T-giving & Xela living

It you think they don’t celebrate Thanksgiving down here – YOU’RE RIGHT! Luckily, they still sell turkeys down here, and although pricey, we bought two big birds for the big day. Gladis, the school director made the turkeys and everyone else brought a dish. The dinner turned out perfectly, and as always, I felt sick after eating so much food. But don’t worry; we still got a pretty traditional Thanksgiving even though we’re down in the Guat.

Since returning from El Salvador, the last 2 weeks have been somewhat crazy but also relaxing. Everyone started full time classes again (4 hours a day, 5 days a week). We also have been writing theses in Spanish, which is pretty tough in many different ways. Apparently, our teachers haven’t heard of a little thing called “plagiarism,” and they insist daily that we copy and paste articles into our papers. I’m writing my thesis on Child Trafficking in Adoptions and New Reforms to the Adoption Laws. The majority of the paper is done, but there’s still a lot left to correct. Sadly, the weather in town is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING (70-80’s), and it’s difficult to want to stay inside and work when you can be in the sun….especially since I know I’ll be returning to the FREEZING COLD of the Midwest in a week. We’ve been spending a lot of days chilling in the park- reading and playing cards, and I’ve now finished my second Spanish book (The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe). I finished 202 pages in Spanish in 2 days, so I know I’m learning something still! The nights are filled with Discotecas, Bars, and the usual nightlife- always a guaranteed good time. One night at the local club, the “GALLO GIRLS” were there- the U.S. version of Miller Light Girls…you know, just promoting the beer and such. The sweet thing is that I happened to win a dance contest with the girls as judges. I won a beer baseball hat, which is pretty ghetto, but also pretty awesome. As if winning the contest wasn’t good enough, the Gallo Girls (who had fake boobs that touched their chin and look disgusting) asked me for advice on how to dance. Yes, they asked me, because they were very impressed with my skills. YEA ME!

The last couple weeks have also been filled with a bajillion hospital visits. Since a little after Tgiving, Amy felt pretty bad- but in kind of a weird, intense body ache type way. After her initial visit, the doctor said everything was fine. We waited a few more days, but she woke up a heck of a lot worse one day with a pretty sore throat, and we decided to return to the site of my nightmares – Hospital Privado. She ended up seeing the same crazy doctor I had, and we lost it laughing as soon as the poor guy walked in the door. All he said was she had a throat infection and everything else (including the bad aches) were secondary effects. We left and got some meds for her, but she kept getting progressively worse. Finally, third times a charm, she went to a hospital that actually ran tests…and found out she had MALARIA. We chilled in the hospital for a 6 hour IV drip, and left under the assumption that she was cured. About a week later, I woke up with mad shoulder pains and had to return to yet another doctor from my August bus incident. Apparently my nerves were all out of wack and muscles swollen, so I’ve been on some strong meds for a couple weeks. The following day, Amy woke up with a bad rash, so we called around and found an infectious disease doctor. After a thorough blood test – she has in fact also come down with Rubella – despite being vaccinated in 6th grade …MMR is now proven to be somewhat ineffective. As of now, the rash is finally going away and the doctor gave her the go ahead to be ACTUALLY TREATED for Malaria with a serious combination of meds in about 20 days (it turns out the IV was not enough to cure Malaria, and if she didn’t research treatments she could have been in serious trouble). Between the two of us, we live at the hospital and have by far dropped the most dough on hospital visits.

Yesterday, the 12th, was Lauren’s 22nd birthday. It was a pretty exciting and eventful day. We had classes in the morning, but left a little early with our teachers to get ice cream in Parque Central. It happened to be the Day of Virgin Guadelupe, so there was a big fiesta in the Park all day long. It seems that Guatemalans have more holidays than anywhere else in the world- its somewhat ridiculous. After lunch, I treated Lauren to a pedicure for her bday present, even if it was a bootlegged trip…the ladies didn’t exactly know what they were doing, but I guess it was the thought that counts. At 4pm, we had an amazing dessert buffet at Lauren’s house & her family also planned games and had a piñata for her. After the party winded down and everyone left…Lauren & I helped her roommate from Spain, Gema, make SANGRIA. We ended up taking the Sangria to Bajo La Luna and had a party for her there from 8pm-10pm. At 10, we headed out dancing for the rest of the night at got home at 3:30 in the morning. Needless to say, the her birthday was simply amazing and the day that followed was full of absolutely nothing since were all dead at school, as we sprawled across the lawn for classes and talked the whole morning.