Awful day on Tuesday
Yesterday was terrible. The day started okay. Mary Isabel and I spent the morning working on materials for an experiment her students are doing today on erosion. It was fun, but by noon my throat had worsened and my cold had gotten significantly worse, too. So, while I went to get her lunch and some tea for me, she went to the pharmacy for some medicine. I thought she was going to get cold pills or something similar, but instead she came back with something that probably only a specialist prescribes in the US.
After taking the pills and mixing some other stuff with the tea, I laid down in the bed and promptly began my visit to hell. Within 30 minutes I felt terrible and my body was wracked with pain. I asked her if the medicine was supposed to help my cold and her response was "Ï don´t know." That sure made me feel a lot better! After about four hours I could feel the tea trying to come back up along with the few pieces of mandarin orange I´d eaten. Finally I headed to the bathroom and proceeded to empty my stomach of just about everything. It took a couple of hours to get everything out and it was a most unpleasant experience, but it made a difference. Now I just needed a good night´s sleep -- something I hadn´t had in weeks. I tried a little caldo de pollo which is a kind of chicken soup with huge pieces of chicken -- sometimes whole pieces. It wasn´t what I needed as I had a tremendous urge to eat fruit. She bought some grapes, apples, and oranges which I nibbled at whiel still afraid of not being able to keep it down.
The rest of the night was uneventful. Poor Mary stayed up until about 12:30 working on today´s lessons. (Things aren´t much different there for teachers.) She´s in class now and I´m trying to find out just how much better I really am. So far it´s pretty good, though I haven´t had but a few bites to eat in 2 days and am pretty worried about eating more. I´ll probably go to the pharmacy this morning and get some Cipro to kill the local bugs that <I think have taken up residence in my digestive system.
Saturday night is the big family get-togetherwhere I meet her father, to of her sisters, and various other relatives for the first time. Needless to say, I´m pretty nervous, especially since she hasn´t told them she´s marrying a gringo! I can imagine the looks on their faces when I walk in! Of course, all her friends have accepted me unconditionally so I take that as a positive sign.
I´m off to try some coffee and shoot some video of the Belen market before Mary returns around 12:30 this afternoon.
Keep your fingers crossed. If you have any questions or comments about the trip and this pleace, please write me at phil@texastrack.com. Being this far away from home, I´d really like to hear from everyone back there.
