Djibouti - Day 5 - Heat

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Last night I decided to shower off the day's grime before hitting the rack. So I gathered my toiletries and walked out to the latrine/shower box. It felt good to shave and shower before bed and go to sleep clean.

Almost too good.

From 11:00pm to 2:30am I tossed and turned as I tried to go to sleep. I tried lying on my back. I tried rolling from side to side. In desperation I pulled out my noise-cancelling headphones - all to no avail. Finally at around 3:00am I gave up on trying to sleep. Fully awake I went back to the
11th Parallel, where I watched football highlights until the galley opened at 5:30am. After breakfast I went back to the 11th Parallel until 8:00am, when I was supposed to meet my contacts.

Around 8:30am my contacts finally showed up. We took the laptops up to my classroom - a conference room with a table just wide enough to fit 7 chairs. We plugged in the equipment and turned on the machines. There were a few glitches that I needed to iron out, so I spent the morning getting them good to go.

By 11:00am my sleeplessness caught up to me, so I walked back to the tent. Now the tent is about half a mile from the classroom. But the heat is so intense that I had to duck into a couple of buildings along the way just to cool down in front of an air conditioner. To give you an idea how bad the heat is, by 8:00am it's already over 90 degrees Fahrenheit. By the afternoon the temperature is over 110 degrees, complete with humidity. There is no break from the heat. When I got back to the tent the air conditioners were running full blast, but the tent was still in the low 80s. I changed out of my clothes and hopped in for what I thought would be a short noon-time name.

Two-and-a-half hours later I woke up feeling lethargic, nauseous and dizzy. I figured I had better down some water as soon as possible. I reached into my bag and pulled out a spare bottle of water. With that initial momentum I began to gather myself. I dressed and made my way to the galley around 4:00pm. While I had missed the hot lines for lunch, the sandwich area was still open. So I made myself a roast beef and pepperoni sandwich with provolone, tomatoes and mustard on toasted wheat bread.

I am definitely losing weight here this week. Some may attribute it to the sauna-like conditions. Others will note the increased physical activity as I walk back and forth. But the truth is that the heat is a natural appetite suppressant. I don't feel hungry. I just want to survive, so I force myself to eat something. And I make sure to drink water as I walk from building to building on my way across camp.

The evening was spent getting ready for the class and catching up on email and other connections. Any small opportunity to talk with someone back home, be it over Skype, email or Facebook - they all mean so much. This is easily the most isolated place I have ever been. Alas, 5 more days and I will be on my way home. I can do it.

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