I am Eddy Murphy…not anymore

Read the French translation

Do you remember the Nutty Professor? That movie in which a fat teacher becomes skinny and “good looking” to get a girl, and then becomes fat again? Well…that was me…or more precisely my foot, and just the “becoming fat” part. He (Eddy Murphy) was looking as his feet that were swelling instantly, like if someone was blowing them up like balloons. Well, Wednesday, January 13, some invisible force decided that would be the fate of my right foot. Something called blood rushed to my ankle like it`d called 911 and established a state of emergency. While my eyes were shiny with tears, the agile staff of my body`s disaster crew had blown my foot up so big, it did not even look like a foot anymore.

A very heavy metal frame had fallen on my ankle, at precisely 5 o`clock, when I was closing the doors of the bakery. And to my great disappointment, there was the end of my bakery career. I got the crutches, two sets of X-Rays (you have to drive 1.5 hours both ways to get them), physio and a very good service from Work Cover, the Bakery and the 4 doctors I saw. Nothing is broken. Just heavily hurt. In about 3 weeks I will be able to walk normally!

You can imagine what it was like walking with my crutches in the hostel every day. I could not go anywhere so I was always in the common area, where tons of new backpacker faces would ask me repeatedly “How did you hurt your foot?”. And that would be immediately followed by the corners of their mouths going down; “What a shame, hurting yourself when travelling!”. And then I would tell them there are way worst things in life and that my existence was still magical every day. They seemed surprised by my positive thinking. One day I got to give them a very good example of “worst things”. There was a new guest at the hostel, an Israeli speaking perfect English and having a great sense of sharing. Unfortunately, his face and body were not as great as his intellect though. He was heavily handicapped, with his limbs and facial features twisted like the eucalyptus avoiding the storm. He was moving around, almost dancing, with two crutches that looked like they had grown to be part of him. He played ping-pong with his good hand and took his t-shirt off to swim laps in the pool and chat with fellow travellers. And he asked me what happened to my foot, genuinely caring about me. Wow!

After two and a half weeks, my foot got a little better; enough to stand up to watch the toad race for Australia Day. Standing proud in green and gold (Oz`s colours), I also gave water to save the life of a food contest participant (Marc participated as well) and played with the dogs and their Australian flags.

Finally, we thought my nutty foot was good looking enough to leave Agnes after two months. We left after 2 days of flood, crossing rivers with our epic Shocker. It was time to go: only ten minutes after packing our camp in the heavy rain, a river created itself and started rushing down the field exactly where our heads used to dream every night. It is just wonderful how the landscape modifies itself to reinvent the world. Just like a pregnant woman. I wish I could view global warming just like that…

See HIS view
See His and Hers Pictures
See His and Hers Video