yuck.

November 8, 2010

So, you just never know what’s going to happen in Peru.
This morning Steph, Lauren, and I went to the market to buy our food for the week and everything went smoothly there. We found everything we wanted and even bought some mangoes! We loaded up into a motocar and headed back home. It was a pretty comical sight because we had SO much stuff. We unpacked everything and then started getting ready to head to KM 8. Earlier this morning the doctor had come and talked to us about moving there and what needed to be done beforehand. Our task today was to clean all 3 rooms. So, we headed back into Campo and picked up some cleaning supplies. Then we went over to the taxi station to get a taxi to Pucallpa. Usually, this is not a problem at all. Normally, there are a million taxis all yelling for you to get in their car. Well this time there was one. And that one already had 6 people in it! We looked at each other, looked at our stuff, and looked at the car and decided to wait. Unfortunately, that decision was not communicated with our driver who proceeded to take our brooms and bags and put them in the trunk. We started laughing because this meant we had to cram ourselves in the car with the 6 other people. Keep in mind that this is a 5 passenger car. Well, I hopped in the front with some guy who had to scoot over and was practically on the driver’s lap; Steph and Lauren had to squeeze in the back with Steph holding one of the kids on her lap. So, get this- there were 9 people in this taxi and we had a 30 minute drive ahead of us. Oh, it was fun. I had some serious swamp butt afterwards! Hahaha :) KM 8 is a pretty large community with an EXTREMELY terrible road. The taxis won’t drive back there so we had to put all our stuff on a motocar. They took us back to our property and didn’t charge us because he said we were pretty American girls. It is a good thing sometimes to be blonde and white. :) haha Then we started cleaning. Things were going well until we decided we needed water. There is no running water on the property. So, we took our five gallon bucket and went on a water hunt. We found a place to get water a block and a half away. That doesn’t sound too far, but let me tell you- it is. It was SO hot and five gallons of water is heavy! The 3 of us split the chore and got it back to base. About this time (3 pm), the guys who had been working on our bathroom and shower needed to go and get some more supplies so they told us they would be right back. We kept working and all of a sudden it hit me- I had some serious BG’s. For those of you who haven’t had this condition it’s called bubble guts and it means diarrhea is on the way. haha. It’s serious, trust me. Well, we had a “bathroom” so I made my way over there and my guts sorta spilled out. I had brought some TP with me, but I had forgotten to refill it, so guess how many squares I had?! 3!!! Oh girl. Not a good deal. But, don’t worry I conserved and made it work. Haha Well, I went back over and continued to help the girls clean but I just continued to feel worse. Pretty soon it was the BG’s and I felt nauseous and dizzy… I sat down for a while, hoping the feeling would pass. It was around 4:30 and we had finished our work but the guys still weren’t back. We didn’t want to leave the place unattended so we decided to wait for them. We waited, and waited, and waited a little more… it got to be 6:00 and we had had enough, it was getting dark and we wanted to get out of there. We moved their gear to a room so it was out of sight and started walking back out. This is when some guy came up to us and started talking to us. We didn’t really want to talk to him, but he insisted. He asked a lot of questions about the US and walked with us till we found a motorcar. We got out to the road and decided we’d wait to see if we could catch a taxi home. Well, right then the Doctor called Steph. She told him what we were doing and he told us to go back to the house in KM 8 and wait for him and that he would be there soon! Frustrated, we turned back. The first motocar we took broke down about a third of the way there so we had to get another one. We got there and it was dark and we were alone. If you know me, you know I hate the dark and being with 2 other girls who hate the dark as well didn’t make me feel very safe. We go inside the gate and flip the switch to turn on the lights and it doesn’t work. None of us had a flashlight because we didn’t expect to be there after dark! Thankfully, Steph had a cellphone that had a little light on it. I remembered seeing a little thing that looked like a breaker box so we went and flipped that switch to see if the lights would turn on. Nothing. Then Steph remembered the Doctor telling her something about a switch near the front. We went looking for it and found it. Turning on all the lights really didn’t help. Now, we started to draw a crowd of kids and teens who all wanted to know what we were doing. The three of us were sitting in the middle of the building- Lauren had a crowbar on her lap, I had a machete, and Steph had a chain. We were ready for anything! Haha. Well, a few kids were bold and actually came thru the gate but we told them to leave but there was this one guy who would not leave us alone. He asked if he could come in, I told him no. He asked if we could have a conversation I told him no, then he told me to come over to him and I said no. He obviously had a hard time getting the point, but he finally left. Now, it was about 7:30. The doctor had called us at 6:22 and told us he would be there soon. We were a little bit upset… And I was starting to feel sick again… They finally got there at about 7:45 and picked up their stuff and were ready to go. I was feeling extremely nauseous and the last thing I wanted to do was get in the truck and drive down the bumpiest road in the world. But clearly, I had no other option. We all got in the truck and headed home. About half way home the nausea took over and I threw up my guts out the window as we were driving about 65 miles/hour down the freeway. Very pleasant. We got back and I slowly made my way to my room then to the shower. To top things off, something stung me in the shower and there were ants in my toothbrush. I just love Peru. Oh, and we came to the conclusion that this illness was caused by a bad mango that I had eaten this morning…
I feel like I’m getting hit pretty hard this week, if I can just say that… I’m trying to keep my faith strong and just get thru this stuff, but it is hard… Hopefully tomorrow will be better… I just want a hug. And I’m missing home a lot. But when we’re weak, God is strong, right?