Saturday December 13th, 2003
I’m not feeling great. Its not like I’m really feeling ill, but I just feel tired. I’m sure some of it is the amount of work I am doing, the equatorial climate, the barometric pressure shifts, diet, and lack of consistant sleep due to noise, and a kitty that likes to jump on my face, or box my nose when I’m sleeping. This being said, I had tontine presentation this morning. So, we were supposed to start at 10 am. At around 10:30, a few presidents trickle in. At 11 Madame Adjoa (the head of CADEF, a womens ngo..which, as far as I can tell, consists of.. Madame Adjoa on evenings and weekends talking a lot. Does she like to talk or what… that and she likes hats.) strolls in with some story about something at the market. I don’t really know, and didn’t really care. No Charly. At around 11:15 a motorcycle shows up with a note for me. When all is ready, send for Charly at the mayors house (read office). I make some excuse, and head up to the mayor.. Madame Adjoa follows. Nice meeting. We show up almost an hour and a half late, and then take off to go find the guy who called the meeting. Whiskey was being served in large quantities, and I was offered a glass. I politely declined, and after the obligatory protocol, headed down to the meeting.
I tried to keep focused.. I did really. But after 15 hot minutes of protocol babbling, I started to drift. After two hours of talking, it was my turn. I was expected to read the flyer, but.. well, I’m not good at sticking to the protocols. I waxed as eloquent as I could in vaguely disinterested, and hunger impaired french to sell the presidents on the idea of putting their money in GECEC… but it was clear that half my audience wasn’t really strong in french, and were also as distracted as I was. They were mostly there to get the free food or drinks that accompany these kinds of presentations. At around 4, still having not eaten for the day, we ended. Whew. On the way down to the bar where we were going to get drinks, I excused myself, went home, ate, and relaxed for about 5 minutes. Oh man.. I hadn’t realized how lousy I was feeling. I muster enough energy to go down to the bar to be social for a half hour, chat with the ladies. I’m pretty checked out at this point, and I am relieved when Alex shows up with some banal complication about getting paid for the photographs we (I) took for the Consecration thing. I use this as an excuse to fuck off home, play some game boy, and then go to sleep.