Wednesday, July 23, 2008

sick of it all

Culture shock and food poisoning have finally hit. I was starting to wonder when the time would come and now I can definitively say that the time came at 8 am Monday morning as I broke into a cold sweat, vomitting. It wasn´t very pleasant. Every hour for the next 8 hours, I continued to throw up until there was nothing left to expel. I couldn´t keep a drop of water or food down and felt incredibly weak. At 5:30 I finally wobbled over the school and went to a doctor with the director. So weak and dehydrated, the doctor had to hook me up to an IV solution and inject shots of antibiotics. I lay for 2 hours as the drip solution rehydrated me and then was sent out the door with medication. I hardly made it out the door before I had to race back inside to the bathroom, where I fainted en route. I fell forward and broke my fall with my hands and remember waking up to another IV being inserted, this time with sugar water. I have a parasite in my stomach and will continue taking antibiotic shots for the rest of the week. Sounds pretty nasty, some other organism eating my half digested food. I feel violated.



Understandably, my host family is very sensitive about their food. I never said, nor inferred that their food made me sick. But they were quick to let me know that it was my fault, not theirs. In fact, I think I got so sick from a salad that I ate in a restaurant. So, although I haven´t written in awhile, my imaginary post from last week would have talked about how much I wanted a salad instead of the same old same old rice and beans. I learned my lesson the hard way...stick with cooked foods and bottled water.

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