The Worst Week Of My Life?

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Which unlike the BBC TV series didn't involve humorous misunderstandings with the inlaws. No. My worst week involved being the illest I have ever been in my entire life, ever. Now the following account of my illness and subsequent treatment may be considered an overshare by those of you who have a sense of shame, I on the other hand am an Atkinson, and a sense of shame does not serve one well in this family. So! Onwards and upwards. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I shall begin. I gave my mummy a list of foodstuffs for Holli to bring out to Brazil to give me one, and one of the items was Fajita spices. On Friday I made myself dinner using said, although I was a little overzealous in my application and ended up with a meal that was blow your brains out spicy. But I didn't mind, it was tasty. So when I had diorrhea the next day I didn't think too much of it, assuming it was self induced from my wonderful culinary creation. However that evening while sitting in the aircon watching Friends, I began to feel rather cold, but I assumed it was just from being in the air, so went to bed happy at being cold for a change. However half a hour later, wrapped up in my duvet shivering I realise perhaps it was not just the air and perhaps I might be kinda sick, seeing as I'm shivvering in 30 degree heat. Cue being up all night not only suffering from diorrhea but constantly vomiting too, along with having a high temperature, aching bones, headache, diziness and general feelings of near death. Well with so much vomiting in such heat, my nearest and dearest began to worry I was going to end up dehydrated so decided that the vomiting needed to be stopped. Alas the way to do this was injection. Unfortunately I was far too ill to leave my bed, so couldn't go to the farmacy to get it, so my next door neighbour, Javier, who is training to be a doctor has to give me it. This is all well and good untill I find out that for some reason completely beyond me the injection must be in my butt cheek. Lovely. Not only that but I had to have another one in the other cheek to get rid of the fever/high temperature. Fun. I was so ill I was just like a little child, I just cried and whimpered and Anna had to hold me down to stop me squirming. So that was horrifically embarrasing!

Since then I have pretty much being lying around recuperating. Although I did go out for a bit with Ofelia and Sandra one evening, we just wandered around then sat and had a drink, it was really nice to do something normal and to feel like I had friends. Then last night there was a big concert on our street because Tigo the phone company was opening their new office they'd just finished. It was really good, I was surprised. They put up a big stage and put around it loads of white sofas for people to sit on, they even had waiters wandering around with trays of free nibbles. The band was really good and there were fireworks! Which are always a winner with me, easily pleased and all that.

Anyway I should probably back track a little, seeing as the last time I blogged was waaaaay back in Brazil at New Years! So when I last blogged I was in Foz do Iguacu with Holli, she then left and I stayed untill the next day then went to go get the bus to another city in Brazil called Curitiba to meet up woth Claire, Mags and Gwen. So I get to the bus station at 10am planning to get on the bus at 12 which would get me to Curitiba at about 9pm a bit after the others arrived. I go to by my bus ticket only to be told that the next bus that has any space doesn't leave until 9.40pm that night! So I sat in that damn bus station for nearly 12 hours, then I sat on that damn bus for nearly 10 hours! It was not a fun day for my poor bottom. I arrived in Curitiba at like 7am, got a taxi to the hotel that the others had booked, which turned out to be a 4 star hotel, woke Claire up, had a shower and went down to breakfast. Oh my word that was such a lovely breakfast, not as good as the Sheriton in Asuncion was, but still pretty incredible. I had chocolate cake (among other things) for breakfast every day we were there! Then after breakfast I unsurprisingly went to bed. Curitiba was lovely, it's a very modern, very european feeling city. We only speant a couple of days there but it was really nice. We went and looked in the shopping centers and went to the town park which had birds and monkeys in it, and on one day there was a big street market which had some really lovely things for sale. I bought flower sticks, but they're not very good quality, but then they only cost me R15 which I do believe is like £4. We got the bus back to Paraguay and stopped at Ciudad del Este, which is the weirdest place I've ever been to. It's in Paraguay but it might as well be Brazilian, as all the people spoke Portuguese and all the prices in shops were in Reais the Brazilian currency. The town itself is like a giant Currys or Dixons as there are just thousands of shops selling electronic goods at stupidly cheap prices, I'm considering going back some time and buying a Nintento DS as it'll be way cheaper than at home. I've never seen a whole town that specialises in one thing, there were literally no shops selling anything other than electronics, it was bizarre! Anyway, so after looking round for a few hours Mags and Gwen got the bus back to Asuncion and Claire and I got the bus back to Concepcion. That my friends, was the worst bus journey I have ever endured on this continent. It was 41 degrees outside that day and the bus didn't have air conditioning, I was so hot I could barely find the strength to raise my arm. Not only that but the bus was full of bugs, they were living in the seats and it was just disgusting! Furthermore, a tyre burst or something, and we stopped for over an hour to get it fixed. So that was not a fun 10 hours.

Since being back I haven't really done alot, as the kids clubs are all still on holiday and we'll start them all again at the beginning of February. I've finally started my Work Placement Report, so far I have written about 1000 words, so I'm doing well. It has to be between 3500 and 4500 and I have untill June so I'm not too worried. The only thing I am worried about is that I feel unsure as to what they're looking for, I worry that the way I've interpreted the guidlines they gave us is not what they meant. But oh well, I'll just do my best and hope for the best!

I have to leave the country every 3 months after the whole Visa debacle, and the next time I have to leave will be around Easter, I was planning to go to Buenos Aires in Argentina to visit my friend Louise who was going to be going to uni there for the seccond term, but she's decided she likes it too much in Spain and so is staying there, which left me out on a limb somewhat. But now, my dearest Mummykins and Daddykins are coming out to Buenos Aires instead and I get to see them again before June when I go home! I am so incredibly excited I can't wait! Not only do I get to see Argetina but I get to see my parentals earlier than I thought! Yay! Happy face. I definitely feel like I'm counting down untill it's time to go home now. Which is probably bad seeing as this is supposed to be the most amazing experience of my life, or something, if so then my life is gunna suck, I'm going to make sure I have a more amazing experience than this somewhen and somewhere else, thankyou very much! Ahem, don't get me wrong, I don't think of this as an (entirely) negative experience... It's been really hard but there's been lots of really good bits too, I just find I need to talk about the bad bits a lot more than the good bits, which is a shame I suppose.

Well. I think you are now suficiently caught up with everything I've been doing. Tune in next time for my musings on the nature and importance of culture... Since I blatently won't have done anything interesting enough to talk about.

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