Soy Emferma

In Guatemala, when a person goes to the bathroom they say, ´´Salud George Bush.¨ Which is to say, to his health, when you drop an undesirable in the toilet or roadside ditch. These have been a trying four days for us and the State of Our Bowels Address is as such:

Our enemies, the Amebas, have lauched a decisive and victorious attack. Casualties have been heavy for the good guys. Heather has withstood multiple running bombs for six days, and she is the better of the two. Matthew, after a couple of small flanking victories, has secumbed to a massive intestinal infection and a case of the amebas, to boot. Yikes, GOD or O Dios. Mamamia.

Let me just say, while I never have experienced the indignity of what my lady friends go through during a gynecological exam, I now have a obtained a new level of embarassment. Our Spanish instructors accompanied us, Heather and I, on a field trip if you will, to the laboratory where we gave the stool samples for analysis. The results of which were negative across the board. But the el doctor, after hearing our story, and poking and prodding my gut, seeing my fever, and just general acknowledgement from the pain of the alien trying to come out of stomach, wrote out the scripts. Cipro and one of the zoles.

Of course, in my stupor, I got totally hosed at the pharmacy, over charged by about 40 dollars American, and this got my wife, instructors and fellow classmates in an uproar. Which in turn, in my delicate state, made me fly into a rage at them, shaming myself and everyone involved. Not a good day.

Hoy, today, my stomach doesn´t hurt hardly at all and the diarrhea has stopped, but I´m still running fevers and just feel totally like shit. And on top of all that, the air in Xela is horrible, and now I have a cold. The honeymoon is over and this is our blog, our chance to bitch a little.

Meanwhile, mi esposa Heather is tired of being cold all the time, and has been having a somewhat difficult transition to memorizing a couple of thousand new las palabras, words, in just five days. She´s also trying tea tree oil in place of the prescription drugs and it seems to be working for her more vital state of vigor.

First off, the elevation here is about 8,000 feet, and nobody has heat. Period. Not in your house, school, etc. Insulation, forget it. Many do not have walls. Fear not, we have walls. People only burn things like wood, if they´re poor or traditional, to cook their food, and trash, because everybody does and there´s so much of it. For instance, for those of you who have never traveled to lands this far south, you don´t throw the waste paper in the el inodoro, toilet, you save it and burn it. We have not tried this yet, but I´m mulling the idea. Anyway, it´s about 35 degrees during the night and warms to about 55 or 65 in the sun, in the afternoon with no humidity. In truth, we are cold almost all the time. Heather, in her ingenius, homey sort of way, has bought us a bunch of candles, and we are now using these to try and heat up the cuatro de dormir, bedroom.

Just a little more about the houses here. Most are simple one-story, cement block affairs, with corrugated or flat cement los techos, roofs. Most of the outer walls touch the house next to yours, and if your are lucky enough to have a courtyard or something, it is enclosed in either a cement wall or iron fence with razor wire, or crushed glass lining the top, much the same you see in the old fancy houses in Charleston, S.C. Funny thing is, occassionally the gate is open and might get a glimpse of somewhat pleasant garden or courtyard. Some of the houses, of course, have two stories, and all have the infrastructure, giant rusty rebar sticking up everywhere, like bug antennas, just in case you have the dinero to go higher.

more to come, adios,
matthew and heather