Another week, more futbol, a new illness.

The last week has been more of the same here in my site. Last weekend we had yet another inauguration of a community’s new electrical system. This time the community was further out into the rainforest, so I got to see more of the beautiful landscape of Ecuador. It still amazes me every time. When we got to the community, a couple of the women wanted to show me the waterfall that is not far from the community. It had been raining for much of the morning (what a surprise anymore), so climbing up the side of a mountain was again, really difficult for the gringa. At one point I was nearly facedown in the mud. Luckily one of the women saw me and gave me a hand up the mountain. Once again, the waterfall did not fail to impress. I just can’t get over how beautiful nature can be. After the trip up and down the mountain… we hung out for a while as the rain got even harder. As soon there was a letup, the futbol/soccer games started. One of the women from the municipal’s team had gotten injured the night before in their game and was unable to play. The best solution for that—throw the gringa out there! Keep in mind it had been raining for most of the day and was currently still raining. We were playing in mud. What a mess, but so much fun! Our team ended up losing to some teenagers from another community, but I have to say, that the one goal our team did score, it was by an assist from me. So while I was rusty from not having played for a couple 8 years, I still had some skills.

Sunday afternoon I went for a run around town… and ended up stopping over at the “host family’s” house. My host sister was going to play basketball with some of her friends, so I joined her. Keep in mind that as a 5’9-10” girl, I was by far the tallest person on the court. I used this to my advantage as much as possible. I was able to get rebounds a whole lot easier than the others and was able to shoot without being blocked. It also became a joke throughout the game. There was one point that I put my hands on the shoulders of one of the guys that was playing (he couldn’t have been taller than 5’4-5”) and moved him out of my way. I may be a gordita and I may be tall, but neither of those things are negative in my mind and I use it as an advantage.

Sunday night I ended up sitting outside of my counterpart’s “Burguer”/restaurant and talking to him and his wife. At one point, we were sitting there when a man came over to say hello to my counterpart. My counterpart introduced me as a volunteer from the Cuerpo de Paz. This man went off about the US and how it is not okay that I am able to freely come to their country, having minimal issues getting a visa, while someone like him cannot get a visa to get to the states easily. Especially because he is poor and indigenous. This was the first time that I had been subjected to someone being so anti-US to my face. Luckily I wasn’t ignorant to the fact that people believe exactly what this man was saying (hell, I agree with a lot of what he was saying) so I was able to take it in stride. After the man finally left, my counterpart and I had a conversation about US immigration policies. We got into the conversation because he couldn’t understand why the US would want to build a wall between the US and Mexico. I won’t get into my personal beliefs here, but it was an interesting conversation to have with someone from a completely different life perspective.

The most exciting part of my weekend was what happened after the Burguer closed. My counterpart, his wife, and some other people and I walked over to the park after they closed up the restaurant to watch part of a presentation that was in the park. We had been there for maybe 10 minutes when I started to feel a little sick, as if I needed to throw up. I was thinking of a way to excuse myself from the group so I could go home and be in peace, when it hit me. My stomach got really upset, I got really weak and a little jittery, my knees nearly gave out, my vision got blurry, and then left completely. Just in time, I was able to explain to my counterpart that I wasn’t feeling well, and grabbed his arm to stable myself. I got sat down on the curb, where I was a lot more stable. I still felt horrible, but at least at that point, if I‘d passed out, I would have had a shorter distance to fall. The mayor/my host dad came to pick me up in his car and brought me back to his house, where I was able to convince everyone that I didn’t need a doctor to come, but only after I had talked to the PC nurse and she told me just to get some sleep. I slept at my host family’s house (where the roosters still are out of control)… but woke up just as sick as I went to bed. At the advice of the PC nurse, I spent all of today at home in bed, having just recently gotten up and moved to the kitchen table. One thing I would never wish upon anyone… even people I really hated (and we know how I feel about that word)… is intestinal cramps. They are worst experience I have ever lived through. So it’s not an official disease like the amoebas were, but I think nearly fainting in the town’s central park should make the list of health-type experiences that I’ve lived through. So mark that one down, Melanie.

Now that I’ve been up for a couple 2 ½ hours… its time to finish up some research for work tomorrow… and then head back to bed. Hopefully tomorrow I’ll wake up refreshed and ready to start my week.