No More Beans Please!

Let me start out by saying I am a bean lover. However, this love apparently has consequences...

At one time or another in you life, you have experienced sickness. Whether it be a cold or flu, or something more serious, it is never enjoyable. In a developing country, there are many things that you have to watch out for, especially food wise. Most of our ‘foreign stomachs’ are not used to handling mass quantities of… well beans for example. Also, water unless treated and bottled, is never safe to use, and many parasitical issues can develop. Certain meats are never a good idea. The most common place people go to buy meat are the markets, which after walking through and seeing for my own eyes makes me never want to consume meat here again. Uncooked cut meats are simply thrown out on a wooden table, sitting out in the sun for days until they are purchased with flies and other insects free to climb all over as they please. This is then purchased by our home stay families, cooked and presented to us unsuspecting travelers por la cena (dinner).

Currently I am on day number 4 of being sick, i.e spending the better portion of my days on the can. As fun as I know this must sound to all of you, I assure you it makes for an insanely complicated situation down here. First of all, I believe something needs to be explained. Several things taken for granted back home, are not commonly available or supplied. In this particular case, the item would be toilet paper. Yes, its true, if you want toilet paper, you better buy and carry around your own. Restaurants, homes, & stores all do not supply it for you. Most people right now in home stays have found that their families have actually hid the t.p from them! It is a rare and beautiful occasion when you go out to eat, and find a spot that actually provides this seemingly simple necessity. This happened to my friend Julie and I a few nights ago. Both of us were in need of the bathroom on a pretty frequent basis, and decided to try out a local café called The Bagel Barn for dinner. To our pleasant surprise upon entering the bathroom, there it was in all it’s radiance, toilet paper. We stayed there for the better portion of our night.

There is however a little fault with toilet paper here. The drainage systems here are ancient, and were not made to handle paper being flushed through. So instead, it is disposed in the garbage bin (which they do provide). You might be asking, so what’s wrong with that? I didn’t think this would be a problem either. First, it is hard to train yourself to place it in the garbage after years flushing. If this happens, you MUST pick it out. But don’t worry, it only took me about 3 times before I realized I didn’t like that too much (“Hurt didn’t it? Don’t do that again!” ha ha). Secondly, “dirty toilet paper sitting in a trashcan” is not the kind of fragrance I would choose for a car air freshener. It is disgusting. Enough said.

Before coming here we had a whole class dedicated to sickness, what not to eat, and “what do I do if I get diarrhea?” All I can remember from this lesson is BRAT. Bananas Rice Applesauce and Toast. These are ‘natural pepto-bismo’, or ‘pluggers’ as a few of us have begun to fondly call them. Only thing to be care of is that you don’t plug too much otherwise you’ll end up with the opposite problem which is probably even more dangerous.

Well my bowel clock is telling me it’s time to go, but I hope you all enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it : ) adios por ahora!

Oh and I finally got a picture of the widow- maker in my house...