our man in cameroon

I type this facing away from my office window – behind the window is a small balcony with a rather lovely view over the valley.

Before Christmas, in the driest part of the dry season, I was still in the habit of smoking out there.

I knew that my colleague in the next door office didn’t appreciate it but if I was working late, and everyone else had gone, I didn’t see the harm.

Anyway, on this particular day I took my last drag threw it on the floor – ready to stand on it before I binned it – and a gust of wind caught it and it rolled onto the roof below. It continued rolling till it came to rest in the guttering full of dry season debris of leaves and litter.

I could still see it glowing.

I briefly considered that it’d be fine until I quite rightly realised it wouldn’t.

Suddenly in my mind’s eye I could see the hospital in flames and patients in varying stages of ill-health assembled moaning in the car park as everything was reduced to smouldering rubble.

Then I’d always be “the volunteer who burnt down the hospital he was sent to fundraise for”.

I would be THE WORST VSO VOLUNTEER EVER.

Thinking on my feet I emptied a full bottle of water onto the cigarette from two stories up. I was surprised by my accuracy as it fizzled out. Unfortunately I was also surprised by a nurse on the floor below sticking her head out to try and find where the smell of smoke was coming from.

The last trickle of the water caught her right on the back of the neck.

Like a bad kid I instinctively retreated to the back of the balcony while I heard a nurse cursing me and saying: “Who is smoking? – This is a hospital”.

Which, actually seemed like a very good point.

I resolved never to smoke inside it again. For a while I smoked at the far end of the car park until the cleaners, reasonably enough, complained about my cigarette ends.

They led me behind the adjacent building to where the incinerator is. They told me here would be okay.

Now I smoke either to the accompaniment of plastic bags burning or – between bonfires – bloody bandages and assorted medical nastiness.

Addiction is a terrible thing.

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This entry was posted on June 10, 2009 at 7:20 am and is filed under cameroon, volunteering. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site.