Danger Zone

Since getting back to the Villa from San Juan del Sur things have been less than exiting. Well, a better way to put that is things have been slow. The only things that have been on the agenda, outside of football sala everyday at 4pm, has been to continue to hand out business surveys, and start to write three in-depth reports due today. I’m telling you, real fun stuff, it’s like I’m back in college! Unfortunately, it’s not the part of college that I so fondly remember. It’s quite the opposite. These past couple of days reminded me of staying up until 3-4am writing papers, or jamming last minute for a big test. But instead of a paper on the arbitrage of international exchange rates, corporate social responsibility, or the decline of Stalin, I’m writing about the business environment of Villa el Carmen, a Community Analysis Report, and my bi-annual report that gets sent to Washington. Like I said, really fun stuff. While it meant going to Managua for the day to take advantage of the free internet, I’m happy to say that those three reports are now behind me.

            I guess one “exciting” event happened this past week, although exiting may not be the best word. Scary would be better, and that’s probably how my mother would describe it. While returning home from Managua after an afternoon filled with extra language lessons, I was hit suddenly with a bad stomach bug, literally seconds before I was about to step on an hour and a half long bus ride. It was so intense, that I thought about walking to a corner of the market to go puke and get it out of my system. But I thought to myself, “Sack up, you’ll be fine,” and stepped onto a very, very crowded bus. We’re talking three to a bench, and the people in the aisle are packed as tight as sardines, which caused the bus to be about 10 degrees hotter on the inside. I believe this had a catalyst effect for my sickness, as all of a sudden, about 15 minutes into the ride, things started to get weird. And not the fun kind of weird. Suddenly, the urge to vomit becomes intense, and all I can do is focus on breathing steadily, and position myself in a way, where I could jump over the people sitting down in front of me (I’m one of the sardines in the aisle) to puke out of the window if need be. So my body is all tensed up, knees locked, and arms braced against the ceiling railing, and in a matter of seconds my head is spinning. For the first time since being in Nicaragua, I’m a little scared about what is going on around me. The sensation to faint is starting to creep up my spine – a sensation I’ve never experienced before – and for whatever reason I’m having trouble controlling my hands, and slightly lost feeling in them. My fingers, against my will are curling into a fist, and I need to exert a lot of effort to open them all the way to take money from my wallet to pay for my fare. In retrospect, I think that tensing up my body prevented the blood from flowing properly, but who knows, I’m ain’t no doctor (or a botanist, right Nate?). Pretty terrifying situation, made worse by the truth that I will be stuck inside this bus for another hour or so until arriving back home. Had it not been for a kind Nica that noticed something was wrong and offered me his seat, I’m not sure what would of happen. Once seated, I had better control of things, and things slightly improved. What was the strangest part about the whole episode, is that I woke up the next morning, and minus not wanting to eat anything, I felt completely fine. No head ache, no stomach pain, no fainting sensation. As mysteriously and quickly as it came it left, and I will forever be in the dark as to why it happened. I suspect a store bought donut that I ate, simply because my body has been so unused to that sort of food after so long.

            But now that that episode and my reports are said and done, I have nothing but fun to look forward too. Tomorrow marks the start of a two week vacation, where not one, not two, but six friends are coming down for a two weeks of surfing, exploring, and I’m sure shenanigans. Probably lots of shenanigans. And covering for my amigos since they speak little to no Spanish. I mean it when I say, It’s gonna be fun.