Anxiety

Anxiety is the word of the day.

It started (perhaps it started in my mind weeks ago) with the slight shortness of breadth in the ride out of Julius Nyerere Airport.  The fatigue from two flights and the dusty road made concerned over an appointment at the ENT I had a couple of days ago.  Was this going to be a problem for the next two years?  I had a sudden urge to grab my medicine that was inside my bag.  But the medicine isn’t an instant cure, nor provides the temporary relief like a painkiller.  So I put some thought to this whole issue, and tried to relax myself from the anxiety.

Another moment of anxiety.  I was taking a crap, and the new roll of toilet paper is of course a problem.  I began to peel off the first layer of a new roll, which is a moderate challenge in the developed world.  But here, I ended up ripping four layers.  Crap, what kind of toilet paper is this?  Slight anxiety.  Then I flush the toilet.  It won’t flush.  My brown crap is still at the bottom of the toilet.  What do I do?  I try to fix it.  It won’t work.  I call for help from a friend.  Doesn’t work.  I try a different method of flushing.  It won’t work.  I was too tired to be persistent with the matter, so I’m in my bed right now, 11.22 pm, with my crap still in my toilet.  I’ll probably feel a bit embarrassed getting help from one of the staff tomorrow morning.  A first impression would be fixing the toilet, with the crap still in it.  A bit of anxiety, but like any other ones, manageable.

My Microsoft Word spell check using the right click on the red underlines won’t work. What the crap have I done to my computer? Anxiety, again. Pressing F7 runs the spell check just fine, but the added inconvenience is a source of anxie…. I'll stop here.

 written on Dec. 18, first day of arrival.

In front of Msimbazi Center, our home for the next 2 months.

My more exciting half of the room.