(written Sept. 3rd)
...to start off with, I want to let you all know that things are going well, and that I have been extremely busy lately. I have officially been in country for 6 months! Time seems to go by a little bit quicker each month, and I have a feeling this will continue throughout the rest of my service. I apologize for not updating my blog last month when I had internet access, but I was very sick… On being sick:
Never eat questionable looking meat. This should be instinctual to me at this point in my life. However, when someone offers you a piece of beef in a village where there is never enough food to go around, declining the gift is very disrespectful. It is also impossible to pretend to eat the questionable meat, and then slyly discard it somewhere when all eyes are on you. So…I ate it. I believe this beef was the vehicle for the abusive, razor clawed alien that invaded my intestines a few days later. Needless to say, for the rest of that week I was never far from a bathroom, and spent a lot of time on the phone with our Peace Corps doctor. I am now fully prepared to insult any Malagasy person who attempts to feed me questionable looking food again. Lesson learned, the hard way. The day after the alien was flushed out of my intestines, I realized I had another friend living down there, my old pal Giardia. I admit it, I did drink unfiltered water when hiking in the park a few weeks prior…but, seriously, I am not going to hike in 4 days of filtered water. I expect I will probably get Giardia again sometime soon, as I generally trek around the park about once a month. While Giardia does not compare to it’s volatile cousin (the razor clawed alien), it’s still an inconvenience.
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