Sunday, September 30, 2012

A Wormy Goodbye



This is the last week I will have in my community. Well, its actually the last 3 days I will have here. It's also been one of the roughest times I've had in my community yet. You see, I haven't had a lot of the problems that many of the volunteers have had here such as problems getting people motivated and organized. Oh wait, I have had those problems but they just have been overshadowed by the couple people here that are more or less rock stars and actually want to work. More about that later. The last week has been hard mostly because of health and a little bit because of the heat. There is also the fact that someone murdered a 9 year old girl and threw her into the river in a bag. That was also a bad day. 

My health has been bad to this degree: I got a bone breaking flu that most people compare to and often confuse for Dengue which gave me a temp of over 102 for 5 days in a place where it is already boiling hot. During that same time I couldn't eat anything so after the 6th day when I felt half way alive I drug myself to the lab to do a poop test and found out that I also had intestinal worms. I had surgery on my toenail again where they cut out half of it and pulled it off so I haven't been able to walk, and my prostate is now inflamed to the point where it hurts more than anything on my body. Did I mention that the bond breaking flu made your head feel like it was in a vice. I couldn't open my eyes for a whole day unless I wanted extreme pain behind my eyes. 

So I'm finally getting better. Well everything except my prostate, but I can deal with that for now. My farewell party is this friday and it seems that the artisan group has invited the world to it. People from the island are coming, other volunteers, and even some government agencies have been invited. I've been looking forward to it for some time now and have been literally hanging on to life here so I can see it through. Its funny, the day I came into site I was deathly ill with a flu and two ear infections. 

I haven't been able to go around and visit too many houses in the village due to my sicknesses, trying to get my things ready for a big raffle I'm going to have, and also taking my english student into town to show how to use a computer that I gave to time as a present today. tomorrow really is my last day to go around to peoples houses and visit them. On the top of the list is my first host mother and then Katia, the girl with baby Adam (refer to For the Love of her Child Post). Then I'll go visit some of the further houses that I've done things with such as those I've done water project for and so forth. That is, if I don't die of heat exhaustion by then. I also need to visit some of the people in Rio Oeste Abajo whom seem to love me for some reason. 

My last days in site should be fun and hopefully the activities can take my mind off my ailing body. It is such a downer to feel like this and a part of me is worried that I will never get better after this. Seeing some good doctors in the states, not getting worms and amoebas all the time, and eating good food might help. Also, not living in an oven will help too. Next post will be about some reflections. I just didn't think they belonged with this one about me almost dying in my last days here...

No comments:

Post a Comment