Monday, November 15, 2010

Newest African Disease

Say hewwo to "Nairobi Eye", which was either caused by me squishing a poisonous looking bug and then immediately rubbing it into my eye (don't remember doing that), or Emi (the dog). Okay okay...I'll give the dog a break and say that it probably did not actually cause this, because it can apparently only be caused by a poisonous looking bug thing; but when I returned from my meeting with District Supervisors around 9am this morning (between waking up and the end of the meeting, my eye had gone from normal to disgusting), everybody in the office informed me that I had Nairobi Eye, that I probably looked like an idiot during my meeting with the District Supervisors, and that Emi (the dog) once had Nairobi eye and they had to get a plastic cone for baby orphan gorillas from one of the gorilla NGOs for her to wear so she didn't scratch it.

Personally, I don't know what Emi was thinking -- Nairobi Eye isn't actually itchy and touching it kind of just makes it hurt more. So besides the stares (which I've gotten used to anyways) and the pain every time the crust breaks...I must say that the worst thing about Nairobi Eye is that I've developed an eye twitch as a result of my eye being so swollen that my muscles don't have the energy or power to keep my eyelid open.

If the eye twitch becomes a long-term effect of Nairobi Eye, I'm not sure I will ever recover from my year in Rwanda...