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Saturday, June 04, 2005

Hot without sunshine

I am hot but not from sun and even this time not fever. I am working from a conference room where the heat from copiers and computers can do little against the airconditioning.

Yesterday I was taken out for ice cream. I stay in the same hotel as the conference centre so I don't get out a lot. In fact I hadn't been out since Tuesday and yesterday was well a day a long way from Tuesday. I blinked in the sun, marvelled at the puddles on the ground (apparently there had been torrential rain) and wondered at these big fluffly clouds on the horizon. The ice cream was good too.

The last couple of days I have been feeling post sickness lethargy, hence the need for ice cream. Either that or at the old age of thirty I just can't do event work. My bones ache and I can feel where the injections were still. My hips are covered in delicate shades of purple bruising. On a positive note, I am only taking anti inflammatory tablets now which means dinner is more of a meal and less of a drug overdose. It's always amusing in the Turkish staff canteen (this year's is less like a prison but we still make the reference) with my metal tray with indents for bowls and my pile of pills, it really keeps the hospital feel. Sometimes, as a treat, we are allowed to eat dinner in the hotel restaurant because all the Russians and Germans have fled. The food is the same and the service is doubly surly to make sure we don't get ideas above our station. The first night they even made us pay for water.

I am managing six hours sleep a day which is enough but after last week is still exhausting me. Yesterday as a joke, someone called me at 5am and pretended it was 730 and that I was really late. You can imagine my sense of humor failure. The only good thing was, as I struggled to find my comfy spot and go back to sleep, in the faint distance, I heard the call to prayer...

Last night, H called, and I held his shirt and dreamed. There's nothing there but dreams are good to keep you going when the reality is this hotel. I was in Uchisar, the view was mesmerising, the cats were on my lap, and the call to prayer battled with the crazy dog who moans back at the imam and the invisible donkey that brayed beneath my window....

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