Our friends on Cenou had been living "on the hard" (on the boat while it is out of the water) in the boatyard for nearly a week and "got splashed" (the boat got put back into the water) on Friday morning.  They spent all day cleaning and turning their boat back into a home and we invited them for a celebratory dinner of homemade falafel, a Middle Eastern specialty, that night.  I went through great efforts, soaking the beans for 24 hours and shelling each one individually, pureeing them into a fine paste, chopping parsley and onions and mixing in all the spices.  I presented it like a taco meal with all sorts of fixings to add to your sandwich – radishes, red cabbage, lettuce, cucumbers, red peppers, homemade hummus and yogurt sauce (I forgot the tomatoes!).  They all raved about the meal and really appreciated how considerate it was of me to cook them a true vegetarian dinner since they have, relatively recently, gone completely vegetarian. 

The dinner party wrapped up early after a long hard day of work.  Our guests took off for bed around 9:30.  Joe and I cleaned up and hit the sack ourselves around 10:30.  Two hours later I awaken to the sounds of Joe hurling his guts out.  I hate to say it, but Joe sometimes likes to cut the corners to make things a little easier for himself.  In no way can he be accused of slacking when it comes to vomiting.  You can hear it start from the bottom of his stomach. Shouting must help retch it up more easily because he hurls at the top of his lungs.  I’ve never heard anything like it.  After his second trip to the head, Cassie comes tottering over.  “Mommy, my stomach doesn’t feel very good.”  Who can blame her after listening to that?  Thirty seconds later, she too is hurling into the head.  Her process is much more delicate and was over relatively quickly.  I felt certain that she would survive through the night, although I wasn’t sure about Joe.  By the time I got her back off to bed, I was feeling a little nauseas myself.  My timing was perfect, and I was able to sneak right in between Cassie and Joe’s next session.  Whew.  I climb back into bed hoping that the worst of it is over. 

I must have fallen into a deep sleep because I didn’t hear Joe get up for his next trip to the head.  By this time it is coming out the other end.   At least it is quieter!  Poor Joe is sitting on the pot in a cold sweat, shivering and praying for death.  He passes out cold.  He awakens with his forehead bleeding against the shower door and his nether regions still glued to the head.  He tries to shout for help but only finds the strength to wriggle his butt off the toilet as he falls to the floor.  Reaching around, he finds his sweatshirt which he curls up under his head until he can find the strength to move.  He’s not sure how long he stayed there but had the wherewithal to realize that the first thing he needed to do when he was able was to wipe his you-know-what. 

Bandaged up, cleaned up and completely spent, he and I fall back to sleep, awakening the next morning feeling almost normal.  Of course our first thoughts are of our guests, wondering if they too have spent the night praying to the porcelain god.  We debate what could have caused this affliction in three out of four of us.  I had gone to the weekly market on Thursday and bought all the fresh veggies that were served with the meal.  Of course I washed them all before cutting them up, but not with any particular zeal.  Could it have been the tahini in the hummus?  Were the beans that I used in the falafel too old?  Maybe it was one of the veggies.  Juliana didn’t eat the radishes and both Cassie and Joe were eating them whole even before dinner, plucking them out of the water that I had put them in to soak before slicing them up for the meal.  A quick phone call with Claude reveals that they are all perfectly fine.  Our friend Doctor Dave confirms that it couldn’t have been a microbe because it would have taken longer to get into our systems.  It must have been a toxin on one of the vegetables.  Based on the fact that Joe ate half a dozen whole ones and Cassie ate at least two, I’m pinning it on the radishes.  That said, I don’t think we’ll be eating another falafel meal any time soon.  We will also be paying a little closer attention to how well we rinse our fruits and vegetables.