***
Today is REALLY a good day for a reality check.

I've been back since sunday and time just whizzed passed me.

Its tuesday already.

Can't sleep. Woke up 0530 to send R4 to work and my system is kick started into normal day working mode. Sigh.

I really don't know why but i really have no idea as to what to do.

Probably it is due to the food poisoning that i got on the day just before i was to come home. Makes me feel sluggish and even if i wanna do something, the discomfort is too much to handle.
I tried to put the discomfort behind me and get on with life... go orchard shopping, go partying but..... on monday morning, i felt like dying. Hahahaha.

But thank God today i felt slightly better. Hopefully i am well enough by afternoon to go out.

People been calling and asking me about my trip. Much as i would like to share with people how i feel but after being bugged by reporters over in Banda Aceh , i am a bit tired of answering the questions.

San-d: So tired of answering phonecalls.
R4: Why? Thought you miss your friends?
San-d: But it is the questioning that kills me.
R4: Hiya. When people ask you how is life in aceh, say it is great! If they ask you if it is tough or not, you say never been better! Then if they ask you if the food is good or not, say you eat buffet la!
San-d: *nearly faintz*
R4: Yah wat, answer like that i am sure that your friend will not wanna ask ya about what is life in aceh anymore. Period.

Wahahahahhahahahahaa.

No matter how much i tried to tell about life in aceh, it will not be the same of expriencing it live.

I am ashamed that i am such a whiner when i am there. But i guess it is just a way of releasing my stress of all that i have seen and felt.

My heart aches for the kid that has lost his parents and had to walk 2 km to visit us for medical treatment.

I felt like hugging the little girl who comes to us daily to dress her 2 lacerations (abt 10 cm each) on her calf. She must be very terrified.

I see the fear in a grown man's eye when i took maggots out of his wounds.

I felt like tearing when the lady who has a big thigh wound smiled and thanked me when she i helped her clean up her wound. ( This is my personal statisfaction as the wound actually healed from a necrotic, sloughy, rotten garlic smelling wound to a granualting, ordorless wound in about 4 days time .)

Children trying to engage me in a conversation even though there was an obvious problem in communication with my limited vocab of bahasa. hahahhahaha ( makes me think of the Giordano ad - world without strangers.)

Giving little children vaccination really brighten up my day. Though they think we are monsters with needles. Hahahahahaahhaa

There is a twinge of saddness whenever we drove from the airbase to the clinic. Roads of devastation, the smell of rotting corpses when we pass the mass burial site ( i will never forget the smell), the refugees camps, the poor TNI soldiers that are ordered to go clear the corpses.

Aceh is really a beautiful place, the natural scenery is one of a kind and though i am a city girl, i am awe struck whenever i see the night skies of aceh as the stars are simply breathtaking. The mountainside refugee camp that we are stationed in the last few days of our mission is a nice and serene place . I even seen children bouncing up and down the branches of a tree! It is so sweet and innocent. They know how to enjoy even the simplest thing in life and do not let this unfortunate incident get it the way. ( which makes me feel like slapping irritating whiny kids that wants to buy this and that when i go shopping in orchard on sunday. Hahahaha)

I had to thank God too that the Team i went aceh with is a bunch of nice people. Everyone is very helpful, nice and cooperative. Though everyone is from different backgrounds and we are mostly stangers (except for some) prior to this mission, some of us ended up being good friends and i have to agree that through hardships friendship formed will be special.

That makes those guys cool in my book anyday.

:op