Attack of the Animals

Emily and I were at 38 on a nice afternoon awaiting the arrival of the rest of our crew who were out at another clinic. They came back and one of the first things said to us is as follows, "Guess what? We got a monkey". All I could think was, "Oh great. It´s going to poop over everything." I can´t quite remember the name of the monkey, but I like to call him loving words like : the terror, the rat, fur-ball, or whatever pops into my head. I will admit that he does look cute, but he´s so dirty. He poops and pees everywhere. They put a diaper made out of a sock on him, which does help, but doesn´t completely get rid of the problem...especially when it gets full. Our Rotweiler, Cheva, almost ate him a couple of times. So we´ll see how long this monkey lives. Poor thing.

Another animal story...

I was sitting on my bed packing up my belongings to move to a different house during this public health campaign. The beds where we sleep at Km38 are bunk beds and I am on the bottom bunk. Well, out of the corner of my eye I see a dark blob. I don´t think much of it at first, but then I begin to wonder what it could be. I get a little closer only to realize that there is a bat sleeping in the corner of my bed. I run out to the main room and tell someone. At the same time, I tell Emily and she begins to scream cause she´s up in the top bunk. Well, we all pile out of the room while our other brave SM, David, puts on some gloves and removes the creature. Turns our it was a vampire bat. I´m starting to wonder if maybe I should have gotten that rabies vacination....

The other animals you see in the picture are our doggies. The big scary one´s name is Cheva. She likes to eat sheep, and aspires to one day get the cat and monkey. The other cute dog is Lola. She is just a silly little things that likes to jump and play with the sheep. I need to put a picture up of the cat, Joey. He likes to jump on peoples heads and just chill there for a bit.

why is my tongue furry?

What have I learned in Peru? Well, let me tell you a little equation I picked up. It goes something like this... (doxycyline) + (metronidazol) = THRUSH.

I was sitting at the dinner table one night and was eating popcorn, lemonade, and some fruit. My tongue felt weird. It felt as if it was doing what your foot does when it falls asleep and begins to wake up. That´s what my tongue was doing. Then it also felt like it was a little swollen. I thought I was just allergic to something, like the new type of sugar we bought. I just decided not to eat that sugar in my drinks. However, this weird feeling continued everytime I ate something. It didn´t matter what it was. It wasn´t until some random passing by a mirror that I saw my tongue, cause I was talking. I looked at it, and was grossed out. It had a coat of white looking mold on it. The first thought that popped into my head? THRUSH!!

Well, the first round of treatment that was recommended was Gentamicina Violeta. It´s a purple liquid that stains. We (Oh yeah, Emily was on some antibiotics too and got it)were told to paint this on our tongues twice a day. So we complied. We had purple tongues for a bit. However, this did not work. We still had the nastiness on our tongues. We then had the doctor look in our mouths. He told us to take Fluconizale 150mg and Vit C daily for 7 days. This seems to be working. The fur is beginning to recede. haha.

These pictures are me painting my tongue with the Gent.

Adventist Faux Paus

Well, my day started out like any other. I had my pureed food for breakfast (no time to explain that one), and then we set off to do our public health visits in the community. This is where faux paus number one ocurred. We went to visit one of the houses. We knocked on the door, came in and sat down. There were cups on the table filled with some drink already. They offerred us the drink. So Emily and I were trying to be polite, so we kindly accepted. As the glass came closer to my face I smelled the stench of what only alcoholic drinks have. I didn´t know what to do, I was caught practically mid gulp. I didn´t want to be rude since we were still in the developing relationhips stage of the program. So I thought I would be clever and just take some and spit it back into the cup. However, why were they watching me the whole time? So I ended up swallowing some. It then occurred to me to say that my throat hurt, but thanks for the drink. That seemed to appease them. Later on that day we went into town to do some internet and talk on the phone. We ended up staying a little late and decided to eat lunch there. I, of course, wanted some pizza. So I went to a little pizzeria and order a vegetarian pizza. As I was wolfing down the whole thing I was wondering where all the spicyness of the pizza was coming from. So I lifted up my cheese, lo and behold, the under part of the cheese was layered with pepporoni. At the end of the day I cracked up laughing. Ahh, such is life.