Sick, Swearing In, and Settling In

This is all very late, since by now I have moved into my new home in the San Miguel region and am working on our census, but I never had time to do it before now. I am sitting in a cyber cafe trying to catch up on things, so here is a little bit of sickness and health.

I should have written for the final week and a half of training, but time ran short and I ended up in the hospital with a little thing called dengue. I was okay at the beginning of the week, but by the time our presentations on our community service projects rolled around on Thursday, I could feel a fever and headache crowding my headspace. Our presentations went well at least, as we explained our weeks with the women’s group and the projects we worked on with them. By Thursday night, though, I had a raging fever, horrible headache and burning eyes. I ended up sleeping on the couch wrapped in blankets so I could sleep upright and not in my stuffy room.

My host mom was frankly worried about me, and made one of the other trainees call the medical officer on Friday, which led to an afternoon at the doctor’s office taking my temperature and weight and blood and whatnot. The same thing happened the next morning, but worse. I came far too close to fainting at the lab, and felt queasy all the way back to the house. I was all of maybe an hour at home when the medical officer showed up, packed me into the shuttle and took me to the hospital. I missed the family fiesta, and much more besides.

What followed were my lowest days of training. I hate needles and had already had my blood taken that morning, but the emergency room people insisted on taking my blood again and setting me up with an IV. I was fairly out of it thanks to the fever of 104 that hadn’t gone down since the previous day and very probably some dehydration despite my massive intake of fluids (since I knew I was getting sick). I ended up in a personal room with nurses coming in and out all the time taking my temperature and blood pressure and blood samples. I had a high fever and an aching head, burning eyes and alternately freezing and sweating through everything, and no appetite. As the fever lowered the headache lessened, but I ended up with horrible stomach pains and the closest to depression I have ever been. Neither of those were helped by the terrible hospital food and the doctor’s assurances that I would leave the next day only to come in each morning and say that my platelet count was even lower and sorry, but maybe another day, and the fact that my hand started swelling and hurting horribly because of the IV. The nurses also never failed to make the blood samples hurt and commented on how small my veins are (no duh - that's why I only ever tried to give blood once). They ended up having to switch hands on the same day they had to get a blood sample from a vein in my hand rather than my arm, and I was less than happy.

I was alternately extremely angry and extremely upset, and spent a night in tears from an accumulation of pain and stress and general misery. I hate being mothered, but at that moment I just wanted my mom there to rub my back and let me cry and tell me it was okay. I had no desire to call my family and cry more and miss home, so that was out of the question. I was probably unnecessarily curt with the doctors and the medical officer since I know they were helping, but it was hard to see that in the moment when everything was just kind of miserable and I was missing all of my final presentations and sessions and I didn’t even know if I would be allowed to swear in.

I read three books and stared blankly at too many TV shows and felt sorry for myself from Saturday through Wednesday, when they finally released me. My platelet count bottomed out at around 35,000 (it should have been at 200,000) before it finally started to rise enough to let me out into the world again. Swearing in was on Thursday morning, so I frantically packed when I got back home and attended the final afternoon sessions (and won a bag of hershey’s kisses for our team getting the most training trivia right). I brought my puppy home and tried to get it not to whine all night (with limited success) as I finished packing. I am actually pretty glad that I am missing the first few months with the puppy because I am not a big fan of the crying and constantly going to the bathroom and complete lack of any sort of training and control. I will take her to my site after our second round of training.

After yet another blood test (platelets going up slowly but surely), I was dropped off at the FUSAL building with the other trainee with dengue (she didn’t have to go to the hospital at all) for the swearing in ceremony. It was a great ceremony and the trainee we picked to give our speech was absolutely fantastic and the country director was great (he kindly visited me in the hospital too) and the ambassador was inspiring. There was the possibility that she would not be able to speak because of the government shutdown, but luckily she received permission and gave an awesome speech. 

The whole ceremony was in Spanish, and we were all sworn in at the end and received our certificates and took pictures with the ambassador and our language facilitators and whoever else we wanted. They gave us all cake and snacks and we said goodbye to our host families (only my host mom could come, but I was glad she did after the scare I gave them all by getting so sick). We packed up then and there, and made it to our hotel in San Miguel by early evening. I had a nice chat with my parents and told them about the hospital and everyone posted pictures of swearing in (oops, my bad) and we celebrated our successful completion of training. We didn’t lose a single trainee, though we shot to hell all the nice medical statistics for Peace Corps El Salvador in our first two months. I’d call that a success.

On Friday we met our counterparts, had a few hours of training with them, then set off to our new sites. I have just made it through my first weekend at site with my new host family, and it is going to be a struggle. It is a family of ten, and they are pretty reserved even with each other, let alone with a complete stranger. I have talked to them some, though the kids are practically impossible and mostly just feel awkward around me. There are a lot of silences, though I did teach one of the older girls to make bracelets. We have basically nothing to talk about, though I try with my host mom.  It is pretty here, though it’s a ten minute walk from town to get to the house, and to get to the road from town I have to cross a swinging “hammock bridge” over the river. I met some of the ADESCO members and introduced myself on Saturday, but I was dumb and didn’t bring the questions I needed to ask about how the ADESCO is run, so I have to meet with them again soon. They basically decided to divide up who will take me on what days to do house visits, which it sounds like they are trying to do in a week. I don’t think they quite realize the number of questions I need to ask, or the fact that it’s really hard to ask complete strangers questions and expect to get a thoughtful response from them. It looks like there are about 70 houses in the community, but I have yet to get a tour so I’m hoping that happens soon. 

I finally got in with the kids by playing cards. I taught them a few games and Brian (the youngest) doesn’t stare at me like I’m scary now. I met up with Kai in Nuevo Eden, since that’s his nearest town too so he was meeting the mayor and police too. It sounds like his counterpart is way more into getting to know the community because Kai has already visited a ton of houses and the school and is on the soccer team and is meeting with the youth group. I mostly spend time at home with the family, but at least now they talk to me and don’t think I’m totally strange. We spent a while playing in the Jalalá river, and in the summer we will go down to the Torola river where we visited yesterday to hang out in the water. I brought out the puzzle and we played a ton of “mentiroso” and spoons today, and I think the family is starting to get comfortable with me. I have to get rent and food figured out soon though, because it will get awkward if I say later that I want to make my own food. At least I’m not getting any breakfast. Lidia (my host mom) doesn’t like dogs - how am I going to convince them to let me keep mine? Sheer cuteness I hope.

That is all for now. The blog will be sporadic because internet is pretty far away, but I will try to take pictures and remember to write. I have visited 18 houses so far, and none of adults older than about 30 have had more than a second grade education, and I seriously doubt if more than about ten of them can read. The community has many needs, not the least of which is a bridge so that vehicles don't have to ford the river that runs through town. Life is interesting and it is incredibly hot here, but I am starting to get the hang of this whole Peace Corps thing.