After returning to the flat from our superb meal, I did a spot of work and then pushed up the old sleeves and began cleaning. I scrubbed the bathroom and kitchen on my hands and knees, cleaning off stains that looked like they had been there for years. The kitchen sink is really terrible, with a perfectly flat bottom and a drain that doesn’t drain well, so there can be greasy water standing in it. I scrubbed it and it turned out to be white marble rather than white and brown marble.
Then after all the scrubbing was finished and the flat looked a bit better than before, the Gentleman Friend came down with something that seems to me to be some sort of gastroenteritis. Cramps in the stomach, fever, a terrible back ache, nausea, and losing water. This is something I’ve been bred to dread. I had a packet of ORS in my bag but it was a single-serving one, so after making him drink it, that was that. I made up some homemade ORS (6 tsp sugar and 1/2 tsp salt in 1 litre of water), but either it was so foul as to be undrinkable or he was just unable to. Across the road is a 24-hour corner shop (or, by the looks of it, a 24-hour sweet shop) and from there I bought a bottle of gatorade and mineral water, as the attempt to make ORS took up the last of the water we had.
Anyway, it’s been a whole night without any sleep aside from a short doze, and I cancelled our planned trip to Sidon, and it was a night of worry as well, since if there is anything that terrifies a Pakistani it’s the fear of dehydration. Even aside from imminent death, there’s the fear of imbalanced salts as I’ve seen someone go into a sort of delusional nightmare from that. And particularly in a strange country.
I’ve just had a long whatsapp conversation with a doctor friend though, and he’s a bit better now (it’s lunch time the following day) so fingers crossed all is now well.