8th aug am

8th August

2.30am Kenyan time

Pure night terror again.

Cant sleep.

It felt like I somewhere between sleep and consciousness and I am convinced that I heard someone outside my window. I scream, ‘go away’ at the top of my voice and then hallucinate that a leopard is lying outside my window, waiting for me to wake up.

Oh dear.

The leopard bit comes from a story that one of the orphanage staff told me yesterday. In Kenya men leave home at 18. He left home and built a house half a mile from his mother’s house in which to live. One evening, he needed to urinate, but it was dark. When it is dark in Kenya people stay indoors or leave the house in pairs. This is because unlike in the UK the Kenyan night is DARK. There are no street lights, all the houses have covers on the windows and the only light is from the stars. Anyhow, he -Charles needed a pee, but tonight he had an instinct that it was not safe to go outside. An hour later, his bladder was full and he really needed the loo (dono why he just didn’t piss in a bottle thou) and so Charles put a black pot onto the end of a broom, and as quietly as he could opened the main door and held out the fake person. Ok, so nothing hit the pot and he felt safe that no robbers where lying in wait to ambush him. With this satisfaction he advanced towards the toilet shed, but something made him stop walking, the path ahead was dark, but today there was an area of increased darkness at ground level. Charles paced backwards, back into the house and retrieved his torch, whatever was there; Charles had the advantage because he had spotted it first. Charles now the predator armed himself with a machete (which is unnervingly in abundance in Kenya) and was ready to maim whatever had the audacity to think that it could harm him, Charles. And so Charles leaves the house, knowing exactly where to find this intruder and aims to stun it with his flash light and give it the most severe blow of its life. As Charles gets closer to the ‘dark spot’ he becomes braver, more determined and forgets about his previous desire to pee. So he is there, darker spot less than two feet ahead of him, he switches on the light, holds the machete above his head ready to blow the lights out of this intruder, he immediatly gasps, in front of him is a leopard. The leopard is stunned by the bright light, and doesn’t move. Charles doesn’t move. Both are fixated on each other, neither daring to move first. Turns out that when an animal is stunned like in this instance they are unable to judge distances, sizes and shapes. To survive they keep very still, thinking that whatever is ahead is bigger and more dangerous than they. This was to Charles’ advantage, as he again retreated backwards into the house, he keeps the light still and fixed on the leopard, purposely blinding it with the machete still held high above his head. Once indoors, Charles finally breathes he dropped the flashlight in pure shock, the machete crashed down beside him. If Charles had not listened to his instinct and ran out to the toilet like he usually does, the leopard would have attacked him and no doubt left him to die. With this chilling thought in mind....Charles wets himself.

The above story is true (well Charles says so) but interestingly, four decades back leopards were a common sight in Kenyan villages. They were somewhat troublesome as they ate live stock, family pets and every now and again attacked children who strayed from their family home. Now, leopards are virtually extinct from the Kenyan landscape. Hunted down by angry locals and killed as prizes by game hunters.

Seeing as Charles told me this story last night, and inconjunction with me taking my anti malarials at 5pm, i think that it is safe to say that there are no leopards at my window –lol.

To make matters worse, the noises that I thought were someone outside my window, are indeed coming from something at my window, but alas not from a person, but next doors BLOODY BELOVED COW! The noisy fucker was awoken by the light coming from my room, and has decided to eat the grass just outside my bedroom window –comforting, but I sure so come across as a mad fucker now, as I have woken up Ashley (the male medic in the house) and have summoned Odongo (our Kenyan rep) to the house.

All the kafuffle is over now. Except my senses are at a heightened level, and not only am I aware of every single creak, squeak and movement in the house, I can hear the faint sounds of drumming in the distance. Ashley claimed not to hear it and so again i came across as mad, but Odongo can and says that it is the drumming march of funeral party. Fucking great, not only am I not going to sleep tonight, and have every light on in the house, (and the tv and radio) I now have to add the menacing drumming of an African death march to the mix.

Fuck me I am scared.