My health

Thought you'd like to know that I'm now realtively healthy. The respiratory stuff is over...thank you God. I'd think I'd loose some weight if you'd consider how much my daily activity has sky-rocketed by me walking to and from school and anywhere else I want to go. But I don't know that'll happen due to the high amount of carbs that we're fed...rice, beans, tortillas, etc.

Unfortunately, it seems that several of us in the house have gotten eaten alive recently. Ginny and Kevin were eaten badly last week, but improved greatly when they had to go out of town Thurs-Sun. It was particularly bad on the top of their feet. The day after they left, I started to have the same sort of bites on my feet, and it quickly spread just as theirs had. Last Wed I had 9 new bites on my right shin alone that happened sometime between supper and bedtime. I looked my bed over thoroughly, under the sheets, under the mattress, in the seams of my clothes (for lice) etc. The sheets are changed weekly by the housemom. It doesn't look like a mosquito bite at all, it's much smaller, and much more itchy, and I'm not aware of when I'm being bitten. The good news is that today I'm much better and I've had over 24hr without any new bites. And if I can keep my hands off my current bites, then I pray this will all go away. The bad news it that Ginny and Kevin have started to get bites again on their feet and a few other places. I pray that this insantity stops, and that they get over their bites quickly and that it doesn't start again with me.

For every time I've ever been on a medical team and I told a person diagnosed with lice that they had to wash everything they had in very hot water (bed linens, clothes, towels)...I am sincerely sorry. Not that the information was wrong...but I sure do have empathy for their process. I don't know that I had lice...I kind of doubt it. But when I was considering it as a possibility, it occured to me that my ability to wash anything in remotely hot water was a near impossibility. I am currently washing my clothes by hand in order to save money. But I have looked into local laundry places, and have found that not one single place has hot water. We don't have hot water (or screens on our windows) in our house either. We just have the "widow maker" (I mentioned in a previous blog) on our shower to make it warm. There are no large pots on our house, and I can't even imagine trying to put 2 or 3 t-shirts into a put to boil for 10 min, then wait for it to cool off so I can touch it and hang it out, and then repeating the process for all of my clothes. My jeans would consume just one pot. So, my empathy has sincerely deepened.

On a lighter note...I've found a special at the local store. You can buy the following combination: a can of Raid bug spray taped to a bottle of fabric softeneer. Let me say it again, TIG. This is Guatemala.