here comes sickness.. here comes Alex.
Saturday November 8th 2003
Not surprising, I have malaria again. I seem to be getting it mildly. I feel tired, a bit disoriented, and my muscles and joints are sore.. mild hot flashes, and crazy dreams (I converted Rush Limbaugh into a tolerant liberal.. was the most memorable this last time). My relationship with Alex continues to go south. It comes out that he has been lying to me about all sorts of stuff…and since I confronted him about the pump payment, he knows he’s in trouble. He is especially panicked as Sunday is the Presbyterian Consecration ceremony that he is supposed to be filming as his first paying gig… and he knows he is totally dependant on me. He is making all sorts of impassioned pleas, promises, and passive aggressive supplications (If I don’t let him use the equipment Sunday, they will put him in jail.. but I shouldn’t worry about him). I sat and listened, without speaking. Very difficult for me.. but I hadn’t made up my mind as to what I was going to do with him.. so I just listened. I was also going to talk to him when I was ready, not when he was slightly drunk, and babbling on. If I get this right, he spend some 15,000 CFA that he was supposed to spend on different things for me on one night of drinks with his friends… and has basically been struggling to make that up ever since..by lying, and stalling… hoping that I would just forget.
So I meet with Charlie this morning to basically let him know what is going down. I have his blessing to send Alex packing. Charlie tells me basically: he doesn’t trust Alex either. Nice. Thanks for dumping him on me. So, its pretty much up to me, but at least my ass is covered.
It was around noon that Alex showed up with my Game Boy. I have been asking almost daily for a month, and he shows up as if he had delivered the holy grail. This after he had promised me.. on pain of jail and death, that he would deliver all of the delinquent items on his to do list by first thing this morning. One item down, 5 to go.. plus the missing money and other things that aren’t even on the list. I tell Alex that we are going to talk now. I tell him that I was ready to kick him out.. but that Charlie asked me to give him one more chance (not true, but the spirit was there). I told him the next time I had to talk to him about something he didn’t do, or a problem I had, it would be to tell him to move out, and that our deal was completely off. I told him I didn’t think he would make it through the week. I told him he wasn’t going to use my equipment anymore. I told him I didn’t trust him…that I have no idea what he was thinking, but I didn’t really care anymore. He sort of got it..but I don’t think he really did. He started asking me if he could use this and that a few hours after our discussion. I said, let me think about it.. um, no. I told him that I was going to film the ceremony the next day. He could carry stuff, maybe. I wish I wasn’t sick… that would make all of this easier. I slept a lot.
I got more visitors today. Kate (another youth for development volunteer) and Jed (her boyfriend) showed up today. Surprise. They are both really nice, and crack me up. Both totally lost in the immediacy of the experience, and each other. They went off to see some choral music with Jen and Alex in the evening.