amoebas

So, I'm down in touristland-- Antigua-- and it's amazing how much more I appreciate it now than at the beginning of the trip. The toilets flush! (during the daytime when there's water pressure.) There are sinks with soap and sometimes even paper towels! The cheap hotel I'm staying in (thanks, Peace Corps people) is clean enough that I could go barefoot!

But, in keeping with my earlier Antigua experience, something has gone horribly wrong, and that something was a falafel. Jim and Emily didn't get sick from it at all- it came with lettuce, tomatoes, and cucumbers, which I normally would eschew, but they make up at least half of the falafel experience AND the store had a water filter on the tap (and was run by a British guy.) So I ate it. Cue two days of lying around in bed because in a horizontal position is the only time my stomach doesn't hurt.

Antibiotics are doing nothing, so it's probably amoebas (a parasite common to here). But it's Sunday, so no medical attention. I bought a get-well kit of Coke, Gatorade, water, white rice, some packets that are supposed to "restore your intestinal flora," and (on the recommendation of the girl at the hotel), a packet of chicken noodle soup powder. It's supposed to restore the salt you've lost. Improbably, the chicken noodle soup seems to have done the most good of everything, enabling me to venture out to a nearby youth hostel and see Vicky Cristina Barcelona.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I really didn't have particular goals to accomplish in Antigua because I've been here before and was only coming back to get some books from a Linguistics organization in a nearby suburb. But, the contact person's phone has been turned off for two days (straight to voicemail), and he hasn't returned my email, so it looks like the books are going to stay here (maybe Ryan can get them in the fall.)

The moral of the story? No matter how clean someplace seems, do not eat raw vegetables in 3rd world countries.