Dammit, the light is getting in.
Maybe, I'll open my eyes and I won't be hangover. Maybe, by some miracle I'll feel fresh, the smell of coffee will fill my nose. Maybe, I'll wake up, roll over and see my wife give me that disapproving smile.
I roll. Count to 10. And open my left eye.
Yup. That was a mistake.
First the light squeezes past my eyelids. Then solidifies as shards of glass that seem to become molten and settle into a throbbing pool in my sinuses.
So. Hangover. Check.
Well, its not my first, and unfortunately I'm not smart enough for it to be my last. All I need is ibuprofen, clean water and bacon.
I brace myself for a little more discomfort and open my eyes for real.
Fuck.
Fuck. Fuckity. Fuck.
Fucking Africa.
Last night was a celebration for the team getting through the first phase of a 3 month training program. I'd been tasked to take 10 local grads that we'd just hired and bring them round to our style of software development.
So far it had been a successful trip. As expected the new hires were smart, well educated and eager to make a good impression. Local internet was a little spotty, but good enough for our needs, and the Apple MacBook Pros that we'd given them more than cemented us as the best gig in town.
In a couple of days we'd start 'Project Month' where I'd observe the director of the office, Adisa, bring the group together. She was the reason I was so optimistic about this new venture. A thirty year old Bassari woman who was fiercely proud of her ancestry, complete with a myriad of ear piercings, wore a porcupine needle through her septum out of work and whose hair was pulled into a tight, central braid. Tall, elegant but with an inner strength, she'd graduated in the middle of her class with a masters two years earlier from DIOP, the regional university, but hadn't managed to convert her degree into anything more than a retail job at a small electronic store in Diourbel, something she attributed to her refusal to convert to Islam. Fluent in French, English and her native Oniyan her accent was almost transatlantic with hints of both french and east coast american slipping in, something she attributed to binge watching French and American TV on netflix during college. She was to be our woman on the ground liaising between her team, her French clients and her English bosses.
The hut I was staying was dark, but it still took my eyes a couple of seconds to adjust. As I blinked a little both squeeze out the pain behind my eyes I heard something click. The room then seemed to fill my senses all at once. Something was wrong, unfamiliar. The air was a little sweeter, more humid, warmer. Like there was something, or someone in the room. I felt the adrenaline start to set fire to my blood as my hangover brain struggled to figure out if I should fight or flight.
"Finally, your awake" a familiar but surprising voice said. "I thought you Englishmen could drink". Then there was sound of a smooth, deep inhale and my eyes focused just in time to see Adisa sitting up right, next to me in bed, have her first smokers cough of the day.
The adrenaline shifted from flight or flight to confusion and panic as my brain associated the click with the lighter. I tried desperately to go back in time just a fraction of a second, to the wonderful, pain and alcohol addled moments where I hadn't been an adulterer. Maybe this wasn't what it looked like.
I remembered leaving work, buying the first round of drinks and the second. Saying good polite goodbyes to the majority of the team who had really only come out of politeness as they didn't drink, leaving just me Adisa and Piere. Piere had bowed out after the second round of this clear, sweet liquor that Adisa had bought leaving just the two of us. She'd suggested that I share some of the good whisky I'd been bragging about, we'd gone back to my hut.
