The Cipro Situation

The Cipro Situation

April 9, 2009

At the age of 25 and with a college education you would think childish tendencies would be behind me…think again. Last week I came down with a terrible case of sickness. I call it sickness because it was never specifically diagnosed and I call it terrible because it was absolutely and completely an awful experience. No need to worry now because I’m A-Okay but for 48 hours last week I was not. I had fever, chills, a headache, severe stomach pains and, worst of all, uncontrollable diarrhea. I went to the bathroom every hour and eventually used up an entire roll and a half of toilet paper all by myself. Oh, and I also pooped my pants twice. It got on the sheets. It was a disaster. I had to have a secret and secluded washing before my host family discovered it. I don’t think they suspected anything. Before the nurse prescribed a very potent medication (Cipro) my host mother had her own idea of how to combat what eventually was thought to have been salmonella poisoning or some other bacterial infection. She decided to rub my stomach and head with a hard-boiled egg. Now, at the height of my sickness I was open to anything. If some ridiculous Ecuadorian shaman techniques were going to work I wanted every part of it. Unfortunately, after a nice rub-a-dub-down of the egg, the sickness only got worse. I’m not sure why I put my faith in a hard-boiled egg. When you poop your pants as an adult you get desperate.

I’ve finally been told where I’ll be living for the next two years while here in Ecuador. My site will be a small community called Fundochamba which is about a three hour bus ride south of the southern city of Loja. It is a beautiful place with incredibly nice people but it’s absolutely in the middle of nowhere and it’s very far away from the capital city of Quito. So far away, in fact, that it took almost 20 hours in bus to arrive. You might think that this certain bus ride wouldn’t be too bad but get your mind off of Greyhound, people, this is a bus ride over roads that frequently get washed away: two-laned; pot-hole infested roads. If you’ve ever been pulled in hook-line-and-sinker by those crazy robotic rides that simulate roller coasters and airplane flights then you have a taste of what I swallowed. You know, those enormous white boxes that sit in the middle of malls all across America and every kid breaks the bank to ride? Just imagine sitting in that thing for 20 hours. Yeah, that was my bus ride. If I were Ecuador I would start rubbing hard-boiled eggs on someone or something to try to bring back Dwight D. Eishenhower incarnate as an Ecuadorian president. Along with him I would request his wonderful contribution to the American people: the interstate highway system. Well kept four lane roads are wonderful things.

However, Fundochamba sits in the midst of the Andes Mountains and has great weather. The views are spectacular. I will be working on enhancing coffee production as well as introducing drip irrigation, family gardens, fisheries, cuyes (guinea pigs!) and crop variety. The goal is to increase income generation for families in the community. There are some exciting projects to begin. I move there on May 3^rd.

Unfortunately, that means I will have to leave behind my host family here in Cariacu. They have been a wonderful family and we have gotten very close over the past couple of months. I’m afraid by some of the responses from my last update that many of you think life is quite rough here in Peace Corps Ecuador. Don’t get me wrong, it is, but please understand that my updates tend to contain stories of which I find amusing to tell. These tend to be about the difficult times. The normal things just aren’t as entertaining.

Occasionally, when I slow myself down I notice things that remind me of the wonderful opportunities and blessings I’ve had in my own life. My host mother has never eaten pizza. Her taste buds have not come in contact with a hamburger. She kneels on the floor, at the foot of her bed, to iron the many clothes she washes on a cement block with bar soap. She wakes up every morning, weekends included, at 5 a.m. and makes the trek to milk cows. She goes back in the afternoon for a second milking. To see her life in action is impressive and humbling. She’s the one who has had the difficult times. Not me.