A Tribute To My Roomie.

"Don't take this the wrong way," the volunteer said confidentially, patting my arm. "But after the first week, me and my partner talked about everyone, and we agreed on one thing. You two were NEVER going to work. You were the couple who would end up killing each other."

I wasn't offended. This was what everybody thought. I'm pretty sure that secretly, the two of us were more convinced of it than everyone else on the trip put together. But now I am here alone, with the goats and the chickens, and the rain coming down in sheets, I want to pay tribute to My Roomie and our unlikely friendship, which has been one of the defining features of this trip for me. Two reasons for this- Firstly because I promised her I would, and she'd probably come back over here to punch my lights out if I failed to follow through. And secondly because I've learnt so much from her in the time we've been out here, and she's generally just a bloody fantastic person.

Fantastic, yes; but if God in His infinite wisdom and mercy had decided to pick a totally unlikely couple and dump them in the middle of nowhere for half a year as some sort of sadistic social experiment, we could well have been the first people He had gone for. Without even the presence of other, normal people around to balance out the severe differences between us, the capacity for disaster was huge.

Somehow though, we made it work. The presence of mice in our bedroom helped us into working as a team- (it takes two to make hurling books and shining torches a really effective method of extermination)- and the moments of pure, pure hilarity during the course of our stay have been golden.

I could talk about her resourcefulness- giving oneself a contraceptive injection in a totally unsanitary environment with no professional medics around to help out shows huge strength of character. She had intitially asked me to do the honours- I laughed. The Scientist later pointed out that she could have struck a nerve with the needle and paralysed herself for life. She laughed. We considered the notion of the Rev. coming into the bedroom to find her paralysed on the bed with a needle protruding from the base of her spine. We both wet ourselves laughing.

Or the time she trapped herself in Bryan and The Savage's bathroom- the door has a broken handle and once you close it you can't get it open again-, and we had to recruit a teacher from Bryan's school to come up and break the door down with his foot, while Bryan and I clung onto each other in the hallway crying with hysterical laughter and hoping that the clamour of the church service taking place downstairs would drown the noise of splintering wood.

Having such a strenuous day at school that she dragged us both for a beer at two o'clock in the afternoon, so that I later went weaving slightly down to the internet cafe convinced that the entire community was about to strike me down in flames.

I can't count the number of occasions when she's stopped me from strolling absently out into the road and getting mown down by a speeding vehicles, or behaving like a total moron in front of the locals; "What...? What...? Are you kicking me for a reason?" She's taught me how to use my emotional backbone, and that you can get away with being blunt; another line I've grown used to hearing in my daily routine is "all right stop it now you tit, you're really annoying me,"- something I would never have dared say to a friend before in my life. She imparted so many important life skills to me; I never knew before that the way to get to sleep when pissed out of your skull was to lie on your side, close one eye and concentrate. No, really concentrate. If you don't concentrate it won't work. (After delivering that particular nugget of information she went on to fall headfirst into a street gutter).

So, when does it really sink in for me that she's going? Not when she takes all her photos down off the wall and packs up her suitcase. Not when the school holds her leaving ceremony, and the children all line up and very solemnly present her with gifts, (six bars of soap and a toilet roll). It's when I come back from my first day alone at school to an empty and suddenly very silent bedroom that I realise quite how much I'm going to miss having her around.

Life works in funny ways sometimes, and she was the last person I would ever have expected to live with, but winding up in the backarse of Ghana with My Roomie has probably been one of the best things that has ever happened to me. I'm certain at least, that the memories of it will stay with me for a very long time.