I have just now accepted the fact that I’m just going to be hot as hell while sleeping in my small jail cell of a room.

My little living situation I have accepted… I have a great family in the compound that I’m living in, and some good families surrounding me. Yes it can be VERY loud, but I have come to terms with that (along with the use of ear plugs to sleep with) and the fact that I’m ALWAYS being watched… but I guess you have to give a little to live a little. In general I have felt safe thus far (doesn’t mean that I don’t lock my door at night or even while I walk across the compound to use the latrine… don’t want my precious computer or camera getting stolen.)

Being that I’m surrounded by families, I NEVER close my shutters at night (I have two layers of wire and some mosquito netting covering my window as well as someone would have to break the latch to open my window) unless it’s a torrential down pour, I just pull the curtain down (hoping to catch any breeze that will blow my way), put the fan on me and let the night take me away. I have started sleeping with my head at the opposite end of my bed being that the mattress is firmer there (I guess I could flip my mattress around but I’m scared of the critters that might be under my bed).

So the other night at about 2:30 am I woke up to someone poking a stick through my window (yes puncturing a hole in my mosquito netting) to push the curtain aside all the while shining a light on me (with my head at the opposite end I was facing my window). My first though was “did I leave my head lamp on?” (as I always read in bed before going to sleep) but the light was coming from too high up. Then I realized my curtain was pushed aside and I could see a shadow behind the light.

Panic set in, and I tried to yell at the person “what do you want, get the hell away” (yes yelling in English, but I think that the tone of my voice gave them a good idea to leave me the hell alone) all the while scrambling to find my own head lamp and turn on the main light to my room. I was too slow to catch any site of the possible intruder, but I immediately pulled and locked my shutters (turning my room into a sauna of 89°).

I still have no idea if this person was trying to steel anything (I did learn my lesson from week one in Ghana to NEVER leave anything under the window because people like to reach through with a stick and usually something sticky on the end and grab whatever they can pick up… this happened to a girl I was traveling with) or if this was some sort of ‘peeping Tom’ action. Nonetheless I will be keeping my shutter CLOSED from now on, and trying to sleep peacefully in my sauna of a room.