Day 1

The first day of sobriety is strange, to say the least. Gally is a saint. I feel so sorry for the angle the cards fell for this girl. She has an ambition unmatched, a beauty by any standards and the work ethic of a Samsung man. Gally has the top job in this city, and still shares a tiny room with her co-workers and lives in relative poverty. She works overnight, calling Americans and negotiates their finances and, when the business is done, she walks through rubble and graffiti to get home. She is hardly ever given time off to visit her family and sends nearly all her money home to support her widowed father. These are the kinds of sacrifices that go on all over impoverished countries and a Westerner like me is chest-out proud to be 27 and finally, completely financially independant from my father. What a croc! "Lucky, lucky, lucky," I tell her as I give a dollar to the 1st, then the 2nd Xmas caroling group. Lucky is how I feel!