While reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated, i did get to experience my first ever bout of food poisoning. Elna, the women we were staying with in South Africa, took us out to eat on Wednesday night as a way to help make up for the fact that we were severely screwed over on our taxi fare from the airport to her house. I ended up sampling a very tender piece of meat, that in retrospect was probably not cooked to the way my American stomach was used to or it could simply have been a bad piece. Either way, I slept for much of the next 36 hours with only brief moments of consciousness.

I have only just tonight had my first proper meal in nearly 72 hrs. As many as you know, it can be difficult for me to last just 5 hrs of not snacking on something, and as such in those first 30 hrs I lost over 5 lbs of body weight. Alisa commented that I looked abnormally thin and when i looked at my arms I realized that nearly all of the muscle mass i had put on in the last 5 months had evaporated.

Fortunately I have found my appetite once again and though not back to full strength Mozambique’s seafood should be able to help me regain all that was lost.