Ups and Downs

Not sure what exactly happened to me Monday night, but as it was getting dark and about the time I usually start getting ready for bed, I got the chills. I put on my pajama pants and a zip-up over my shirt and went out to the front room to continue working on my computer. It’s been a little “chilly” (85 degrees) the past few evenings, but this was strange because I was the only one who felt cold. I even put socks on! I decided to go to bed soon after. As I crawled into my sleeping bag (which is a sheet that’s been sewed into a sleeping bag form) I shivered and curled up, trying to keep any body heat from escaping. This was unusual. I also had a headache, which I assume was from the long day of going to Managua and back and waiting in the hospital. I fell asleep around 8:30pm and then woke up at 10:30pm feeling queasy and weak. I felt that I needed to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t know if I would throw up before I got there. So, I sat up slowly in bed, and waited a minute before climbing out of my mosquito net. I walked slowly over to the bathroom and my host mom’s sister and her daughter were still awake and their door was open. I used the bathroom and then told them that I didn’t feel well. My body felt hot, but my feet were cold. They woke up my host mom and she got out a thermometer. She was talking to her sister and said that I ate too fast. Ok, back up a little. Dinner was delicious so I might have been eating a little faster than usual, but I think they just eat really slow here. Also, I usually eat by myself, so I’m not having a conversation so eating goes a little faster… Anyway, after I ate too fast, my host mom commented on this and said that when you eat fast you get fat. Thanks. Then, now that I was sick later she said it was because I ate too fast. I’m pretty sure that eating too fast does not result in chills and a fever. Oh, yeah, I we found out I had a fever. Nice. I had a temperature of 101.3. So, I laid on the couch for a little while and my host mom brought me a wet towel for my forehead and she put blankets over me. At this time my headache was really bad—my head was pulsating. I’ve had bad headaches before and this was one of the worst. I would definitely classify it as a migraine. The back of neck hurt and right above my eyes the most. The light bothered me and sounds made the pulsating worse. Although my host mom was doing a good job taking care of me, she was talking with other in the kitchen which made my headache worse. I know she didn’t mean to, but it was crazy how little sounds affected me so much.


Later on I was drifting in and out of sleep and I suddenly felt something touching my sides and then my face. I opened my eyes slowly and realized that my host mom was putting a mini mosquitero over me and tucking it in around me and setting up pillows so it wasn’t lying on my face. This was precious. I didn’t even think about how I didn’t have my mosquito net out there—I really wasn’t thinking about anything besides my headache, which did not allow my thoughts to stray. I must have fallen asleep for awhile because a little later my host mom came and asked me to check my temperature again. It had risen to 102.2. At this time we called the PC medical office to check what we should do. She suggested taking Acetaminophen and putting a wet towel on my forehead. I had taken Ibuprofen earlier that day because of my headache, but she said it would be ok to take this now. FYI: This was midnight. My host mom asked me if I would be more comfortable in my bed rather than the couch and I thought that would be best since the tiny pillows on the couch I swear were rocks masquerading as pillows, and my 5’4” body could not stretch out completely. So, I retreated to my room and climbed inside my mosquito barrier—I feel like I live in a little bubble or something (side note). My host mom said we would check my temperature again later.

I woke up around 3am and went to the bathroom and my host mom came out and asked to check my temperature. We checked it and it had gone down to 100.4. Yay! This was still considered a fever, but I was making progress. I felt a little weak and hungry though, so I asked for something to eat. She pulled out some oatmeal and I thought that sounded awesome, and it definitely was! Why have I not been offered oatmeal before?! This was the perfect meal for this time—it was fairly plain (perfectly sweetened) and filling. I went to bed and my headache had subsided.

My alarm went off at 7:30am because of course I still had class. I really did not want to go to class even though I felt better in my stomach and my head, I was exhausted from not getting much sleep. However, I managed to get up and my host mom took my temperature again. It had gone down to 96.8! This was amazing! So, I ate breakfast and I still felt pretty miserable so I walked slowly to class. I didn’t have a fever for the rest of the day, but I didn’t feel great.



On a different note, we got to visit the Instituto (high school) again, but this time for an observation. We observed two of the English teacher’s lessons and we saw some interesting things and I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do to help her increase the use of English in her classes, and help her to become more confident with her English. She shouts a lot in class to “maintain control” and she told us we will have to do this too. Then, as we were meeting with her after class and sort of planning a little of what we would be doing with her she said, “well it’s your class, so you can do whatever you want. I’m just going to sit and observe.” Eeerrrrch! (that’s a car coming to a squealing stop). WAIT A SECOND. We then replied with “well, we’re co-teaching so we will be working with you” and she kinda laughed and then continued talking about the class. We then brought the conversation back to this because our job with PC is to be TEFL Teachers & Trainers, and our job description is that we are to CO-plan and CO-teach with English teachers. We are not allowed to take over classrooms because that is not the idea of PC. We are in an exchange, helping each other with strategies, etc. We told her again that we won’t be teaching by ourselves, to which she said “Oh, it’s ok, the first time I taught I was nervous too. You’ll get used to it.” Ok, that’s not what we’re saying. Talk about miscommunication. We were speaking in English together and her English is pretty good, but there was something going on that was not translating. This conversation went on for awhile and we left feeling that she did not completely understand us, but we decided we would just talk to our language facilitator and she could talk to her, because we were getting nowhere with her.



Although we were exhausted after all of this, we still had our youth group to get ready for. This actually went really well. We had about 8 jovenes, but it was nice to have a smaller group and it was more manageable. Tonight we taught some English and they had fun with it. We did personal information/introductions. They are a pretty goofy bunch but they are pretty willing to try out the phrases, which is good. I can tell we have differing levels of understanding, as a couple students are able to translate everything that’s in English into Spanish, when we’re checking for understanding, while others can’t read the reads, or are nervous to pronounce them incorrectly.

After the long day, I went home and had dinner and saw one of my host sisters sitting in the kitchen with her notebook. I realized that she had asked me to teach her some English, sort of teasing, but it was an indirect way of asking me, and, I had told her that I would, so I took this as a good opportunity to start. I asked her if she wanted to have an English lesson and she said yes. I was so excited, but a little nervous as to where I would start. I had written an outline of some things I could teach her depending on how much she already knew, so I started by asking her what she knew in English and we went from there. We made some small talk—greetings, what do you do/where do you work, etc. This eventually led into more details about her family situation, with her husband living and working in the States, and she is here with her two children, trying to provide for them. As our conversation continued, my heart broke for her as I listened to the struggles she is going through. Her English is fairly good and she tried hard to use as much as she knew, and her story came out clear. She desperately wants to learn more English so she can work in a call center in the capital because that’s where they pay big bucks (up to $1500/month). She wants to have a better life for her children and hopes to go to the States someday because the standard of living here is poor. I really appreciate her openness and honesty with me. I could tell she is hurting and she has been for awhile, as her husband has been gone for 3 years. There are more details to this story, but I’d like to keep them private for her sake, but I just wanted to share how incredible this was. I thought I was just going to teach her some English phrases, but I found out how important it was for her to speak English and how desperately she wanted to learn. Here, it is very expensive to take English courses, which she has tried before, but paying for the textbooks is beyond her budget. I hope that I can help her, at least gain confidence with her English and improve some, because I know she has great potential. This was truly the highlight of my time here. I felt so connected with her and felt how I can really make a difference in someone’s life.



Wednesday was another trip to Managua to meet with the doctor again in hopes of getting my medicine for my ear. This time I decided to take Dramamine before the bus trip and it actually helped. I did still feel a little dizzy when I was at the hospital, but it got better. I took the bus to the bus terminal in Managua (Huembes) and waited for one of the PC drivers and then he dropped me off at the hospital. By then I knew exactly where to go and what to do so I was fine by myself, but I missed having Roger (my BFF) with me to chat with. Roger came and met me later and helped me get my medicine from the pharmacy at the hospital. Fortunately at this pharmacy, I just show my PC ID and they don’t make me pay. The other places I have to pay and then wait for PC to reimburse me. This charge was about C$1600 which is about $80, which I definitely did not have on me. That’s definitely not in our PC weekly allowance haha FAR from it! Anyway, the pharmacist started putting the boxes of medicine on the counter and another PC volunteer that was there with us asked if that was all for me and I said I hope not because there were 3 large boxes and one smaller one. I assumed that the doctor was going to take something out of the boxes to give me, but nope. My prescription is to take 3 of these little bottles of liquid each day for 10 days and then take these pills twice a day (1 pill at a time). It’s a lot of medicine so I hope it works! It was kind of weird to have the bottles and to have to drink them because I’m used to getting ear drops so I felt weird putting the bottle to my mouth—the instructions were in Spanish and I knew my doctor said to drink it, but there was just something in the back of my mind telling me this was wrong. Well, I drank it and it was fine, and actually kinda sweet. I’m still alive :) I was happy too because I didn’t have to ride the bus back to San Juan this time because we were having meetings and Roger needed to drive there. Yay! So, I rode with Roger and Ashley (PC Trainer) back to San Juan, but this time we drove through Carazo because they had to drop off some paperwork to the Environment volunteers so it was exciting to see this region. Well, we finally made it to the meeting and we sat in a hot room for a couple hours…BUT, we got to eat Oreos and dipped them in peanut butter, which was AMAZING!

We didn’t leave the meetings until about 4:30pm and by that time we were pretty exhausted, but we still had to plan for our youth group that night. Ugh! Well, we had some ideas but we just hadn’t written them down or made our posters, so we had to get to work on that. Jessica had to meet with the English teacher from the high school to do some quick planning so I went over to Kellie’s and we got our materials out and then realized that there was no power. For some unknown reason, the power was out and we were unsure how our youth group was going to work because it gets dark here at 6pm, when our youth group starts. We saw one of the jovenes in the street and asked him what we should do and he said candles. Secretly, we were hoping for the night off, but candles it was. They set up candles around the room and Kellie brought her headlamp and there was light! We did a couple activities, practiced some greetings in English and played a game to review. It was a successful youth group, even though we were in the dark and I could barely see the jovenes to call on them. We had a great time.

I went home and searched for my headlamp. My host sister was cooking with a headlamp too. I ate dinner and did some homework in my room with my headlamp. It was pretty funny, but I guess you got to deal with what you have, right? The nice thing about having no power at night is that it’s a lot quieter at our house and everyone goes to bed earlier. It’s nice to have quiet. The streets are usually a lot quieter too. Peace.