A week in bed

I started to catch a cold last weekend, Colin had been sick first, so I thought I was just getting what he had and it wouldn´t be too bad. So on Saturday we hiked up an old volcano that has a lagoon at the top and it was really beautiful. The spanish school we joined is great-- every day there are activities you can participate in, which is how we went up to the lagoon. The other students are also really nice and they are from all over the world. I enjoyed the hike but was feeling a bit weak, and I had no idea what was coming to me.

We got back in the afternoon and rested briefly and then Colin and I both moved in with our homestay families. My family was nice and I thought everything was going okay at first. We ate dinner together, which was a tamale, and I will admit though it was a bit strange becuase they wouldn´t talk to me during dinner even though they were impressed with my spanish. Every time they had something to say they would whisper it to eachother really quickly so I couldn´t hear. I was just sitting there like okay, this is akward. It seemed like they weren´t the least bit interested in getting to know me and I had a hard time trying to start conversations with them. So after that I went to bed early to get some rest, but I got these horrible pains in my back and I couldn´t sleep. Then Sunday was a free day and so I relaxed some more but I was beginning to feel pretty miserable. My family didn´t feed me much and we basically ate a ton of white bread, which is not exactly nourishing. It is the first time I had a homestay where they didn´t stuff me up with the good home cooking. They also seemed to yell a lot and there was a little boy who was always screaming and crying. It wasn´t the nicest atmosphere, especially for being sick.

Sunday I had another sleepless night and then on Monday spanish classes began. I was excited to learn some more spanish and I was hoping I would start to feel better. My whole first class though was a review because the teacher wanted to see what I knew already so I didn´t really learn anything. I got to see Colin at school and he was all happy and loved his homestay and I was feeling quite the opposite, but I wanted to stay strong and deal with it.

That afternoon we went on the activity, which was a trip to these saunas you had to hike to in the mountains. There were flowers everywhere and a bit of fog and it was a really enchanting walk. I felt at peace and I thought the steam would help my cold, but on the way back down I could hardly even talk anymore. The next day I pretty much couldn´t talk at all so my spanish teacher took me to the doctor. I found out I got an infection in my larynx and pharynx (however you spell them) and I also almost had a sinus infection. The doctor told me I can´t talk for 1 week or I will totally lose my voice. Man when it rains it pours. I had to drop out of spanish school because I couldn´t talk and I felt horrible and I was kind of just wondering what else bad was going to happen next, then things started look up.

I told Colin about my problems and he was really surprised and told me I could move in with his homestay family so I wouldn´t have to be all alone which was really nice. That afternoon I went to his house and it was immediatley so much better. The ladies there are absolutely wonderful and they are so good to me. They first gave me the cure, which was them rubbing garlic and oil all over my neck and wrapping it up. Then they made me a special tea. And they also got out a big pot of inscence and Antionnetta moved the smoke all around my body and said a prayer for me and then I went to sleep- I slept so good! They also feed us really well and every meal is home cooked goodness, just like I was hoping for.

So I have been spending every day in bed while Colin goes to spanish class. There is a woman named Regina from Austria who also lives in the house. The other morning I told her my grandfather passed away which was contributing to my pain. She told me that the throat is the chakra for creativity and expression, and she thought my throat may be blocked because I didn´t completely express all my emotion for the loss of my grandfather. So she performed Rieke (a Japonese technique) on me and moved the energy through my body. It made me cry so much. Then she gave me rose oil to rub on my heart to help it heal. And she put inscense in my room and I was so full of emotion. I wrote in my journal about all the things my grandfather meant to me and all I learned from him, and I felt like I was finally beginning to deal with his death. It is hard to know how to mourn for the loss of a loved one.

Colin´s homestay has been taking such good care of me and I´m finally starting to feel better, eventhough I still can´t really talk. It is so hard to be sick in another country, but they really make me feel like I´m at home. It is also really interesting not being able to say anything. I have to use hand signals and be a lot more expressive with my face to convey emotion and gratitude. I have also become more observant because all I can do is watch. I love how the ladies of the house are always smiling and laughing and it makes me feel so much better. Their good spirits and good food heal me up right.

Hopefully I´ll be able to talk again soon and get all my energy back and then my crazy adventures will continue. This has been an interesting week though. It made me stop (my life totally slowed down) and I became very reflective, especially since I can´t say anything. Now I think I will be even stronger when I am able to continue on. So I´m sorry my last two blogs haven´t been that great, but in life not everything is great and happy. Sometimes you need the sad and hard times to make you appreciate the good times even more. Life is full of surprises and hurdles and you just have to take things as they come and deal with them the best you can. If you can learn something from the hard times, that is the best you can hope for. I have really learned how precious good health is and how important it is to fully express yourself and not keep things blocked up inside. There is nothing I have to be afraid of, I just have to be the best person I can be and really let my whole self shine brightly. So that is the light at the end of the tunnel. I think this trip is really going to reveal to me who I am and who I want to be and how I want to live.

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