Friday, July 10, 2015

7/8-10/15: I guess I'm not invincible

BEING SICK IS SO TERRIBLE

I went to sleep last night feeling fine, and woke up at an ungodly hour today with an excruciating pain in my stomach and the urge to throw up. It was weird because I felt very full, even though the last thing I had eaten was lunch. I was able to fall back asleep but not for long, as I woke up shortly after and had my first bout of diarrhea. By the time I needed to leave for Proyecto to get there at a respectable time, I thought I felt better so I headed there. The whole way, I was uncomfortable but I managed to arrive without a hitch.

During the day there, the way back, and my Spanish lesson, I felt bad but manageable. As long as I stopped by the bathroom regularly it wasn’t a problem. When I made it back to my Couchsurfing host’s place, though, it felt like my body had been holding back during the day and now let everything out. It was only about 6:30 but I was exhausted, and promptly threw up everything and got rid of everything in my stomach/digestive tract over the course of an hour. Every time I thought I was starting to feel better, I started to feel terrible again, and trying to sleep was an effort I put forth to no avail. Eventually, after my body got rid of literally everything in it, I fell asleep. My host offered to buy me some medicine and woke me up when she did. That was fine, but the other Couchsurfers (3 that apparently came in after I fell asleep the first night) have a guitar and were singing late into the night. Argh.

Waking up on Thursday morning was thankfully uneventful. I felt a lot better – not 100% but definitely getting there. The day went smoothly overall, which was very good. When I got back to the house, I found out that the wifi hotspot that my phone can make actually works really well – better than a lot of wifi that I’ve tried, actually. Unfortunately, it uses up my phone credit pretty quickly. I guess I’ll have to stick with only the essentials.

The other three Couchsurfers from last night were there already, even though it was early afternoon. They were making lunch and invited me to join, so I had to go with them. I have no idea how they found/know each other, but one is German, the other is Spanish, and the last is Argentinian. The German’s Spanish is a lot better than mine and the Spaniard and Argentinian speak very little English, so I basically understood none of the conversation. I have forgotten how difficult it is to not understand and be physically tired (I think from the illness from yesterday), and just kind of felt bad. It’s okay, though. I have just realized that travelers tend to be a very different kind of person than I am – at least people who backpack around the way that I’m doing. They like to drink and smoke and don't care much about recording their experiences. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but I haven’t quite found the kind of vibe that really fits me. It might be the fact that I don’t speak Spanish and feel that progress learning is slow, and not understanding the language is extraordinarily tough, but I’m not sure. I just know that I’m really tired and wouldn’t mind being able to sleep and read and just rest for a while.

At night, my host Katherine started to teach them some sort of traditional dance. I forgot the name, but it included a good amount of hopping around and spinning in circles. I wanted to be as good a sport as possible, but it was hard for me to keep up with everything because (1) I usually don't do that well trying to remember things that I don't write down and study and (2) the motions were making me feel sick again. I had started to feel better, but the motions and being on my feet for so long were not good. It was like 6 pm and I was already starting to feel tired. I didn't want to seem like a party pooper, but I just could not sustain being up for so long. I just hope they don't think I'm some extreme weirdo for it!

Friday was a good day! I went to work as normal, and even though my stomach pains and tiredness weren't completely solved, I was feeling a lot better. I had Spanish lessons in the afternoon (I seriously feel overwhelmed with the information now - there is so, so much to learn) in a cafe. It was nice because I was able to bring my laptop and finally have some wifi afterwards, which I have not had the privilege of for the last week. I have to say, it's extremely nice. Not having wifi isn't terrible, but I'm glad I at least have something now.

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