sunday 19 april

Sweat —

How much sweat can a human body leak just sitting at a laptop in the evening?

Never a question I previously pondered. But it is a hellava lot!

Forget the normal places: under the arms… soaked long ago; around the beltline… drenched; back of the knees… nasty wet; and of course my own personal Cameroonian river rushing off my brow, flowing under the bridge of my glasses and plummeting off my nose… creating an otherwise embarrassing plunge pool in my lap.

But here in Cameroon I have found new sweat frontiers. There is the sweat in small beads that bubbles just below my lower lip and then slides south disappearing into my beard, only to re-emerge in a steady drip (pause), drip (pause), drip… from my chin. Tiny droplets collect at the top of my spine and cascade down disappearing into my Exficio quick-dry travel underwear. My shoulder blades have long since been sweat-glued to my shirt, shrug my shoulders and the shirt momentarily peels free like damp wallpaper. And then there is that place on my pants, just above the knee, that through no sweat of its own is positioned perfectly to receive dabs from the surfacing sweat forming just under each forearm from elbow to back of wrist, as I constantly try to avoid sweating into the keyboard.

The sweat isn’t just sweat, it’s energy sapping sweat. With every bubbled up bead I feel my energy being lost in liquification.

But my favorite has to be the never-before-sweated front of my ankles, that place just as it bends into the top of my foot — who the hell sweats there!?!?