Leave the door open for the unknown, the door into the dark | Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Trouble in Paradise


Oh, dear friends:

All is not well on Avenida 18. Kendra has been struck by the bug that Henry got, and both of them took turns last night camping out in the bathroom. She staggered into my room this morning looking pale and much lighter. I'm sick, she told me unnecessarily, one hand pressed against the wall for balance. And worst of all, she added, it's freezing in the middle of the night. So Kendra has shuffled back into bed for the foreseeable future, armed with a glass of Emergen-C and the bottle of diarrhea meds my dad so generously bestowed upon us. Henry was not awake when I left the house this morning, though I could hear him coughing and hacking all night. If it's not raining it's pouring around here, and not to mention, Kendra was right. It is insanely fricking cold here, especially at night, but even in the day: it's to the extent where, if you wash your hands outside in the morning, they will never be warm again for the entire day. Oh, how I miss Central Heating.

So, friends and followers, please pray for us as Kendra and Henry mend their stomachs and try to swallow down dry toast and Emergen-C, and please pray for me, the lone survivor, who is armed only with an abundance of antibacterial hand sanitizer, my common sense when it comes to eating in the street markets, and my Steri-Pen water filter, which bears an uncanny resemblance to a woman's vibrator:
But, you're right, you're right. Being sick is not a joke. Kendra and Henry are miserable and I am keeping my fingers crossed that they will recover by Christmas, which is in just three short days. So I will buy them bananas, which my mother recommended I take if ever I am seized with a bout of diarrhea, and also I will get them a combination of mint and chamomile tea, which Linda, my teacher, advised. And in the meantime, I will try to look on the bright side. For example, as I was walking to my normal seat in the coffee shop today, I saw that the dorky blonde Norwegian guy from my school has found a Guatemalan girlfriend! There they are, right over there, all cuddled together and in love! OK, so I guess I'm a little dissapointed, because I had previously suspected that he was boyfriends with the other blonde and slightly less dorky Norwegian guy he shares a room with, and that would have been cute, but oh well. At least one of them has found love.

And, guess what else, my teacher Linda lent me this great book called 'Que Onda Vos,' which translates as, 'What's up, Dude?' It is full of lovely advice on how to curse in Spanish, and how to say all the inappropriate words for body parts, and how to tell your friend, in slang, that you are too hung over to go to the beach. So, there's that. I'll be reading it while doling out mint and chamomile tea and trying to explain in broken Spanish to Norma that Kendra and Henry probably won't make lunch today. Oh, pray for us, compadres. I miss you all.

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