Friday 2/27

In culture class we covered indigenous illnesses and medicinal treatments. Apparently if you get illegitimately pregnant it’s kosher to blame it on the mountain goblin. Another custom we should bring to the states . . .

In Spanish we’re becoming experts at distracting the prof. We got her going for an hour and a half about her past love life, random definitions, and bad words. Eventually we did have to return to imperfect subjunctive . . .

After class we went to a Chinese restaurant and then bought ice cream. After that we watched Slumdog Millionaire at Darla’s and ate cookies and popcorn. Four of us went home in the same taxi and I got to be last out because: it’s kind of logical geographically, I have the best Spanish, and I have a black belt. No worries though. I made it home safe and sound.

Saturday 2/28

Glorious sleeping in! Over lunch my sis was telling jokes and they asked me to tell one, so I did a loose translation of the muffin joke. I’m not going to say that it was a huge success, but there was more than polite laughter—I think.

In the afternoon I attempted to study for a while and got some sun. In the process I also wrestled my shoe from the grips of the dreadful Bruno—again.

We drove up to Guadelaceo to go shoe shopping for Gabby because she’s going to a fancy party. I love shoes, but I was seriously shopped out by the end. Upon return I was presented with the opportunity to try blood sausage, which I accepted and regretted. I kept tasting it all night.

Sunday 3/1

Nothing kicks off the day of the Lord better than a little salsa-aerobics in the park. My favorite park has random aerobics classes, so I joined one, in the back, and without much rhythm, but I shimmy for Jesus.

After church I did a little studying and made banana bread with Marcela before returning to church at night to work the nursery.

Monday 3/2

First test in physiology = U-G-LY, and it wasn’t even my fault. I studied my proverbial pants off for naught. It was 10 questions, the majority of which were nit-picky things not found in my notes. I ended up with a 6/10, second highest grade in the class.

Afterwards my bus home ignored my flagging, so in an act of spite, I walked home- all 45 min of it.

I really enjoyed the Foundation today. We were in general med again, so we had a constant stream of patients. There were a lot of folks with various parasites and bacterial infections as well as diabetes-related issues. The highlights were as follows:

Taking more blood pressures

Seeing a what the doc described as a “tumor of fat” the size of a ping pong ball in a lady’s shoulder.

Watching a kid get the stitches out of his large knife wound in the head. That’ll teach you, kids—don’t fight with the other kids if they whip out the hardware. The doc suspected he was missing a chunk of his skull in addition to a considerable measure of common sense.

On the way home we engaged in our favorite pastime—cracking up our driver, Wilson, by singing terribly at the top of our lungs.

At night my entire family challenged me to arm wrestling. I beat everyone—except papi.

Mama Marcela said that she was glad that I was finally getting fatter. She was concerned that I wasn’t eating enough at first. Swell.

Tuesday 3/3

Long day. First we kicked off the morning by getting yelled at by our physiology prof for doing so poorly on the test. That was pleasant.

The foundation was kind of slow. The most interesting thing we saw was a case of stomach bacteria.

On the way home Darla and I decided that we’d rather hang out than go home, so we went for ice cream with the driver. It was pretty sweet.

At night we went to our house churches for the first time. It’s an all-youth thing. We (the gringas and I) used it to plan how we’re going to set up our siblings. My sis, Isa, was less than enthused to be paired with Jenny’s bro, Mocho.

Wednesday 3/4

Physiology was cake-y today. A good review of the respiratory system.

I went out to lunch with Julie, and we were running short on time so we picked the closest restaurant on the way. They didn’t have menus. The lady just kept telling me that they served chicken, and beyond that she was waaaay too mumbly to make out. I just told her we’d take 2. We ended up with chicken, rice, fries, bean salad, and chicken something soup. It’s debatable if it was lung, liver, or heart, but it was something roughly triangular and purple with a fairly pleasant flavor.

The Foundation was slow again, so we asked the doctor to weigh us. After weighing himself as well, he proceeded to mock our fattiness.

Thursday 3/5

The highlight of my morning was buying a ginormous pastry for 12 cents.

In spanish we took an competence exam to see where we are.