Photos et lettres des Philippines, de France et d'ailleurs

Once back in France, I resumed working again my head still full with the memories of the Philippines. As for Françoise she returned to her province and to her private life to never be seen again.

In my free time I started writing to Dhana and for that I bought my first French-English dictionary.

The weekend following my return, I took part in a game with a group of friends. While I was trying to catch a ball with a basin on a steep ground, clumsy as I was and still is, I twisted badly my ankle to the point that I wasn't able to walk anymore.

My friends drove me to the hospital, in the emergency room they put me a plaster cast for a seriously sprained ankle.

Alone in my two-room apartment with view on the garden, I had finally time to correspond with Dhana. At the time when a letter was sent it took nearly one month to the reply to arrive. It should be said that then there was no Internet and that our national telephone operator was taking advantage from its monopoly to impose prohibitive prices on the overseas calls. I think that the rate was 4 to 5 US dollars for 3 minutes in 1980.

After my ankle was for 2 or 3 days under the plaster cast, I started to suffer from cramps and consulted the doctor who sent me again to the emergency room of the hospital where the medics immediately transferred me in a bed of which I was forbidden to get up. Then they removed the plaster cast and the supposed diagnosis was phlebitis under plaster.

I remained thus in bed for three weeks and meanwhile they burned by accident my big toe doing an examination with a chemical liquid injected in the leg.

Consequently I had to stay three months at home with plenty time to correspond with Dhana whose letters became increasingly essential to me.

I started working again in September and my Director kindly authorized me to take some vacations again in October.

The destination was the Philippines with Jacques as a companion.