Crash & Burn

Cats spend an average of 16 hours a day curled up in slumber. Only opossum and the bat sleep more. Cats who do not get enough sleep are confused and irritable. So are humans, when they are deprived of sleep. I know.

A few years ago, when I was living a normal life in Vancouver and when I worked at a job that I liked but that wore me out, (you know, when that Friday afternoon finish line seems to be getting harder and longer to get to as the school year slowly progresses), my usual morning ritual comprised of slouching at the breakfast table eating my cereal and sipping my coffee, all the while admiring our cat Micha, may he rest in peace, fast asleep in the chair not far from mine, me listening to the chirpy girl on morning radio, may she burn in hell, talk about how glorious and wonderful this fine, rainy, chilly Vancouver morning would undoubtedly turn into another fine, rainy, chilly Vancouver day.

Both Madeleine and I grunted through our breakfast repas of Nabisco Shredded Wheat, our conversation often interspersed with intellectual existential gibberish like, ...has the garbage truck been around already? As I chomped away on my shredded wheat, my attention was often focused on the cat. I was envious of the cat. He could sleep in every morning, did not have to face anyone or anything during his day alone in our house, and the most strenuous thing he would need to accomplish during his cat day would be waking up, when he felt like it, stretch, when he felt like it, lick himself, when he felt like it, languorously yet graciously saunter over to his water and dried cat food bowl, eat and drink, waddle back to another chair, have another one of those cat stretches, another occasional lick, curl up, and sleep some more. The most labor intensive part of his day would be pacing himself at his food bowl so that he would not eat too much which would give him heartburn and disturb his going back to sleep. A bit like being on a cruise ship. Who wouldn’t be jealous of such a lifestyle? I certainly was.

Well, this past week, I fantasized about Micha again. This week, and this is the first time it’s happened since I’m in Africa, I, my body and my mind, crashed and burned.

Not that I don’t like my work. I love my work. Problem is, perhaps I like it too much. I was tired, really tired as in dog tired. I hadn’t crashed and burned since I don’t know when. It actually did happen to me once before, but back then I was in a civilized part of the world where chicken noodle soup was easy to come by, and it was near a comfortable couch which became my safe haven for the following three days, and it was at the beginning of a long weekend, and the weather outside was miserable, which kept me from feeling guilty when falling into comatose without anyone really noticing that I was out of commission, except for Madeleine who knew how to handle the situation (this is where the chicken noodle soup came in...funny how women instinctively think chicken noodle soup when faced with someone in distress...) by occasionally poking me with a stick to make sure that I was still alive...anyways, you get the picture.

As I awoke from another restless partial night’s sleep last Thursday morning, I kind of knew that I would probably not make it through the day. I had not quite reached that wall of total collapse, but I could see it in a not too far distance. Crossing those 8 time zones on my recent trip to North America had really messed up my internal clock, and I had not slept a full night’s sleep since leaving on the trip 3 weeks ago. Got back to Conakry to the usual ‘expect the unexpected’ routine of living here, but somehow, like is the case every time we do leave and come back, one becomes less tolerant and more impatient with the plethora of the small but constant quirky things about living and working here.

To me, it was an accumulation of quirks that got to me....from my quick defeatist resignation to pay off the custom leaches at the airport so that I could quickly retrieve my bags, to the tax people phoning and demanding more ‘grease’ money to get the school’s tax dossier through to the ‘right’ people, ...and then let’s not forget the break down of our school’s generator and subsequent handling of some female staff members’ menopausal hot flashes, compounded by those never ending marathon meetings with our school landlord where I have to start every meeting engaging in the diplomatic establishing relationship african thing of finding out how his family is before we get down to business and he repeatedly tries to convince me that quadrupling the rent next year is a good deal for us because we will still be paying below market value....and then.... I better stop here because I’m getting exhausted just writing this.

I knew I was in trouble when I almost bit our PE teacher’s head off, (this is a gentle man that is nothing short of goodness incarnated, by the way) when he told me he was out of soccer balls because all our new soccer balls had been chewed out by the razor wire topping off our security fence around the campus. That Thursday morning at the breakfast table, Madeleine told me I looked like hell and that I should stay home. Of course, my invincible macho male bravado psyche, man’s worst enemy, did what it usually does, it disabled my brain to think straight. When I walked into work on Thursday morning, my business manager asked me if I was ok. This, I believe, is a polite African way of saying ...You look like sh&t, go home!

I stayed around for a few hours, but quickly realized that as the morning wore on, that total exhaustion wall that I was referring to before, was fast approaching. I became irritable and absolutely dysfunctional. I was not doing anyone any good here. I needed to go home and rest not only my body, but my mind.

I went home, drew the drapes in our bedroom, and crept into bed with Condi (I’m halfway though Condoleezza Rice’s book No Higher Honor), read a chapter, and then slowly slipped into a deep sleep.

Woke up Friday morning after the first non-interrupted night’s sleep, rejuvenated and willing and ready to take on any new quirks sent my way. Perhaps it was the 16 hours of uninterrupted sleep that did it? Or perhaps it was reading that chapter before falling asleep about Condi brokering a Palestinian-Israel peace accord, talking Pervez Musharaff into resigning the presidency of Pakistan, telling Dick Cheney that he was a goofball (not her exact words), and then convincing the Chinese to work with her in convincing the North Koreans to give up their nuclear aspirations. Perhaps my quirks are not that ‘wearing’ after all....

In any case, I let the sleep do its restorative and healing magic. Cats know where it’s at.