Eyes to See, Ears to Hear

Archive for February, 2008

Swahili school ran from 8am-1pm M-F. All this was of course challenging and made even harder by loud squawking guineafowl. They are so loud and persistent, they make excited roosters at the crack of dawn seem like introverts. Needless to say, that isn’t a conducive atmosphere for learning a new language.

So, I took it upon myself to… um… rid us of the noise. I wasn’t out to kill them though there were times I regret I didn’t take out at least a couple of them. There were plenty of small and medium sized stones all around the campsite most of which made great projectiles for startling the guineafowl enough to make them shut up and/or run away. My preference being the latter. I wouldn’t throw directly at them, usually to the side of the group opposite of the direction I wanted them to go. It took many-a-rock to accomplish this and to sustain it day after day. I was mostly successful but I ended up conditioning my ownself into having to throw something every time I heard them while we were trying to learn.

After a few months, that conditioning can wreak havoc on shoulder tendons, especially those which are older than 30 years and way out of shape.

That is such an ugly word, especially when you know what caused it wasn’t exactly the wisest action.  The injury is in my right shoulder and has been there since November (was still in Tanzania) and remains even as I type now.  I finally went to the doctor last week which is where I received the diagnosis.  He also gave me a shot of cortizone and prescribed me 400mg ibuprofen 3 times a day for up to one month.  That should help with all the inflammation in it.

Tomorrow, I’ll post exactly how I hurt it.  It has something to do with 8 of these: