Gallavanting in Ghandruk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After arriving in Kathmandu on a Friday and spending that night and Saturday night in the city, I travelled to Pokhara for 7 hours by bus with the other Global Gap volunteers that would be partaking in the conservation project in Ghandruk.  We stayed in Lakeside (a part of Pokhara which is situated at the side of a lake… Imagine that) for one night and then journeyed to Ghandruk which is a village located in the Annapurna Conservation Area (ACA).  It cannot be reached by car.  The closest road ends at about an hour trek away.  We rode in a jeep for 2.5 hours from Pokhara to the jeep station that marks the end of the road and then walked up to Ghandruk.  An hour later, I arrived exhausted at Namaste Guesthouse, the place in which I would be staying.

Now that all of that boringness is out of the way, I can talk about the conservation project here in Ghandruk. =)  Okay.  First thing’s first.  It’s awesome.  From the camera traps, to the butterfly and bird surveys, to the community outreaches, there is always something to be done here.  But all of our activities do require quite a bit of stair climbing.  Ghandruk is situated in the Himalayas, and thus is very hilly and steep, so if you want to go anywhere, you will be climbing or going down stairs.  Stairs, stairs, stairs.  And they’re not really stairs.  They are more like flat rocks conveniently placed to meet the needs of your foot.  I am the slowest of all of the volunteers.  My legs are shaky and my feet are covered in blisters and every hike up is a struggle, but I always make it.  It has been 5 days in a row now without a rest day.  Each day we ascend hundreds of meters and then descend or in the reverse order.  My body needs a break.  That’s what today is for!  Yay!  The hikes may be hard, but the payoff is wonderful.  I am constantly rewarded with dazzling views and cool naturalist activities to do. 

 

 

The view from my guesthouse each morning

 



 

My guesthouse, Namaste.

The first day of work I had entailed a hike to and up Komrong Mountain in order to extract the data from the six camera traps that are placed there.  Each camera trap is checked one week after being placed and then checked again and removed the next week.   They record in 15 second chunks whenever they detect a change in temperature or drastic movement.  They also take pictures.  So, we trekked up and up and up and finally stopped at a clearing for lunch.  Then we went up some more and with the aid of our trusty GPS, we made our way to each trap, extracted the data, and filled out the data sheet that contained things like GPS coordinates, leaf litter depth, tree circumference, ground cover, canopy cover, and grazing intensity.  The camera traps captured some barking deer, a leopard cat (the leopard markings you imagine but on a cat that is a bit larger than a house cat), and some other small mammals.  The most significant find was the leopard cat, as one hadn’t been spotted for quite some time.  And so, after checking all 6 cameras, we trekked back from the mountain to our guesthouses.

All of the conservation volunteers are housed in 2 guesthouses about 30 minutes away from each other (almost all stairs).  I am located with 7 other volunteers and one of our supervisors in the lower guesthouse called Namaste Hotel.  The other supervisor and the rest of the volunteers are at the upper guesthouse called Panorama Guesthouse or Raj Mahal (the owner—our conservation manager—owns the place and is called Raj; I appreciate the humor in this name very much).  Being placed in the lower guesthouse has its ups and downs, but overall it is absolutely amazing staying here.  The view is slightly more spectacular at Panorama, but it is still stunning down here.  And on the days we have to go up, there is more walking for us, but on the days we go down, there is more walking for the Panorama people.  The owners of the guesthouse are considered our host family (a husband and a wife).  We call them Didi (older sister) and Dai (older brother).  They are a hilarious couple probably in their 60s that is always laughing and speaking to us in Nepali as if we understand.  Didi gets hysterical quite often and is extremely entertaining.  Sometimes the Dai and Didi whom we know and love go off and travel, and we get a new Didi to give us meals and things we need like toilet paper and blankets.  But that’s okay because basically all of the Nepali people I have met have been so open and welcoming and perfect.  Whoever we have with us makes us delicious food and is always very kind.  For this, I am very thankful.

 

2 cute girls on a path at the end of one of our bird surveys.  One of the volunteers was rolling a cigarette and they were fascinated by it.

Prayer Wheels that you walk by and spin with your right hand for good luck.  Each prayer wheel (also called a prayer bell) has prayers carved into it written in Nepali.

 



Here is a little about the food we have.  My two favorite dishes are Dal Bhat and Momos.  Dal Bhat is an unlimited dish, so when you order it in most restaurants, the servers will perpetually come by with more fixings more you to add to your plate.  It’s crazy.  So you have plain white rice which you submerge in Dal (a soupy thing that is delicious) and then you have a variety of different veggie combos (some spicy, all delicious).  And you have the choice of mixing it all together or not, or eating it with cutlery or with your right hand (everything here is right hand; you even have to keep your right side closest to the Hindu monuments along the path as you walk).  Dal Bhat is very popular here and my face and the faces of my fellow volunteers always light up on Dal Bhat night!  The other hunk of deliciousness I so enjoy is the momo.  This is essentially a dumpling filled with vegetables or chicken or chicken with vegetables etc etc, but never cow (cows are holy here; they are the earthly representation of the Hindu god Kah). They are normally boiled, but when they are fried, lordy-loo, we are in hea-ven (southern belle accent).  Boy are those good.  Oh!!!  And I can’t go without mentioning (I don’t know the spelling) badis, which are these fried onion and vegetable delectable crunchy chunks of love.  Hopefully on the next post I’ll have pictures of all of these dishes.  I see them and I gobble them up before I give myself a chance to take pictures for you all. Oops

 

Okay. Back to the project. My first day, like I said, we did a habitat survey and collected data at the camera traps.  After being here for three weeks, I have only conducted 1 habitat survey and have collected the images and video from the cameras twice.  Our more common activities are bird surveys, butterfly surveys, and the community outreaches.  We have also conducted one primate survey, but we didn’t see any primates after 7 hours of trekking—that’s nature for ya!   Bird Surveys…  We have a data sheet at the ready, mark down our beginning coordinates and time, and walk along a path searching for birds in the shrubs, trees, and whatever else.  When we see a bird, we do our best to identify its species before it flies away.  We also try and get pictures for future reference, but my camera is garbage so I mainly just look through the binoculars to identify.  We always bring along our Birds of Nepal book and refer to that as we go along.  The calls we hear also help us identify the species.  Once we have identified a bird, we mark the species name down, the quantity we saw and what they were doing.  Next, when we have 10 unique species marked down on the sheet, we write down our ending coordinates, time, and begin a new data sheet.  I can now identify a ton of birds by sight and sound now.  My favorite bird is the Verditer Flycatcher, which varies from a brilliant turquoise blue to a pale baby blue.  It has a medium sized body and average sized beak.  It is absolutely beautiful and quite the frequent visitor.  Now for my favorite activity—the Butterfly Surveys.  We use the fixed points method to conduct these, meaning we pick a spot and orient ourselves around it, looking for butterflies in the surrounding area.  Boy do those things flutter quickly!  It was hard at first to get a good enough look at the little guys to be able to consult the book in order to identify the butterfly’s species.  But now, I don’t even really need the book!  I have become so familiar with many of the more common species that I can identify them almost instantaneously.  Their flight patterns are fascinating as are their breeding patterns, their spreading of pollen, feeding patterns, and, well, everything.  I have been looking at the data from the psat few months and hope to conduct an observational study of some sort on butterflies in the greater Ghandruk area in my last week here in the conservation project.  For the collection of the butterfly data (which is similar to the bird survey data), we mark down the species, the quantity we saw, what they were doing, and any extra notes.  I thoroughly enjoy chasing butterflies through fields trying to figure out what they are.  It’s great fun and I hope to continue studying lepidoptera back at home.  I will be investing in a California butterfly guidebook!  Finally we have the community outreaches, which (for as long as I have been here) have been litter pick-up around the village.  There’s not much to say about this, but people sure like to cram garbage into crevices in walls.  And, it’s nice when we walk past the locals and they say thanks or hand us some trash to put into our bags as opposed to throwing it on the ground. 

 

 

Indian Tortoiseshell butterfly.  One of the more common ones.

 

 



 

Peablue butterfly.  It is about the size of a quarter and darts around so quickly, rarely landing.  You can identify it by the small dots on each of the wings at the bottom.

 

 

The Cabbage White butterflies are by far the most common butterfly in the area we completed surveys in.  The Cabbage Whites come in two forms, the Large Cabbage White and the Indian Cabbage White.  You do not distinguish them by size though.  Sometimes the Indian Cabbage Whites are just as large as the Large Cabbage Whites so you tell the difference by the presence of dots on the bottom of the butterfly's wings.  With dots, like in this picture, is the Indian Cabbage Whites and without is the Large Cabbage White.

 

 

 

 

It's hard to see, but it's the nest of most likely a Verditer Flycatcher (my favorite bird). 

The weather…….  Don’t get me started.  It is usually clear in the morning, which makes our breakfast that much more pleasant with the dazzling view, but Mother Nature has gotten into a nasty routine recently.  Each day around 2pm it will start to drizzle, and then rain, and then pour, and then finally storm.  As I type this, I am holed up in my room under a massively thick duvet, avoiding the wetness of the outside world.  My hands are so cold, that it almost hurts to type this.  But my gloves are like 2 meters away and I can’t be bothered to get out of bed to fetch them.  This is my life now (LOL).  The sun is strong here as we are a couple thousand meters up, but I have yet to get burned.  Some have not been so lucky. It is often warm when we are trekking, with the sun blaring down on us, but it’s never too uncomfortable.  I much prefer trekking in the heat than in the slippery slidey rain. 

Oh!  Cow poop!  Yay! 

 

 

 

 

Yeah.  It’s everywhere.  Also mule poop and buffalo poop.  Poop poop turds poop.  Everywhere.

 

Stinging Nettles.  OWWWW  SO MUCH PAIN WHEN YOU TOUCH THESE.  But oddly enough they do not leave a mark.  Bullies.

You may be wondering how things are brought up to Ghandruk when the closest road is an hour’s walk outside of the village.  Well, it’s mules and manpower.  My supervisor has seen a man with a refrigerator on his back.  I have seen people with steel (I don’t really know what it is but it’s something for building) tubing on their shoulders.  I have seen people carrying other people!!!!!  The system is as such: whatever the load the person is carrying is usually placed in a basket, or something that is easily tied up.  Then, a band that goes across the forehead is attached to the basket or whatever.  The person then hoists the load up onto their back, with it dangling from their head thanks to that thick cloth band resting above his or her face.  My roommate’s luggage was carried by a small elderly woman, who had no trouble with the upward of 40 kilos on her back.  It’s insane.  Miracles.  MIRACLES I SAY.

 

I also ought to mention the bugs.  Leeches.  Not near water.  In the Himalayas.  They inch their way up onto your shoes, up your ankles, into your socks, and feast on your blood.  They have an anticoagulant in their spit, so you bleed and bleed once you pull the little turds off.  They are so annoying and we are all so paranoid.  They tend to congregate near water, but by no means are aquatic creatures.  They inch along dry ground looking for some poor innocent creature to dine on.  They are evil.  You cannot crush them.  You have to cut them into two or burn them to end their putrid lives.  Once, I pulled a very full leech off of my friend’s leg and it started puking up blood because it had eaten too much and I had apparently squeezed too hard.  Then my supervisor came and burned the living hell out of it.  It was quite the sight.  There aren’t really mosquitos here, but we do manage to get the occasional bite from the occasional bug, but it’s nothing like Peru was.  Boy were those mosquitos brutal! 

 

The scorched remains of a leech featuring the blood it threw up while my supervisor was burning it.

Two last things before I sign off.  Jinhu Hot Springs and Poon Hill!  Yup for the past two weekends, I have been busy travelling to each of these places.  The hot springs were a mere 3 hours away and were delightful.  The water was so hot.  We also saw some Grey Langur Monkeys down on the river bank by the hot springs.  I don’t have any pictures sadly, but it sure was lovely.  We were surrounded by the jungle with the river rushing by us and the birds singing and the butterflies flying by.  Only fond memories of Jinhu.  The next weekend I trekked for 9 hours to get to Ghorepani, the village at the base of Poon Hill.  On the way there, I again saw Grey Langur Monkeys and also walked through the largest rhododendron forest in the world.  It was breathtaking.  We spent the night in Ghorepani and woke up at an ungodly hour to walk up to Poon Hill to see the sunrise.  After almost 400 meters of straight up, we got to the top while it was still dark.  But, clouds!  Clouds everywhere!  Tons of trekkers joined my group and me in disappointment and solidarity at the lack of the view of the sunrise over the mountains.  It was a flop, but at least the walk there was nice.  The walk back to Ghandruk from Ghorepani was only around 7 hours as it was downhill, and it too was fun as I met some awesome people including a couple from Toronto (Hi John and Ryan!).  These weekend excursions made it so I didn’t get a break from hiking for weeks, but I have today off so I am resting.  Yay rest!  Yay sore legs.

On the way to Poon Hill featuring Buddhist prayer flags which are all over the place here.

 

 

 

Rhododendrons EVERYWHERE

 

 

Rock piles.  I'm not sure if these rock piles have some spiritual significance or are just tourists marking their territory.  Either way I liked them.

RHODODODOOEROOEEDERRONNNNS EVERYWHERE

 From the cloudy Poon Hill with my volunteer friends.

So that about sums up what things have been like here in Ghandruk for the past few weeks.  Oh!  I almost forgot!  We captured a leopard on three of our cameras, which is great news.  One hadn’t been captured since December.  Yeah, so I probably will post in Nepal one last time from Kathmandu late next week.  Sorry for the delay in this post.  I have just been so tired after work each day that I can’t muster up the energy to write.  Also, I’m learning French!  Also I’m no longer the slowest!

Also, UC Berkeley Class of 2019!!!!!!!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

Okay bye, pals. 

End of Teaching, The Inca Project, & Namaste Nepal

Blog- End of Teaching/Inca Project/Namaste Nepal

Hello all!  Lengthy absence from Anna yet again.  Last you heard from me, I was sick as a dog and trying to recuperate while still teaching my class at Colegio Chavez Chaparro.  I got well in a timely manner and am now feeling great.  Also, I’m in Kathmandu.  After flying for over 30 hours and skipping Thursday, I landed with my group in Nepal.  I have 3 main things I need to address: the conclusion of the teaching project, the Inca Project, and my arrival in Nepal.  I have pictures that correspond with only the first two items but will be producing some photos of Nepal in my next post, which will hopefully be made in two weeks as opposed to the one month that has passed between this post and the previous one.  Okay.  Let’s get this show on the road!

 

End of Teaching

Classes ended after 6 weeks of classes from Monday through Thursday for 4 hours each day.  My class was incredible throughout the entire month and a half.  They were always ready to learn and enthusiastic about my lessons and whatever else I had to say.  I am proud to say that 17 students graduated from my class with a proficient level of English, gaining their certificate of completion.  By the end of the class we had covered many topics.  The tenses they learned were present simple, present continuous, past simple, past continuous, present perfect, past perfect, and future.  The vocabulary I taught was extensive.  I think this is all that I gave them:  places, food/drink, school supplies, animals, colors, family, numbers, months, days of the week, weather, professions, parts of the body, health, emotions, and popular descriptors.  Other grammatical concepts they learned include articles, plurals, prepositions, much/many/a lot of, there is/are, forming questions, possessive adjectives, possessive pronouns, possession with an apostrophe, and more.  Needless to say, my class absorbed a lot of info in a very short amount of time and I am so happy for them. 

At graduation, each class performed something for the other graduates and teachers to enjoy at the ceremony.  My class and I wrote a song together called the Learning Song.  Each day at the end of the 4 hour block, I would whip out my ukulele and we would practice the Learning Song with my accompaniment.  The teachers I taught absolutely loved when I incorporated music into class, so it became a regular thing.  I would type up lyrics with blanks replacing some words, bring that and my uke to class, and would have them fill in the blanks as I sang the words to the song accompanied by my ukulele.  It was awesome being able to use music to keep the adults engaged and comfortable.  Anyway, at graduation be performed the song and the audience loved it.  We were the only group that 1. Sang something 100% original and 2. Didn’t use a track.  We were praised on our creativity and musical prowess (lol).  After all of the classes performed and some board of education speakers addressed the teachers who were graduating and my fellow volunteers and me, the certificates were distributed.  First, the volunteers (acting as teachers and including myself) were given our certificates.  Then we were handed the certificates of our graduating students.  We were allowed to give our own students the certificates.  Each of my 17 students had the biggest smile on their face as I gave them their long-awaited certificate.  The graduation ceremony was great, but it was also bittersweet as it meant goodbye to all of my students.  We said our goodbyes and they gave me a gift (a purse, vest, and gloves) and we went our separate ways. 

The teaching project was super fun as well as fulfilling.  As I travelled to work each morning by taxi, even when I was sick, I was happy to be doing so because I knew I was positively impacting the lives of my students.  They continuously expressed their gratitude for my efforts and care with gifts of fruit, bread, candy, cookies, and even a nice bag.  And I too expressed my gratitude for them by letting them know how easy they were making my job, singing for them, and buying them cake on our final day of class (wooo  fiesta).  I will never forget this experience and I am so thankful to have been able to teach my students.

 

 My class treated me and Alec to dinner at Chili's for Valentine's Day.

The empty classroom after I dismissed class on the last day.

 

 The door into my classroom.

 

Alameda Pachucutec (a monument to an Incan King)

 

 

 

 Baby Fatima.  My new host family had a newborn baby girl!

 Cute cat that I pet after class almost everyday.

 

 

Our graduation performance.  I have a video of the song, but I couldn't get it to upload =(

 

 

My class moment after receiving their certificates.

 

SO HAPPY AHHHHH

 

Our teaching coordinator, Andy.  A funny guy and a good leader. 

  

 

 Colegio Chavez Chaparro (the school I taught at)

 

The sign that told me I was at the right place.  Cuyeria is a shop that sells guinea pigs for food.  There was a sign like this on either side of the alleyway my second host family lived on.

Inca Project

After spending about 7 weeks in Cusco, we travelled 5 hours by bus to Huyro, a small town (pueblo) located in the valley.  There, my group would be partaking in the Inca Project, an archaeological project that also works with the community.  I absolutely adored this project.  We were only scheduled for being there for a week and a half, but I loved it so much that I stayed an extra week with another glap called Patrick.  We decided to miss out on the 4 day walk of the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu to stay in Huyro longer.  We still went to Machu Picchu and got to hike a bit, we just abstained from the 4 day long trek in order to get more volunteering time.  We stayed in a place called El Establo meaning The Stable.  It was a stable but was converted into a house for Projects Abroad volunteers that are part of the Inca Project.  The staff there are mostly Peruvian with the exception of the ever-so-perfect Dan O’Shea.  An Irishman married to a Peruvian woman, Dan is pierced and tattooed and an amazing leader.  I also met the Peruvian archaeologist, Jhon, at Establo.  Both are hilarious and very good at their jobs.  Their combined knowledge on the Incan sites we visited was astounding.  I’m running out of battery on my laptop so this is going to have to go faster.  Okay.  There was a schedule we followed at Establo.  It went like this.

Monday- Archaeology activity (looking for sites or clearing a site)

Tuesday- Archaeology activity

Wednesday- Clean the house and visit the local library set up by the Inca Project

Thursday- Clear the drainage ditches and work on the corn harvest (bringing it in, shucking, or degraining)

Friday-Sunday- we have off to hang around Huyro, go to Machu Picchu, or go back to Cusco.

The work was so fun.  It was very hands on and tiring, but well worth it.  I really miss it at Establo. 

 

Me and Dan

 

 

 

A  llama living at Machu Picchu

 

Selfie with a llama

 

Me and another volunteer at Machu Picchu

 

 

 Me and Jhon after the bus broke

 

 

Sharpening a Machete

 

 After a long day in the drainage ditches with Patrick

 

 So many bug bites!!  (20 minutes playing soccer without leg repellant was a mistake)

 

A site found by a roadworker who was looking for a shortcut to the road.

 

Fell while hiking. Oops

 

Cute older couple walking to Aguas Calientes (Machu PIcchu village)

 

 The little girl I played with at the library.  I taught her this.  Super useful in life.



 The desks and paintings at the library



Dan dressed in festival garb for quiz night.  My team won!!

 

 Our machetes.

 

A site we were going to clear (BEFORE)

The site after 4 hours of hacking with machetes (AFTER)

 

 The market in Huyro

 

Another site we cleared.

 

 Bella- The little girl who lives at Establo and loves to play

 

The pile of garbage they burn at Establo.  There is no other way =(

Namaste Nepal

I am in Nepal and have had wifi for the first time in almost a month.  This means blog post.  I’m sorry for my absence.  I flew into Kathmandu yesterday in the afternoon after over 48 hours of travelling.  Kathmandu is bustling and energetic, but I will be glad to leave tomorrow morning for the conservation project.  This is located in the Annapurna mountain range, which is home to the 10^th highest mountain in the world.  I may or may not be somewhere on that mountain tomorrow.  I do not have much information.  I also do not know much about the conservation project, but I know it will be absolutely stunning, will require a lot of hiking, and will be very hands on like it was at Establo.  I am so excited to be in the mountains.  It should be really fun!

 

I’ll write again in Ghandruk, which I believe is where I’ll be staying.  I also believe there will be wifi there.  Anyway, thanks for being patient with me.  I love you guys!  See you all in 2 months!!!!!  WOOOO

 

Sick in Cusco

Here is a poem about what has been going on with me in Cusco.

Anna better put on another coat,

Cuz she’s got strep throat.

Not only does she have to fight this,

But also tonsillitis.

But wait there’s more

Because before

She first went to the doctor

Her eyes were sore

Anna heaved a heavy sigh

Cuz somewhere somehow she contracted pink eye

Okay is how she feels

As she lies in bed and heals        

 

YUP YUP YUP My throat is trying to kill me.  After having a cold for perhaps over a month or two, my body has decided to revolt in the form of more illnesses!!  Yippee!

I have been to the same clinic twice now in 4 days. 

 

The first visit occurred mainly because I obviously had pink eye.  For two days, the whites of eyes had been pinky-red and that morning when I woke up, they were glued shut with pretty little crusties.  I was taken to the clinic by Elizabeth, who is one of my supervisors for the teaching project.  I told her about my eyes and about my cold and everything else that is wrong with me.  She advised me to tell the doctor everything, but I only wanted to be treated for my eyes.  Alas, I ended up obeying and telling the doctor about the cold that had been going on for quite some time in addition to explaining my eyes.  He prescribed me something for my throat (which hadn’t been bothering me that much) and for my stomach (which hadn’t been bothering me that much) and for eyes (the real problem).  He looked at my throat and asked me a ton of questions in Spanish and finally examined me while I laid down chillaxing on one of those doctor table bed things with the paper on it. 

 Hyperbaric Chamber!

 Table with medical things!

 

Me in a classy outfit about to be examined by a Peruvian doctor man.

I thought it was all a bit excessive, as I can handle a lingering cold.  I just wanted my eyes to no longer be contaminated by feces.  I paid and left with Elizabeth to find a cheaper pharmacy (there is one at the clinic but the prices are a bit steep). 

DETOUR-  Patrick, a fellow global glapper, arrived in Cusco that morning or the night before. I forgot.  Anyway, Elizabeth needed to pay a visit to him to explain how he would fit into the teaching project since it had already started (sidenote- Patrick arrived so late because he got very sick in South Africa.  What the doctors originally thought was tuberculosis turned out to be a nasty staph infection in his neck.  He is better now and has a fun scar on his neck from a drainage surgery.  TMI? I hope so. C:<  )  We were at Patrick’s house for probably 20 minutes and then moved on.  Patrick joined us on the rest of our errands.  In addition to picking up my medicine from a pharmacy, I needed to go to Western Union to pick up some money that my Mom had wired me (this is how I get my money as my debit card mysteriously disappeared—it was either misplaced or stolen, but I cancelled it before any damage was done).  To get money from Western Union, you need your passport, which I had not brought because I thought it was just going to be a normal day of class and lesson prep.  Instead, the day held a medical adventure, a reunion with my buddy Patrick, a trip to my house, a trip to Western Union, a trip to a pharmacy, and finally lesson prep.  Dang.  Busy morning that was. When we stopped by my house, Elizabeth and Patrick went inside and met up with my family.  It turns out Elizabeth’s husband is great friends with Ayul (my host dad).  So they had a mini reunion while I introduced Patrick.  My host family brought us juice and water and we chatted for a couple minutes.  Then, it was time to get back to business.

With my passport in its pouch around my neck, we walked up Avenida del Sol all the way to Plaza de Armas (about a 20 minute walk). The Western Union I go to is located in the plaza across from the fountain, opposite one of the churches.  I picked up my money and then the three of us walked to the Inka Farma, which is on Avenida del Sol, one block away from Plaza de Armas.  There I purchased my medication (a thing of eye drops and two different types of pills) and Q-Tips!  Woohoo!  Patrick bought soap! Wow! Fascinating!  Elizabeth then went with Patrick back to his house and I walked back home packing cash, medication, AND Q-Tips. 

Blah blah blah normal day of lesson prep. 

Here is where things get interesting.  The medication made me so much worse!  I felt dizzy, shaky, and weak, and my throat began to hurt.  My eyes, on the other hand, were pretty much as good as new after a couple days.  After a few days of taking the medication the doctored prescribed to me for my throat and stomach, that I didn’t really need, I stopped.  It was ridiculous.  I knew it was a bad idea from the start, and that I should have only taken the prescription for my eyes.  It would have saved me money and a lot of trouble.

Days pass in which I take my prescribed pills and eye drops, and then I plummet.  Barely able to put on pants, unable to swallow with ease, I will myself upstairs to my host family.  This was last night.  It had been rough for a couple days, but last night it got really bad.  I waited for them to come home and when they arrived, I forced down what little food and water I could bare to swallow.  I choked down some ibuprofen and then went back downstairs to my room.  Sleeping is not easy.  Today I woke up and the dizziness had subsided, but my throat was still in bad shape.  So my host family helped me find someone from Projects Abroad to take me to the clinic.  I would have called Hugo, but it’s his birthday!  I didn’t want to bother him.  After a few hours, Jessica, a Projects Abroad Peruvian arrived at the apartment complex with her daughter to take me to the clinic. Again.

I went into a different room this time.  This one was about the same size as the first one, but seemed to have more medical equipment.  There was no hyperbaric chamber, but there were two places for patients to recline, a suction machine (scary), and a lot more stuff I couldn’t identify.  Also, cabinets filled with medical thingies.  The room from the first visit was barren in comparison. 

 

Today, my visit was pretty pleasant.  The doctor was a nice lady who was accompanied by two other nice ladies, who I can safely assume are nurses.  The doctor reached for the tongue compressor.  I HATE THOSE THINGS.  So in my Spanish, I asked her if we could just try it without the compressor. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and stuck my tongue out. She took one look in there and said “WOW VENGA” (pretty much translating to “holy sh*t come look at this sh*t”).  Yup.  That was a tad worrying.  Then she explained that my throat was really red and inflamed.  I asked her what I had and we tried to bridge the language gap and we finally got on the same page.  I have tonsillitis and strep throat.  We think.  In the states, they would have taken a culture of my tonsils and waited for the results or something, but here it is perhaps more practical in that you get treated quickly and efficiently.  Then again, I did get screwed over in my first visit to the clinic.  Anyway, we talked about how I would get treated.  She could see how much pain I was in every time I swallowed, so she wanted to give me a penicillin shot. 

Where, Anna? Where was the shot?

IN THE TOCKS.  IN THE BUTTOCKS.  ZE TOCKSSSSSS

Yup. I went over to this table, laid on my belly, and allowed one of the ladies (I don’t even know which one) to stick a needle in the meat of my caboose.  It took like 20 seconds. Pretty great!  I take it back.  It was not pretty great.  It was pretty uncomfortable.  Pretty uncomfortable!

The main doctor woman wrote down my prescriptions (one for ibuprofen and another for an antibiotic) and we took this fantastic picture. 

 

I said bye and went to pay.  Next it was time again to find a cheaper pharmacy than the one in the clinic.  We walked down Avenida de la Cultura and found the pharmacy where I paid like 3 dollars for my medicine.  The medicine from the first visit at the clinic was around 30 dollars I think.  And it only made things worse.  Then we ventured (me, Jessica, and her 2 year old daughter) to a market because I needed to buy snacks for my room.  First market was a disappointment, but the second was fruitful! And merry!  I bought 3 boxes of cereal (because granola bars aren’t a thing here), 12 juice boxes, tissues, and 2 liters of water.  Finally it was time to go hooome.  I said by to Jessica and her little girl and took a taxi to my apartment.  YAY.  Home.  That’s where I am right now. 

My butt is sore.  It feels like a UFC fighter jabbed my left bum cheek.  Maybe that’s what penicillin does.  Who knows?  Oh wait.  Everybody knows that that’s not how it works.  Awkward.

 

Anyway.  My throat still hurts a lot, but I am passing the time resting in bed, writing songs, and writing this blog post.  Oh!  And I’m drinking lukewarm tea.  That is pleasant.

Okay.  Until next time.  I miss you all.

 

To close, here is a picture of me with a pig.  We became acquainted as I was walking home from lesson prep.  A cab driver saw me taking the selfie with the pig and I told him I just wanted a picture with my boyfriend.  Okay bye for reals.