Monday, February 2, 2009

How to stop my heart in two seconds flat

God, what a night.

I'm alone in the Malarial Pit of Despair right now, which is fine, I've stayed there alone quite often and don't really mind one way or the other. Last night I got home around 8.30 from a stressful Nile cruise and the guard told me he couldn't get the generator on (for the second day in a row). Fine, whatever, I was deep in the throes of the second of the Twilight books and happy to get in bed and read with my headlamp.

About 10 minutes later, the guard starts banging on the door, asking for water. Fine, I give him two bottles, go to bed. Then I start hearing something outside my window. Someone is pulling at it. I have my headlamp on, which means I'm blinded to anything more than two feet from my head. Soon, I start hearing incoherent rambling, coming in my window, and realise it is the guard. I get up and leave my room, suddenly rather worried.

Now I can't lock any doors in my house. Not the door to the outside and not my room. I go into the sitting room, still in the dark and in my pajamas, and realise the guard is opening the door in the kitchen to come in. I yell and go to the door. He's standing there, asking for more water. I get him some more, and tell him he needs to stay by the gate, stay away from my window and NOT come into the house. I then shut the door and pull the two, heavy, iron bars across, which CAN be opened from the outside as well (through a hole cut in the door) and go back to my bed.

I'm lying in bed when I hear the sound of the first bar being slowly pulled back. I jumped out of bed, and listened, knowing there was no way I could lock my bedroom door (no handle, I shut it by putting a bag in front of it). I hear the sound of the second bar being pulled back and simultaneously: 1. Scream "Get Away" at top volume, 2. throw some jeans on over my jammies and 3. call a friend of mine and say my guard is breaking in, I'm going to try and get out, she should hear from me in 5 minutes if I get out.

The issue was it was pitch black since there was no generator and I didn't know where he was. I grabbed my car keys, saw him flitting out of the kitchen and came out onto the back porch where he was in the corner. I told him to stay away from me and ran towards the car. He came towards me, I think just drunken and wanting to get my attention (he kept muttering "forgive me" under his breath). I jumped in the car and locked the doors, then sat there blowing on the horn yelling at him to open the front gate, which he finally did.

I haven't been back yet, I'm waiting to see how this all unfolds...

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