Wednesday, 4th August, Kampala Time: 4:27
The last two days have not been the best of my life. In the space of 24 hours, I managed to loose a pair of PJ bottoms, roughly £150 and, temporarily, the use of my left leg. Let's start with that. We were off to “Garden city” once more to indulge in the pleasures of civilization (Toy Story 3 and the Food Court). You will be disappointed to hear that the Food Court’s “Italian and Persian” restaurant was closed, but this was not the worst of it. After a rather excruciating mtatu (a kinda make-shift bus) ride though rush-hour traffic, we arrived outside Garden City. All that stood between us and a world of food and films was a road, divided by a row of bollards strung together by chains. As we nimbly hopped over the first of the two sets of chains, the bollards appeared fairly innocuous. If I’d inspected them further, I would have noticed that they were covered in twisting pointed spikes. In fact, closer inspection proved unnecessary for, as I hoisted my leg over the second set of chains, their presence was driven home hard. Not only was it driven home hard, it was driven right into my kneecap. Hard.
Thinking I’d knocked my leg, I’d did the whole “Oh! Ow! Aren’t I stupid” song and dance and began to cross the road. I noticed my vision had started to go a bit fuzzy and my hearing had lessened, but I didn’t think too much of it. The words
“Duncan, are you bleeding” roused me from my stupor. “Oh, yes, yes, I rather am”, I replied.
Feeling quite faint by now, I stumbled to a low wall and sat down. A friendly and sympathetic Ugandan asked if I was okay and, when I showed him the neat puncture mark in my knee, started to shake his head and click his tongue sympathetically. Another Ugandan, equally kind and with more initiative than the first, grabbed my leg and looked at me sternly. “Does this hurt?” he said, swinging my leg from side too side. I was somewhat to preoccupied by the pain to answer him, so he started kneading the knee itself. “How does that feel?”. I whimpered perfunctory thanks and hobbled away from my benefactors as fast as my working leg would carry me. We were off to meet a pair of American primatologists who will be with us in Semliki for the remainder of our stay though I can’t say I made a fantastic first impression. I grimaced all through the meal and was told that I looked “pale”.
During the film it was a lot better. In fact, by the end of Toy Story 3 (Good, but not as good as 1 or 2 or Ratatouille or Up), I’d completely forgotten the pain. Standing up at the end of the film swiftly reminded me, however, and the 100m walk downstairs was enough to necessitate another rest. It was nothing, however, compared to the taxi drive home, by the end of which I’d broken into a cold sweat and my eyes were watering profusely. I’m not sure how far the spike had gone in, but my body was complaining. Luckily, the stiff gin and tonic, followed by a strong anti-inflammatory and pain killer meant that, by the time I woke up, I could pretty much walk unaided. This was a relief, as if it had not got better, I would in not was have been prepared for catastrophe number two. But let’s leave that for another blog entry, shall we..?
No comments:
Post a Comment