Thursday, March. 13, 2003 - 5:11 p.m.
Despues la Selva (After the Jungle)
We returned from the Oriente tired, wet and dirty. Some of my damp clothing had started to acquire a pungent moldy smell. One of the first things I did was drop off my laundry (coin operated do-it-yourself laundry mats are essentially non-existant in Ecuador). It wasn’t easy to return to work after the adventure in the jungle, but there were only two days of class that week, so that helped.
The following weekend I took it easy. My friend Jackie invited me to her nephew’s baptism on Saturday (March 8th). I know that some teachers were having a BBQ, but I couldn’t say no to Jackie’s adorable nephews. We went to the church Saturday late afternoon, the baptism started at 5pm. I am used to a baptism of one child or infant in the middle of a church service. This was a service that was *only* baptisms and was for about 20 children and infants. They would call the names of about 5 or 6 children at a time, a few family members would go with them to the front where the priest was and get a little holy water on their head. Then they would take a lit candle and sit back down again. After the 30 minute service we went to the house of Jackie’s nephews where we had a big meal and salsa music. I left before the dancing began, I wasn’t feeling well. The next day I went to an internet cafe for several hours to write my final exam.
My family was going to arrive the next day for a 3 week visit, so Murphy’s Law, I started to get sick. The night before they arrived I had stomach cramps, a headache, nausea and chills. The next day (March 10th) I wanted to teach my classes that eve because my family (Mom, Dad and sister Heidi—brother Dave arrived later) was going to arrive while I was teaching and I hoped they would be able to sit in on the last part of my 6-7:20pm class of young adults. But I felt terrible so I had my housemate Jason teach my first two classes that afternoon. Then I started feeling a little bit better so I went to my last class and told them that my family might join us for part of the class that evening. They still hadn’t arrived by 7pm, so I started to think that perhaps they had some kind of delay. But then they walked in 10 minutes before the class ended. I was doing a review session for the final exams they had the next two days. It was awesome to see my parents and sister again and it gave my students an opportunity to hear other American English accents. I had my 13 students go around and introduce themselves and how long they had studied English. I was surprised that most of them said only 3 to 6 months. They must’ve meant just at CEDEI, because English is taught in the local schools as well.
Afterwards we went out to dinner to one of my favorite restaurants, a Columbian place with tasty, cheap food. We had dinner with Jackie and Maria, my two Ecuadorian intercambio friends. Both girls plan to go to the US this spring with an au pair program. I’m excited for them, but will be very sad to see them go. That evening I started to feel crummy again, so unfortunately I couldn’t eat much of my meal.
The next day, Tuesday, I went to the doctor. I had been feeling ill since returning from the Oriente. I suspected that I had acquired a parasite or worm. The doctor spoke English, asked me a lot of questions, prescribed something for the nausea and told me he thought I probably had a bacterial infection. He said they’d take a stool sample and then prescribe something to treat whatever I had. So I went to the pharmacy, got the meds and a little white box and went home. The thing is, I had no appetite so I wasn’t eating much at all (so, it was a challenge to get a stool sample. I had to wait 24 hours for that and feeling miserable in the meantime!). Then I had to give my students their oral exams. In the middle of giving the exams to my highschool students, one student came in with her mom, they both were really beat up. My student had a black eye and they both had sunglasses on. I needed to have Judy translate but found out they had been in a car accident. My student wanted to take the oral exam (and written exam) one day later. I said that was fine.
That afternoon my family sat in on my ninos class, it was a lot of fun. I had informed my kids that my family from the US was visiting and they would get to meet them. They seemed really excited about that prospect. I have to say that besides my ninos from last term, I think I have the cutest ninos in the world, they were great. My family got to see me teach and my ninos gave a great rendition singing “Head and Shoulders”. I topped the class off singing the Hokey Pokey and even had my family join in on the last verse (motions and all).
That evening I had plans for my family and I to have dinner with my friends (other English teachers) Diana and Berni at a really nice restaurant. I also invited a few other teachers along. Even though I wasn’t feeling very good, the fam and I went to a really nice Italian restaurant, probably the best in town. When we arrived we found Diana, Becky and Louisa. We ended up having a really nice evening despite the fact that Berni never showed up. I learned later that this was due to a miscommunication and I was disappointed my parents never got to meet Berni, one of my best friends in Cuenca.
On Wednesday I finally got a stool sample several hours before giving my final exams. I felt absolutely terrible; headache, body aches, chills, fever, stomachache, nausua, fatigue, you name it! I took a cab to the laboratory to drop off the sample and then had to pay $3 to the lab. I hadn’t brought much money with me, so that and the cab ride wiped me out. I had no more cash on me and I needed to get a cab back to the school and get photocopies of my final exam within 45 minutes! Fortunately the lab was very close to the other CEDEI building. So I walked to the school and found my housemate Frank out front. He looked just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Well, after explaining my predicament, Frank gave me $2 without hesitation and I was able to return to the main building to get my final exam copied and prepared in time. Then, despite the fact that I was really ill, I went to my teenagers class and gave them the final written exam. I had to sit there for an hour and a half feeling miserable, knowing the results of my test should be done by then. I was anxious to find someone to teach (give the final exam) to my other 2 classes so I could get my medicine and start feeling better. Fortunately, my boss Bridey and another teacher Briana both covered a class for me. I went to the secretary whom I had asked to call for the test results at 4pm (when I was in class). She told me that the results were that I had several amoebas, including the worst kind you can get (Entamoeba Histolytica--check out www.thelifetree.com/amoeba.cfm to see a photo the parasite), and an intestinal infection. Lucky me! She hand-wrote the prescription for me and I went to the pharmacy straight away. Next I went to the hotel my family was staying at ($6 a night per person) to tell them the news. I crashed at the hotel where my family took care of me. I took the medicine as soon as I could, it was only two pills that needed to be taken with a lot of food, very strong medicine. Problem was, I had very little appetite, so I had to force myself to eat some food (it wasn’t much) and then took the pills before falling asleep.
