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Well for the past few days I have been really ill. After a series of late nights brought on because I could not sleep, I finally came to the point of exhaustion. That was when the worst of it hit me. That night was a sleepless night of some quite fearful random dreams and oscilations between being freezing and sweating profusely.

The night over, I found myself exhausted and surprisingly without a fever. My day consisted of lying on the bed, drifting into and out of a sleep that was still greatly disturbed by temperature fluctuations and bizarre dreams. Occasionally I would be visited by a friend but found it difficult to talk as the effort was huge.

Somewhere late in the afternoon, after almost two hours of uninterrupted sleep, I was encouraged to enjoy the last rays of sunshine. So with great effort and a spinning head I staggered my way over towards the main building. I never made it. At least not that attempt. My spinning head worsened with every step and I soon had to sit down or I would have fallen.
Continue reading “An Exotic Ilness”

Well it certainly is a dog’s paradise here in Corrientes. There are dozens of wild and freely roaming dogs around here. Some of them do not get fed at home. Some of them do not have a home.

What this means, is that these dogs go hunting for food and the best place that they have found it is hidden inside the bags of rubbish that we throw out each day.

Continue reading “A Dog’s Paradise”

I guess I should have done it earlier… but it never seemed to be that important really. Now I realise how important it was. A new mattress.

Since arriving here almost a year ago, I was allocated one of the worst mattresses in the place. I never actually chose the mattress as such, just took the one left over after everyone else chose the better ones. Some people were able to use two mattresses, but there were not sufficient for me to do that as well. So I stuck with my one old mattress.

The problem with all of this was that my mattress was very thin. So thin in fact that I could always feel every wood slat underneath me. Most nights, I would simply place my hip into one of the gaps between the wood and fall asleep. It seemed to work out quite well that way.

But lately I have been wondering if this has been affecting my sleep. It has certainly helped me to be able to sleep on the hard concrete floors that I have encountered during various outreaches and visits to houses full of students over my time here. However, the idea of having something that most people take for granted was starting to take a hold of me, and eventually I decided that it was time to buy myself a mattress.

So now I have a new mattress. It is huge compared to the older thin one that I have been using. There is a certain pleasure in being able to lie on my matress and not feel the wooden slats below. It is quite a joy indeed. But the best part of it all, is that last night, my first night ever on this new large mattress, I slept the best that I have slept in a long time.

Why did I wait so long to buy something like this?

The conclusion. Mattresses matter.

Comparing the small mattress on top with the new one that I have just bought (below it).