How do I describe today? We meet a bunch of new people from all walks of life and a large amount of countries. We are all dressed for a stroll in the Nigerian countryside - except my intrepid husband who is equipped for a trek through a rainforest. We have : first aid kit (with full blood kit), water, rehydrating fluid, ice packs, mosquito spray, hats, kagouls, knife (two sizes and all our emergency numbers. Carl is wearing long trousers, boots, and a safari shirt- I am in long shorts and a blouse and daps. The other girls are wearing flip flops. OMG we arrive in EPE and instead of going to the fish market and museum we go to look at an ancient shrine - in the rainforest. We walk in ankle deep mud down a very, very, very steep track to a spring and look at a shrine at the bottom of a dyke which was hand cut over 1000 years ago. Fantastic except by now I have been bitten by ants that must have been 10 cm long at least (think Bear Grylls) and then we go through the actual dyke, Carl leads me and turns to help me and slips down the slope. I heard the bone in his leg crack as he landed. So now we are deep in the rainforest and he has a broken leg. Three Nigerian guys from the village whip out their machetes and cut branches for him, but he had to be carried for 45 minutes to the road. Luckily two French guys had taken a look at the bus the rest of us were travelling in and followed the bus in their 4x4 so Carl was bundled into that. I had phoned the ambulance (thank God for Shell emergency numbers) and we drove with him in agony for 1 hour to meet the ambulance, another hour later we are in the ER and he is being examined. As they took off his boot 3 soldier ants ran out!!
This is the shortened version, I won't go into all the details suffice it to say it was not the best day of my life. Carl is now going to have an operation on Tuesday to plate the very nasty break to his leg. He is at home in a cast now but in so much pain.
The staff in the hospital were wonderful and we felt very reassured by it all.On the plus side I saw some wonderful millipedes, frogs, butterflies and caterpillars and met some wonderful kind people.
Oh and tomorrow I start my new job!!! the luck of the Erikssons!
No comments:
Post a Comment