A Hard Week

A visual representation of my insides.

This started off as a very difficult week. I received my second bout of “Honduran Fury,” leaving me hugging the pot at 3 am on Monday night with violent fits of vomiting and diarrhea. I ended up unable to leave the 10 yard radius my bed and the toiled and had to miss school on Tuesday.

Missing school is a big strain on the staff here. We don’t exactly have a list of substitutes that we can call up when we are in a bind. Thankfully though, I am surrounded by an awesome group of roommates in “manpartment” and before I could even ask for help on Tuesday morning, they came into my room and told me they already had my whole schedule covered between the 3 of them. Good guys.

I started to feel a bit more functional on Wednesday and tried out going to school. At 6:25 am, while I was en route to school, I saw a group of gringo teachers from the other bilingual school in our town about 100 yards ahead. This is the same route that we take every day. I saw a  black SUV pull up to them and three men jumped out and robbed them at gunpoint. They came away safely, but the thieves got away with a good portion of their funds for the school.

This robbery has been among a series of sketchy experiences that we have had in the last week (including my 3 yr old running shoes being stolen from the balcony as well as some of the teachers’ food money stolen out of their house).  When a gun is involved, though, it really hits you hard. This experience really freaked us out and made us re-think the way that we travel to school. I have been taking my laptop every day to and from school. That has now stopped. More than anything though, it just made us really angry and fed up. It’s hard not to want to say “screw this place” after something like that happens. We have been able to accept the lack of hot water, the “different” cuisine, and the intermittent diarrhea, but being robbed at gunpoint is something that none of us can wrap our head around.

My week then got worse with my sickness coming back and causing me to miss school again on Thursday. I finally went to the doctor’s house across the street (who is also our landlord and one of the originators of the school) and I got antibiotics. This is my third time taking cipro in 3 months…. Can’t be healthy

The good news is that the Cipro got me back up and running just in time for “Dia del Nino” (Kid’s Day). It’s like Mother’s Day… for kids. We had parties at school, broke open piñatas and the teachers performed, which included the male teachers doing a choreographed dance in skirts to “Put a Ring On It” by Beyonce.  And I got some pictures of some ridic cute kids. Enjoy the photos. The next post is more positive, however, I feel that as an active member of “manpartment” I must follow our cardinal rule every once in a while and “keep it real.”

"Welcome to my day...."

Really proud of her headband.

Matt with Josue, his pet monkey.

Wrangler's ad.