4/22/2011
I admit it, I’m losing steam on this blog. I do want to keep it going though, as I believe a have a fairly large audience and is a good way to promote the Peace Corps third goal of promoting understanding among Americans of other cultures. It does get harder to write since everyday things seem more routine and less new, and weeks go by without much happening that is really newsworthy.
However, I did have my first major illness in my time here. The fact that it took this long is a small miracle that I was very much appreciating, but illness is inevitable, especially in a foreign land. I had a low fever for a couple days and took fever reduces to keep it down, but then one night I woke up and was completely out of it. I took my temperature twice and it showed 104. That being the highest the thermometer goes, I decided I needed some help. I called the Peace Corps office who sent a car for me, and headed to the doctor in San Salvador, who examined me and told me to stay in the city for a couple of days and take medical tests. His guess was that I had Dengue fever. I waited around in a hotel for two days, took more tests, and was diagnosed with stomach amoebas, a type of parasite transmitted in contaminated food or water. After an antibiotic regime, I am thankfully feeling back to normal. It is scary how out of my mind I got when feverish, I was incapable of logical thought.
In other news, it is Holy Week, which is a major celebration here, most people get off work and travel around the country to beaches and other touristy spots. We have been getting lots of tourists here to enjoy the lagoon, most of them are Salvadoran from the cities. School is out this week, so there is not much work to be done for your friendly neighborhood gringo. Our school recently had a projector donated, so now we are trying to find a way to buy a laptop so presentations can be made to classes, which would go a long way in our fledgling computer education department.