The revenge of the cough

Anyone who knows me knows that in general, I don't get sick, or more specifically, I don't get colds, haven't infact been sick enough to miss a day of school or work since I was 16 or 17, which is why its not even funny, that in a country where 'cold' is anything below 85 degrees I seem to have finally gotten sick. And not like a little snifle, it started out as a little snifle, but its now turned into and ongoing battle to breath! For four weeks I have been spending my time swapping between blowing my nose and coughing up my lungs, well there is a bit more coughing than anything else. The even worse thing is there doesn't seem to be anything I can DO about it! nothing seems to qwell this, cough drops do nothing, tea, honey, allergy meds, nothing helps! its just ongoing, sometimes I think that its a combination of my asthma, which has not troubled me since I was a little kid and all the dirt in the air being kicked around by harmatan, but even that doesn't seem to add up. In any case I'm only marginally comforted by the fact that I am not the only one who is ill, there are quite a few students in my classes who are also coughing and hacking etc.. So there is no way to make this particular post anything but a pity party but, when writing about life in Benin, right now a huge part of my life is having a constant supply of cough drops.