sleeping

It's 01:30am. I'm wide awake.

This would be normal for me, elsewhere. There are times when I do just wake up in the middle of the night - I'll turn my ipod on and drift off again after half an hour or so. Not since arriving in Haiti, however. Here, I've been sleeping soundly, losing conciousness 30 seconds after my head hits the pillow/pile of clothes/crook of my arm. 

Tonight I am in an unfamiliar bed, in an unfamiliar building, in an unfamiliar town. I was awoken by an earthquake, and dutifully dashed outside. It lasted just a few seconds and was long over by the time I was outside. After waiting the requisite grace period, I return to bed. I lie here five minutes before another one hits. I have now felt three earthquakes in my life. I must have slept through ten or fifteen in the past month alone. 

Thinking too much is not good for you. Back in bed, I lie here thinking about all the people who don't sleep in concrete buildings any more because they're afraid. I decide, now, that I understand them. The building I am in, as with all buildings i go into, must have withstood a lot more than the little aftershocks we feel now. But that doesn't stop people, and now me, being afraid. 

And being afraid doesn't help sleeping. But nor does the generator that's outside my window. Time to put an old favourite - the dulcet tones of Alan Bennett reading Winne-the-Pooh - on the ipod and hope I don't get past chapter two.