February 10th, 2011
I’m writing this blog the day after, too, again. Sorry!
Yesterday (the date of this blog) we helped clear some land for a kids playground. This isn’t the land we had earlier been clearing. There were two fallen palm trees on this land and a huge chainsaw had been brought out to cut them into two-foot sections. Once a section had been cut, we rolled it to the perimeter and stood it on end. Doing this, we made a perimeter for the playground and they doubled as big round chairs too. They were probably a couple hundred pounds each, so that was the workout for the day.
Not too much happened the rest of the day. In fact, due to a festering skin infection that’s been developing over the past week, I decided to take it easy for the rest of the day and nurse my wounds. This is the same skin infection that I first got in Haiti. I got a milder case the first month in Africa, and this is now the mildest case yet, as far as spreading is concerned. But as far as degree is concered, this is the worst it’s been. In Haiti I had it a lot of places but not bad. Now I have it in just a few places, but where it is it’s worse. In Haiti a good course of Cipro took care of it. In Africa it went away on it’s own, and had expected this to go away on it’s own again this time, which why it probably is the way it is.
Ok ok, since you’re dying to know what it looks like I’ll tell you. It looks like a bad case of poison ivy (but it’s not). It starts with little yellow pustules, like zits, forming on the skin. Then they pop and pus comes out. Then when there’s a lot in one area the whole thing just oozes yellow pus. It frequently drips down my leg (the bad part is just under my knee). It sounds nasty and it is, but it doesn’t really itch unless it gets dry. (Dad, remember that time I had poison ivy real bad just before starting college? It’s a lot like that, only not on half my body.)
Anyways, I’ve got two kinds of antibotic cream to put on it, and if it’s not better by Monday then my team has coerced me to go to the clinic. Until then I’m somewhat house-bound, just so I can keep it clean.
February 11th, 2011
Woke up, had a great pancake breakfast, then went off to Tamaraw beach for internet. While there I enjoyed a brief conversation with a Frenchman named Francis. He’ll be here for 6 weeks so I hope to run into him again. (What the heck do people do here for six weeks anyways?)
Went back for lunch and just vegged out for most of the day (Fridays are our “days off”). Oh yeah, I had to nurse my infection all day again. Not getting any better, or worse? Atay Marina and Judith, two women of the family we’re staying with, offered to clean my wounds with and herbal remedy tonight. They boil guava leaves then scour the wound with them and pour the guava-tinged water over it (but not when it’s still boiling, of course). It felt amazing! But then I dried it off and put on anti-biotic cream.
Oh, I did do pushups today, finally. Four hundred pushups I did! We’ll see if I can move my arms when I wake up.
Goodnight, world.
