in the office means just that: I'm in the office. Sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. All. Day. Long. After a good eight hours spent working on the end of outreach report today, I was feeling more than a little stir crazy and more than a little lazy. So after dinner, I laced up my sneakers and headed outside to exercise.

I'll give you a moment here to get over your shock.

It was a beautiful evening. I'm firmly convinced that Togo in raining season has the absolute most perfect weather in all of West Africa, or at least in the four countries I've visited so far. (I'll get back to you in ten years or so once I've been to the rest.) There was a cool breeze blowing in off the ocean and the sky was awash in pink and orange, the fiery remnant of an early sunset. It was the perfect night for a brisk walk.

I hadn't reckoned with the guard to our gate. He sat on his customary wooden bench next to his little shack, holding onto the rope stretched across the open road. Whenever a car passed, he dropped the rope to let them pass and more of then than not left it on the ground for ten or so minutes afterwards until he remembered to pick it up again.

He thought I was insane.

Every time I passed his way, he was staring at me, wondering why on earth this crazy yovo would be walking back and forth, not carrying anything on her head, clearly getting nowhere.

After about six laps, it seemed that he was catching on and would wave happily as I made my turn. On laps ten through fourteen, he got really excited and clapped, cheering me on. However, somewhere around lap sixteen he had had enough and started frowning at me, his forehead all wrinkled with concern, making the characteristic patting motion with his hands that means stop around here. Through the music in my earphones I could hear him telling me, Doucement! Slow down!

I decided twenty laps was probably all he could take, since his concern for my health (more mental then physical, I assume) was growing rapidly, so as I passed him on the final turn I made sure to let him know that I was finished.

Evo, I told him, finished, and he smiled in relief and made sure of what I'd said, adding the one little sound that turns everything to a question here. Evo a?

Under the pink and orange sky, I headed back to the ship as a rat and three rather large cockroaches ran across my path. Which, even if I hadn't almost given that poor guard a heart attack, might be enough to convince me that this whole exercise notion is a bad one.

And now if you'll excuse me, I've got a World Cup match to watch. I'll let the professionals do the exercise from here on in.