Bed, Bugs, & Beyond

The past two weeks got off to a bit of a rocky start. Sound familiar? Yeah, I know, I opened with the same line last time--not the best practice in writing. But how can I claim the last two weeks have gone smoothly with a title like that?!  It all started with the return of my sore throat. Apparently, the first antibiotics didn’t do as good of a job as I thought. I ended up dealing with it for about week before I started to get a little concerned. I ended up going to see the doctor on my day off and was prescribed a shot of penicillin--another antibiotic.   Shots are given just slightly differently in Bolivia compared to the U.S.  First of all, I was sent across the street to the pharmacy for the shot as opposed to receiving it in the doctor’s office.  Of course, like most of the stores in Rurrenabaque, the pharmacy didn’t have a door or even a storefront to enter--I just walked right up to the counter.  A second major difference in how shots are given here is the location.

The past two weeks got off to a bit of a rocky start.   I caught some kind of strep throat/cold that has been making its way around campus and was stuck in bed with the worst sore throat I’ve probably ever experienced.  Thankfully, I wasn’t the first one to catch it, so as soon as I started feeling the symptoms, I went to the nurse and got some antibiotics that nipped it in the bud.  I felt pretty miserable for a couple of days, but I think I fared pretty well compared to some of the others who got the same thing. Unfortunately, I was still feeling pretty crummy when my day off rolled around, but I felt as though I didn’t really have the option to not go into town.  Without any WiFi on campus, I was really hoping to find a cafe where I could connect to the internet on my laptop and post the first entry to my blog (see above).  Additionally, I was hoping to troubleshoot my Microsoft Word and Excel programs that had stopped working, and needed internet in case they needed t