Digestive Confidential

This is SUCH an unladylike thing to discuss, but I have a bad stomach right now. Which never, ever ever happens to me. I'm known for it. I drank water straight out of the well in Liberia and appreciated how chilled it was compared to the sticky rainforest climate. I drank with the water that came from sacks on the back of a donkey in Darfur and smiled at the way the sand would settle in the bottom of my glass. I drank the water from the river that the cows were wallowing in India and enjoyed the slightly sweet flavor from the hay.

Never had an issue.

Now, I've been in Juba for a week and a day and I feel like I've been kicked, repeatedly, in the stomach. Our water comes from the Nile and has both a color and an odor that is, shall we say, less than appealing. When you get finished with your shower you don't necessarily smell any nicer than you did when you started and your hair feels a bit.... yicky. Anyway, I'm not drinking the stuff or anything, honestly, just using it for brushing my teeth, and I'm sure the cook uses it when she makes our lunch, but that's it.

Stomach issues are a seriously common part of life for most people that do this and even people as puritanical as I am will have conversations over dinner about typhoid versus dysentery versus giardia and why they all suck. But I always felt so damned SUPERIOR to everyone else during these chats.

If it keeps on going for the rest of the week I'll have to go to the clinic I guess. Which is a bummer. But who knows, maybe I'll keep a low level illness going for JUST long enough to look great in my black tie dress.

Kidding, kidding.