Quentin & Dengue Fever

I have never met anyone by the name of Quentin. I consider it to be rather posh. I know of Quentin Crisp and other than that the only
other person I have met with a ridiculously posh name is a guy called Twysden that I kissed one night in London after a chance meeting
at an event in Ibiza when I was working with Done & Dusted and Twysden's then flatmate Ian Stewart.

Anyway, Quentin is from South Africa - tall, single, tattooed 33, works in IT and drove up to Dar from Capetown with his friend Paul who has
a family and a Catamaran here. Its called the QT. Anyway, we met one night at The Waterfront when I was meeting Abby & Sarah.

I had been waiting an hour and a half for Abby ( not knowing she was with Sarah ) and when I found them, he was cadging a ciggy from Abby.
I'd seen him the night before as I was watching the sunset and reading my book and he was cuddling a jack russell that was being preyed on by a local cat.
At one point, I was about to get up and offer to go and take the dog for a walk - to let everyone in the bar get peace from the cat's screeching, to destress the dog and also because I love dogs and miss
walking Charlee. For whatever reason I didn't go over. It seems now that the universe had intended that we meet again.

Anyway, we got chatting as Abby & Sarah were catching up, not having seen each other for ages.
The night wore on and on and his chat was pretty good. He, like me was finding it a bit hard in Dar to meet people and he was sleeping on the boat, so
had to always make sure there was a ride out to the QT. Abby & Sarah left and we stayed on. He told me about his project called In Search Of..
and we had a few laughs. He kept asking 'Dude, what are you doing with your time?" I told him about the frustrations with time, people wanting to promise and deliver everything and then not..
ie the deaf & blind school, which in actual fact - that falling through was a blessing as I was ill for almost 2 weeks with what seemed to be malaria or dengue fever and couldn't have done it anyway.
It was not meant for me.

Thanks to Graham and a borrowed malaria testing kit, it wasn't malaria and thanks to the non appearance of the rash that is characteristic of dengue fever, I went on to find out that my lack of appetitie,
restlessness, inability to sleep and general sick feeling was down to anxiety. A doctor told me that last Monday. I'm not surprised I was suffering from anxiety!
Try filling 8 hours + per day, 7 days a week reading or doing stuff in a foreign country in a city that has constant powercuts, English is not the primary language, you hardly know anyone, the culture
is pole pole ( slowly slowly ) and you're bursting with energy to do stuff and then of course you inevitably have too much time on your hands and you start thinking about stuff.. bad stuff.. stuff from the past and worries for the futire..

Anyway, I explained to Quentin that I was learning the art of patience and reading like a ninja. He didn't get it. He is an adrenalin junkie and leads a very fit, outdoorsy lifestyle in Capetown.
I guess if we all lived there, we would liove that lifestyle too!? Even at the time, it was frustrating, I am grateful for all of those days spent pouring over some great reads.

Afterwards we met Mani and her sister and their friend D. All from Dar, they work in London I think - work chat never came up - and we hung out and enjoyed some local specialities.
They were great company and Mani and I will keep in touch.. too many laughs that I can't remember for some reason...must have been something in the air.
We sat til about 3am, the bar shut at 12 and sat and talked and listened to Indian music on D's laptop and revelled at how bright the moon was on the waves.

I won't say too much about what happened afterwards with Quentin. All I will say is that I was a fool, too kind and rowing myself out on a boat to give him a gift from my favourite littel store at Slipway and money
was way and above the call of duty. I felt I did what was right and in turn he acted like a first class tit.

The universe conspired to make me laugh later when I saw him that afternoon in a cafe where I was sat reading. He waved over and said
"Hey Heather, I'll call you later!" I hollered back 'Hey Quentin, you don't have my number!" and went back to my book. The gay Dutch tourists next laughed out loud.
The QT is still in the harbour.