You take the good you take the bad

OMG it's been a rough few days...

First the good --- we went to Kruger last weekend!!!!!! What a wonderful day, starting at 6 in the morning, arriving at Kruger at 7 and driving all day through the park until 5:30 (barely getting out of the park before they shut the doors - we were one of the last cars to leave!). We saw everything but kitties - rhinos, hippos, baboons, giraffe, zebra, hyenas, wild dogs, impala, crazy birds, buffalo, crockodiles, warthogs (I think my favorite) and lots and lots of elephants (subject of a separate blog I'll post later). The five on my team went with our client and her husband who were wonderful guides and very patient as we kept asking the car to move up, back, up again until we could all get our pictures. So that's the good.

The bad was bad. On the way home, we were going through a tiny teeny town with no streetlights and our client's husband (who was driving) did not see the massive speed bump in the road and hit it going just a little too fast (insert sarcasm on "little"). I was in the back of the safari van with one of the other girls (Jen) on my team without seatbelts, and we both went flying and hit our heads on the metal grates on the top of the car. And not just a little bump --- I was really out of it in a lot of pain, and feared I might have a concussion (although I never lost consciousness) (I was very very scared). It turns out that I don't (no symptoms of a concussion and my deep, deep forehead bruise is now healing), but Jen ended up getting worse and worse and eventually went to the hospital the next day for pain meds, and we think she did have a concussion. It was an awful way to ruin an otherwise great day.

To top it all off, we were moving lodges on the evening of the head incident. I blogged earlier about how the larger team of 12 unfortunately had to be split into two lodges when we arrived due to some shady logistical problems. So, we have been staying for the first week at temporary accomodations until we could all be moved together to one place. The move happened about an hour after we hit our heads and we came back to a really terrible lodge. Granted that my team had been totally spoiled because of the great B&B we had stayed at during the first week. And maybe we wouldn't have been so disappointed had we come here from the beginning. But, even by my low standards the place is gross. One person got put in a room with dirty sheets (we all have inexplicable stains on all of our linens, shower curtains and towels), another person got bit by a flea in her bed, another person only has pipes in their bathroom (no showerhead), and it is generally just filthy. I know we are not supposed to be living in luxury, but "clean" sheets should be a minimum standard.

Not to be a crybaby, but my room was the worst. It was so horrible I actually slept with the lights on (I'm not sure why, somehow it made me feel better) and I felt dirty just walking into the room. The room is off of the lobby on the bottom floor of the lodge and I had a suspicion that it was being used as a public bathroom when not occupied. After talking with the team, one of the girls, Claire, was so excellent and let me move in with her (she has a bigger space with some common areas). So I moved in last night and am much more comfortable and actually feel clean now. One afternote: after I moved in with Claire, I realized I had left something in the first room and went in to get it to find that...someone had just taken a shower there! I think the room was used as a general sleeping / bathing / bathroom for the hotel staff which is why it is so nasty. ick ick ick ick

So that's the quick update for now. I'll spare you from the work updates for now, but we are all working very very hard and are all tired and feeling the pressure of looming deadlines (I worked almost long enough to catch the start of the Mets game last night --- with a six hour time difference!). I'll have more posting soon now that the head is recovering.

Lata : )


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