Where did we leave off....?
Oh yes, after our nap which took us to 12 noon, we went for a wander around to see if we could find somewhere to buy bottled water (water isn´t okay to drink here, so I would imagine most of my money will be spent on bottles beyond bottles of the stuff) which resulted in more broken enlish conversations with random people... but it worked out for the best!
My heart felt really tight/pressured when we first landed, which we attributed to the altitude (we´re around 3800m above ground.... we actually flew over the andes mountains which were judding out over the clouds that the plane was above... what a monstorously massive and beautiful sight!!!!!) and once we got to the store it came back in addition to some serious desires to black out for no good reason. So we decied to waste some time walking as slow as 94yr old men with peg legs so that I could get back up to speed enough to walk back to our place.
Tonight we had supper with all the volunteers; one of the girls is going home tomorrow. She informed us of the way of the world in the land of dairy and eggs... (she´s been here 5 weeks and has had food poisoning 3 times...and is vegetarian!), so when they gave me supper of stirfry with egg, and peppers&green onions (vegetables in which neither can be peeled so they may be contaminated with Hepatitis)... needless to say I didnt end up eating much more than the appetizer (a super delicious deep fried won-won type thing with soy-meat (kind of like mushroom) and more cocoa-tea (which is turning out to be an amazing commodity that is always readily available and is theoretically great for you and your crappy altitude sickness...so they say)...
...So tomorrow Im telling our lady who prepares the meals that we are ´vegetariano restricto´ (no more dairy of any kind, and definitely no eggs seeing as they dont refrigerate them). That means tomrorow we will also be making a trip to the farmacia (pharmacy) to buy probably iron and calcium pills... we have already bought electrolyte water so hopefully well stay relatively healthy without getting sent to a hospital or something from crazy stomach bugs and parasites. We´ve taken to using our chlorine water purification tablets in water that the others say is ´filtered´from the tap (mainly because Im afraid of the leptospirosis outbreak going on and Im not sure when they say filter I dunno what size sieve they use and so I dont really trust it), which we then use to brush our teeth. To further lesson the exposure to potentially dangerous water we´re using babywipes as face cloths (although I have yet to think of a way to avoid getting any of the water in my eyes or mouth during showers...but Ill cross that bridge when i get to it tomorrow morning).... and Ive started taking the preventative-dosing of pepto bismol to try to stave off any crazy illnesses that the food may (and probably will) give me.
Anyway, its been a long two days but hopefully tomorrow´s orientation proves to be helpful and we dont get sick and the world keeps on spinnin with us being healthy and oblivious to the terrors of Cholera or beaver fever or whatever is in the water here.
night night !!!!! xo
-A.
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