Life is a Highway

They knock me down

And back up again

You're in my blood

I'm not a lonely man

There's no load I can't hold

The road's so rough this I know

I'll be there when the light comes in

Just tell 'em we're survivors

Well life over the past couple of days has been something. After my last blog post the next day I started feeling significantly better. But then the next day I went way down hill. So that night I was whisked off to the hospital for a ton more tests and my first night ever in a hospital. It was an experience. I am struggling to eat because everything made my stomach upset and they don’t have any of my typical sick foods here in Ecuador. It was a struggle, but was eventually able to get a little bit of food down. This lack of eating was of great concern to AFS because apparently its quite common for AFSers to come to another country and have a hard time with the culture so they stop eating. They kept asking me if I was sad or mentally ill. It was sort of humorous after a while, because really I was just sick. The low point in my whole stay at the hospital was the 5:30 am visit of the cleaning guy who proceeded to sweep the whole room (this included moving my IV stand). It was good that I didn’t know how to get angry with him in a language he understood so I just had to hold my toung. ;) My Ecuadorian family was so supportive and amazing I was speechless. My room was never empty and the average number of people in it was probably somewhere around 10. Everybody would come by before and after work as well as on their lunch break. More often then not bringing something for me to eat with them. They were all so worried and caring that I can never pay them back for it. The experience wasn’t what I would have liked for the first week, but it is something I will never forget. Turns out I have Typhoid… or a back infection (?)  ...Or another type of infection. We are not quite sure because everybody has been told different things at different times. But I have enough antibiotics to cure the world and I am feeling as good as new. Hopefully my Ecuadorian hospital adventures are done for my stay. 

Aside for that adventure there are many other things I have been doing in my life. A couple of days ago I got to travel to a near by city with AFS. The city called Silidas was named after its largest industry (not any more, but in the past) of Salt production. We visited the salt flats. These provided not only a very interesting thing to look at, but also a breath taking mountain view. We then proceeded to tour the chocolate and cheese factory that provide most of the cities current industry. It was an awesome experience and I was excited to get to move out side of my town. I have been taking every opportunity that has been presented to me to do things with people because they are awesome learning experiences and always-quite fun.

Yesterday I got my school uniform; it was about time as school starts on Monday. It consists of cotton polo with a red polyester sweater to wear over it. Then I have a skirt that is quite boring and grey for the bottom with knee socks. I also have a gym uniform that is a pair of cotton(ish) shorts and a set of polyester warm ups. Everything (minus the skirt) is in bright red, as that is my schools color. I am very excited to start school because it will add really good structure to my day, but really summer has been so great that school is looking like a lot of work. I will try to post my first day of school picture so you can all see the wonderful uniform. Ok so I do complain about it a lot, but its nice to not have to worry about what is appropriate to wear and when I need to wear what. It’s really not that bad.

That is a summery of my life here in Ecuador in a nutshell. I shall try to keep you updated and school and the other going ons of my first healthy weekend in Ecuador. Love and miss you all.

Livin’ life on the loose.