Of Seepless Nights and Diarrhea

This was a letter home

Thanks for the inspiring words Jos, indeed, it turns out that I have found yet another adversary in the outside-of-the-US world, and that´s white beans and Chorizos. Turns out they have to be made very carfully and often make people sick. And they really did a number on me. For the very first time I am on antibiotics for a stomach infection. Wednesday, after a meeting with my CR, we went to lunch and I partook of said meal. I spent the rest of the day happily at home getting ready to leave the following morning. I ate a good dinner with a special addition of tres leches. The first warning sign was the the tres leches wasn´t as good as I usually find it. I felt like I was too full and had eaten too much even though I knew I hadn´t eaten that much. Anyways after a while I was in bed reading and feeling strangely cold. It had rained a fair amount in the day so I figured it was just colder than usual. First I closed my windows. Next I closed the blinds. Next I put socks on. Finally I put on my favorite REI cold weather long sleeve shirt (Christmas gift of Dick and Mar I think). I even tucked the blankets underneathe my body to stay even warmer. Pretty soon, I was shivering in bed and my heart periodically would beat extremely fast to try to warm me up. Eventually I got up and put on my smart-wool socks. I had some random ideas about what was going on, none of which was the thought that I had food poisoning. I had just read a passage from Niebla where the protaganist talks about how umbrellas are beautiful and elegant closed, and ugly opened. Much better to simply comprehend thatn to use. Then he says how currently we only think of God as being like an open umbrella and that one day we will all widen our vision to God and simply comprehend Him. I thought, well God, I´m sorry, but tonight I´d appreciate you being an open umbrella for me. haha. I ended up going to the bathroom two or three times in the night I think, but none were diarria untill the morning after I had gotten up. I finally got to sleep and ant points in the night I woke up way to hot, but most of the time I shivered profusely. In the morning I told my host mom I had a fever, my head hurt me, and that my stomach felt very weak... and so I definately could not eat the oatmeal she so nicely made for me. I did have a banana though and I was grateful I had brought along the extra strenght Tylenol stuff that the doctor gave me in Cambodia for Dengue fever that dissolved in Water and made me throw up the first time I took it... .my head really did hurt.

Anyways I ended up staying at home. That day I spent a lot of time sleepign and I didn´t even have the desire or maybe ability to focus to read more than five pages. I rested and went to the bathroom. . . Amidts 10s of people hanging out in our house eating lunch. Awkward, but at the time I was looking out for number one, so to speak. Yes, a vague pun intended, but I am not srue where diarrhea falls on the number scale. The same time as a

-Jake Harder walked into the room and now it is a little while later after we have talked, isn´t that cool!-

The same time as a woman who has some sort of medical training noticed that I had gone to the bathroom four times sicne she had been there and began talking to my host mom and telling here that I must have an ifection and needed antibiotics, the MCC country representative, Irma, called for medical advice... turned out the preson she called was the same as was dining at my house. So that evening I got antiboiotics and a rehydration salt sort of thing to dring. Yesterday I read a lot of my new favorite book, Niebla, by Miguel de Unamuno, and slept and watched baseball in peace and quite. Since then I have gotten steadily better and am now haning out with the Harders (Add another mark the long list of random people I know that I´ve seen here in Guatemala) and my favorite CASAS employee, Rigoberto.

Anyways, now it looks like I´ll finally be leaving for my assignment Sunday afternoon. I felt good enough to leave today, but since the place I will be working for doesn´t work on the weekends id doesn´t make sense for me to go.

So that´s the sad story of how I suddenly fell sick the night before I was finally supposed to leave for my assignment. I do believe I have to be the last SALTer to actually start there job. My fellow SALTers here in Guatemala left on Monday, I didn´t go because my placement still wasn´t quite ready for me. So you can imagine that I was already itching to go before I got delayed another 3 days... oh well.

Jordan