This was my second round of vomiting since moving to Swaziland. Both lack explanation and both were incredibly misery-inducing. The first round was during PST, and I had to participate in a presentation while trying not to vomit on my fellow PCTs.

This time, though, was worse.

I vomited on my bed and on my grass mat. I fell back asleep. I woke up, realizing what had happened, so I stripped my vomit-covered clothes and bedding and put on new clothes and socks, and then I got back in bed. It was 4:30 a.m. and entirely too early to deal with a vomit-covered room.

At 7:30 a.m. I decided to take care of my mess, mostly because the smell was out of control. It had been long enough that some of the vomit dried, so I was able to shake it off. I couldn’t decide what to do with it, so I swept it outside. I fetched 40 liters of water and was able to start soaking everything else.

Time crawled by at the most miserably slow pace. I decided to scrub off the vomit that somehow got to the foot of the bed. Then I heard some chickens outside. They were eating the undigested pieces of food from my vomit.

This was thoroughly disgusting and hilarious at the same time.

I managed to get through the rest of the day. Sisi went to the store to get me a soda. I ate some crackers. I washed my vomit-covered clothes and sheets and pillow. I watched a few hours of YouTube. I had a packet of oral rehydration salts mixed into chicken broth. I had chills. I had to sleep in my sleeping bag because it was too cold out for my sheets to dry. I couldn’t sleep because my feet were cold. I finally put on a second pair of socks. I slept and woke up to my sisi knocking on my door at 6:57 a.m. (seriously!) because make wanted change for a 20. I have no idea why that couldn’t wait for me to have opened my door for business at some point later in the morning.

Fast forward to the afternoon. It is finally warm enough for me to take off my two pairs of socks, and I discover how I got vomit at the foot of the bed. Apparently I stepped in it after vomiting on my grass mat and covered it up without noticing when I put socks on the day before. I had a vomit-covered foot for more than 24 hours and did not notice!

But the moral of this story is never vomit on your bed. The smell lingers even after the vomit is gone. And invest in chickens if you don’t have trash disposal or a garbage disposal. Chickens do a great job cleaning up my food-related messes.