Fungus Face

“Injection?” asks Kalli, pointing to her shoulder.
“No,” replies the doctor, extending her index finger towards her posterior “Inyección.”

Kalli and I laugh, me noticably harder. It won’t be me dropping my pants for the next 4 days for a penicillin injection. Poor Kalli. Oh, but now it is my turn to learn why I’ve had to see my new surroundings out of just my right eye for the last few days. I describe my syptoms and the doctor takes a look. I walk out with an arsenal of eye drops only to return a few days later with a mystery rash on my face, neck, and hands.

Again a flashight inspection. We discuss itching. I am diagnosed with something that starts with an m and ends with many syllabols. I make a confused face and turn my head slightly. The doctor says it is “un hongo.” I am given a $10 tube of anti-fungal cream and cotton candy-colored pills. My fellow trainees now refer to me in jest as fungus face or just hongo for short. The cream is amazing because it dries the rash up in about 2 days, but each day a new crop of the fungus rash keeps popping up. I’m not sure if that’s okay, but I have lots of cream left still, so I am thinking it will soon get it under control.

My host family is a trip, and there are always good smells coming from the kitchen. Unlike many of my fellow trainees, fruits, vegetables, and non-fried foods grace my plate daily. I accompanied my host mom to pick papaya and mango from the trees in my grandma’s yard a few days ago, and the mangos are now ripe. And wonderful.

A couple nights ago the kitchen was a different story. I went to get some water from the refrigerator because I was dehydrated because I sweat about 1 liter of water daily (only a slight exageration), and when I did a 4 inch long grasshopper jumped off of the fridge onto my skirt. I shamefully shrieked like a little girl. My nephew came running to check it out and was followed by my host mom. Upon inspection of the grasshopper my host mom grabbed the insect and toasted it in her fingers over the stove burner until it browned. Then she tossed it onto the porch “for the chickens.”

Showers are a treat here. My host mom and Spanish teacher were mortified when I told them that I only showered every other day in Ohio. They recommended that I shower 3-4 times per DAY here. My face must have conveyed my thoughts before any words left my mouth, and they assured me that theirs was the hygiene that I should adopt. Despite their teachings I have only upped my shower frequency to once daily (twice only in extreme cases). I am still mastering the skills needed for a bucket shower and getting over my weariness of bathing in a latrine. I think I smell like poo when I finish my bucket shower, but atleast I am refreshed and lightly less smelly.

Tech classes are amazing. I got shifted to the Sustainable Agricultural Systems (SAS) trainging group from the conservation group. Apparently their was a bit of a mix up, but I am happy with the results. The switch means more manual labor in rural agrarian-based communities. And some amazing trainers teaching lots of hands-on organic production techniques. The training is intense, but good. One of the trainers is an organic chicken farmer here, but he seems to have his hand in everything agriculture. Language classes are decent, but I feel like I get more out of hanging out with my host family and neighbors. We are the 5th (I think) training group to be hosted in this small community (pop. 1500-2000) an hour from Panama City. I have asked a few people here what they think about having 30+ gringos living here. Their responses vary from feeling honored because Peace Corps selected them to share their cutlure, food, etc. to humored because gringos say funny things are have strange habits to frustrated (mostly children) because some kids give up their rooms for the gringos living with them. I feel very welcomed, and I am obviously very entertained.

Monday is my host nephew’s birthday, and I am off to the super to buy ingredients for a cake (my host family has a working oven… amazing!).

Hasta pronto!

Packing

So I am finally getting down to the nitty gritty of packing and hopefully making my final shopping list (vacuum seal bags, hair ties, and a nalgene with a small mouth (I am spill prone)). I stuffed my pack full last night. It held most of my stuff and only weighed 35 pounds, so the bag of Reese's cups that I was on the fence about will be making the trip. mmm, yea!

Yesterday was my parent's 30th wedding anniversary, and as always they had no plans, so I opted to take a break from packing and stalking facebook to make them dinner: grilled Winner's marinated pork chops, baked potatoes, and asparagus. Prep was going well until I was interrupted by a UPS guy with a box for me. Funny, I thought, I didn't order anything from a Pro... what does that say?... Proflowers. So on that thought, I ripped open the package and found out that two dozen roses really weren't sent to me by mistake (wow!). But in my utter haste of trimming the stems I also trimmed off a chunk of my left index finger, which started dripping blood. I wrapped that up and went out to light the grill.

Of course the grill is a bit ghetto and really an accident waiting to happen. And so it did happen (the accident). The grill went boom, the dog went bark, Janell's hair went poof, and Janell's hand went sizzle. At least the grill lit though. So I re-cut my hair (so much for the $40 splurge cut I got on Saturday) and put my white blistered flesh (2nd degree burn according to Becky (which means according to webMD)) in cool water until the burning sensation subsided enough to wrap the taters in foil and defrost the chops. Dinner went well enough. I soaked my right hand in large, water-filled yogurt container and ate with the four good fingers on my left hand. Mom and Dad said it was good. Dad especially liked the asparagus. Sigh.

Goodbyes

I only have 9 more days until departure, and things are beginning to feel 'final'. The goodbyes started last weekend at a friend's wedding. Today was my last day of work (more goodbyes). Tonight was my last night in Columbus, and despite the low-key plan (thrifting and dinner with a friend), I found myself victim to my first surprise party, a despedida. Even complete with cake. In fact, it was chocolate one with 'We'll miss you Janell' written in frosting. Luckily, there was no singing, but I still got teary-eyed. It is hard to leave such great friends.

I apologize for such a depressing first entry. I'll do better in the future. Goodbyes are just hard.