Strategic error

You might remember my 2-year old host brother in Thies has sickle-cell. I don’t want to make light of his condition in this post, it’s still really, really sad. He has been having problems with it lately, meaning the first three nights I was in town he could be heard screaming until his voice gave out.

It’s awful to hear a small child in pain like that, but it only makes it worse when my host-mom apologizes to me for the noise. She tries to get him to be quiet so he doesn’t bother me. I keep trying to tell her "it’s no big deal, don’t worry about me - you didn't sleep either."

Two days ago I was feeling especially guilty about the apologies and said I had earplugs which keep all the noise out. Well, as luck would have it Mamadou got better that same night and the screaming stopped. That’s the good news.

The bad news is everyone has taken it as carte blanche to make as much noise as they want. You might not think this is such a big deal, but the Senegalese DON’T SLEEP. You think I’m joking? Well at 4 a.m. I heard my host-mom knock on her daughter’s door and remind her to clean the pantry, or something like that. Again, they DON’T SLEEP. I’m thinking about saying I lost the earplugs. The only thing stopping me is I don’t know what I’ll say happened to them. I live in a concrete box, where could they go?

I skipped two hours of class this morning so I could get some much needed rest in the medical hut.