Last week I didn't post because I had spent the entire previous week doing nothing. That is not an exaggeration, I did nothing. Ok, not entirely true, I went to two different doctors and got stabbed 4 times for an IV of glucose, vitamins and antibiotics. So I guess that's not 'nothing.' Ok, let me back up a bit.
Friday of last week, Pako and I were playing Scrabble* with Lorena and Tito when we all decided to order a Pizza. Tito had the bright idea to order from a different-than-normal pizza place called 'Roquet Pizza' (I mention the name so that you're all forewarned should you ever choose to eat pizza in Zihua). Well, nobody liked the pizza, everybody thought it tasted strange, though no one could decide why. Some thought it was because of the cheese, some thought it was the dough. The next day, Moctezuma claimed his revenge on this poor Gringa transplant. Two days later, Tito fell ill with the same symptoms. It seems Moctezuma does not racially profile, he's an equal opportunity revenger!
I went to the $25 peso/office visit doctor on Wednesday. He asked me some questions and pushed on my stomach a bit. He prescribed me some meds, but I didn't really give him a fair chance at doctoring because on Wednesday I actually felt slightly better. So I told him all the symptoms I had had, but didn't so much have that day. Anywho, Tito who got hit a lot harder than I did right off the bat had and was given an antibiotic and had a glucose IV for dehydration (which was to be my fate 3 days later).
Tito got better, I relapsed. Pako was adorable and rather worried about me, so he finally put his foot down on Friday night and said he was taking me to the doctor on Saturday. So Saturday we went to a different, more expensive doctor. I get wimpy when I'm sick and so I didn't feel quite as brave about going to a $25 peso doctor. This time, I walked in the clinic and the receptionist descended upon me shouting about me being uber-dehydrated. She had me in an office, with a doctor within 30 seconds. We chatted about my symptoms and he decided on a course of action (after doing the same pushing on my stomach thing the other guy did). IV of glucose, antibiotics and vitamins (because part of me doing nothing all week including eating nothing). So, I womanned up and mentioned that I tend to faint when people try to stick things in my veins, but that I would do my best to take deep breaths.
My veins were all constricty-like being that I was a week into dehydration and malnutrition. The first doctor poked me twice without hitting a vein and then invited his colleague to give it a go. The 2nd guy also had to poke me twice in order to finally hit a vein. I can not say it was a pleasant experience, but by the time half of the liquid was in my system I felt about 85% better! Man, dehydration is lame! It really takes a toll on you, but without your even knowing how much it's kicking your butt! Anywho, I was at the clinic for about 2 hours total and not much of it was fun, but it was definitely worth it. I'm including a shot of my lovingly gazing up at my IV bag and then another shot of my arm that I took TODAY, a full 8 days after my doctor's visit, to show off the cool (or sucky) battle wound I'm still sporting at injection site #2/4.
Luckily, the IV did the trick and I made it to my first day of work on August 9th. I only had my 3 high school classes and the first week is really quite a waste of time as we're not allowed to give homework or start anything substantial as kids are still coming and going and deciding which high school they really want to attend. In my 10th grade class, I had a grand total of 3 kids. With low levels of English. The perfect ingredients for a great conversation class. Or not. By the end of the week there were 5 students, English levels still low. That class will be a lot less conversation than I would like, but we'll do what we can. In 11th grade I had 4 girls, supposedly there will be 5 students total, but by Friday, it was just the 4 girls. This was a shocker for me because last year that class had 14 kids. Quite a few defectors. That's what happens when the coordinator of the school (Ricardo... obviously) says that the school won't be opening this year... kids find other places to go. Um, duh. Anywho, my 12th grade class has 9 students, only 2 left. So, this year will be more challenging, planning-wise, because activities that take 20 minutes with 10 kids take about 5 minutes with 4 kids and even less when the kids don't know the necessary vocabulary or grammatical structures.
This coming week is still just the high schoolers, but hopefully their books will have arrived (and they will have purchased them) and we can get started instead of playing charades, pictionary and scattegories all week. We'll see how things go. I'm definitely going to start grammar reviews with the 10th graders, present and past simple, because you'd be amazed at how many simple conversations deal only in those tenses. This year in my high school classes we're also reading ESL specific versions of The Mask of Zorro, Fast Food Nation, and Angela's Ashes. Then we'll be watching the movies (probably sometime around the end of February...) and discussing them. That is, of course, assuming the books show up at the book store... a leap of faith that is hard to take after the 'great book fiasco of 2009.' We'll see.
When not at school, we've been spending a lot of time at Lorena's house. She's here until next Wednesday when she has to go back and get ready to start her school year in Apatzingan. She was assigned 1st grade this year so she's been doing a lot of drawing and cutting to make decorations for her classroom. Lorena also finished her 4th (out of 5) year of Folkloric Dance. For each dance that she learned, she had to have the traditional costume and so she was busy doing a lot of sewing and designing, too. For one dance, Pako drew a design for her on a shirt/skirt combo and all three of us painted it. It turned out pretty cool. It was for an Aztec-style dance that she performed at the end of the year celebration. In the following pics, Lorena is wearing a bright blue outfit with a bright yellow sun painted on the front. She also made the headdress that she wore. The dance was really cool and she looked great! I was glad I was healthy enough to go see her dance!
The last one shows the ankle bracelets that all the dancers wore (and presumably made - Lorena sewed all of the bells on herself) which made the dance really cool because every piece of footwork was accompanied by a soundtrack.
So, that's it for this week. I'm looking forward to a couple of things in the next couple of weeks: cooler temperatures!!! (It's been in the high 90s and humid just about everyday... AND night!), my birthday #25 (formally my scary age, which is now 29 for no apparent reason) and the Bicentenial celebration (200 years of Mexico being Mexico - Sept 16, 1810 - 2010). THEN, in the first days of October, our favorite Canadian, Bambi, arrives and Las Urracas can begin to feel like Las Urracas again!
Saludos until next week! Here's hoping for no more doctor visits!
Leyah
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