Nigerian Nightmares in All Good Things

Talking to the lawyers confirmed that we're not actually allowed off the hotel grounds in Lagos for insurance reasons. Oh, joy. The hotel doesn't exactly have extensive grounds. It has a tiny swimming pool directly outside the dining area, which looks out over it (and this hotel's food is extremely popular so there are always people here). It's got cement all around it and about three loungers, but given that you're on full display, I have no desire to go there.

So instead, for my little jaunt out of doors on my single day off this week, I walked round and round the parking lot in the blazing afternoon sun. Given that I hadn't seen the sun or the outdoors at all for five days, it felt wonderful. I managed to find a little place to sit against the wall that separates the swimming pool from the car park, and while I soaked up the African sun I focused on the frangipani trees to pretend I was out in nature. All the random Africans thought I was mad - but I was merely behaving like a sun-starved Brit, which finally I am!

Why, though, does even the hotel car park have people loitering all over it? It's behind huge gates manned by armed guards. There's nothing happening. How do they get in there? What are they doing? Seriously, what is it about Africa that there are always people hanging around doing absolutely nothing? It used to drive me mental when I lived in southern Africa and I'd managed to forget all about it, living in countries where that doesn't happen.

The above is all the good. The bad...

Let's just say I'm earning a fortune from overtime on this job.

I've just done three days in a row. I've had today off, and in less than 12 hours it all starts again...except for five days this time.

I don't know how I'm going to do it. Physically. There are limits to the human body. Cathy reassured me yesterday saying that it's the job and not me, that she doesn't know any other writer who'd be managing to cope with this and produce as good a raw feed for the live transcripts as I am, which was very nice of her, but doesn't really help. I am the one here not coping.

In a normal court day, I'd steno about 140-160 pages. Monday was 276, Thursday was 247, Friday was 280 and Saturday was 312 pages. I'm stenoing nearly the equivalent of double a normal transcript every day - and there's no reason to think it'll get any better during the next five days. I just don't have the physical capacity to DO this.

The worst thing is that there's not enough time between finishing one day and starting the next for sufficient rest, because I use so much adrenalin to be able to write that fast for that long, and then we're editing the transcript into it's final perfected version until late each night, and by the time I need to go to bed I'm not remotely able to. I lie tossing and turning until about 4am when I finally relax enough to drift into sleep...then I have to be up just a couple of hours later to do it all again - only this time with very little sleep, so I need extra adrenalin...which makes the problem even worse the following night.

Last night (Saturday) we were working until well after 11pm. As we were finally leaving the hearing room, having just emailed the transcripts to the lawyers, we bumped into the lawyers themselves in the lobby, just back from their 'exciting' evening out in Lagos (with the bodyguards). Lucky them. I couldn't fall asleep until 5am - then ended up sleeping until nearly 2pm, which means it's going to be hard to get to sleep tonight. Shit.

I'm really tired of earning my living with my body. I am in so much pain I can hardly think.

Five more days. I think I'm going to start counting down the hours until we're out of here.

122 hours until we take off from Lagos airport.....

Yesterday by lunchtime, we'd had a three and a half hour session with just a very brief break after an hour and a half, and I was stenoing nonstop at a speed like I never have in my entire life for that whole time. In order to work like that, my body seems to shut down so as everything can be focused on my fingers. By the time we stopped, I was shaking so badly I could barely move, and I couldn't seem to breathe at all. I couldn't talk, because I had no breath.

It was kind of like the symptoms of a panic attack. I knew that I only had an hour before I'd have to return for another five hours of it and I had no idea how to get myself into a physical condition to be capable of returning in such a short time. I managed to make my way up to my bedroom where I started crying and screaming into the pillows to try and get the adrenalin out of my system. It's really bad when it floods that way. I don't know the science, but I assume it's adrenalin. You know when you have a moment of terror (normal in South Africa, don't know how normal it is in other places) and the adrenalin crashes through you and it takes ages to stop trembling and for your breath to return to normal? Imagine having that adrenalin racing through you at that pace for hours...

I still couldn't breathe properly, though, and by now I only had 40 minutes left to get myself into shape, so I ended up calling Will on my mobile (shudder to think of the bill!). He kept telling me that he couldn't understand what I was saying, because I was in such a state, but eventually his calm voice helped get through to my body and make it let go of the adrenalin. We talked for about 10 minutes and by the time we said goodbye I could breathe again and could feel my limbs again.

I spent the last half an hour of lunch meditating and doing visualisation work, trying to flood my body with peaceful, happy chemicals instead, and actually managed to be able to return and steno right through untiil 7pm and edit until after 11pm...

But, seriously, this job is not worth going through experiences like that. Other than having stormed out of court (which other stenographers have done in the past in horrific situations like this) I don't know what I could have done to make it easier. Better.

This is so stupid. We live in the digital age, damn it. I can't wait for when voice recognition programmes are FINALLY good enough to take over this job. People have been telling me for the past decade that I'll be out of a job any moment, but I've yet to see any kind of VR programme that's remotely close to being able to do what I do with my fingers. Especially on days like yesterday. They'd have ended up with 300 pages of absolutely gobbledygook because of the way they were talking.

I seriously have to find a new life. I cannot continue to do this. I haven't enjoyed it for years, and now I actively loathe it. I woke up this morning (well, afternoon) with my stomach knotted in dread because tomorrow I have to start another five days of this...

Life shouldn't be like this.

The full moon is glowing over the palm trees and frangipanis outside my window. It is beautiful.