Caminata

Yesterday, despite my ever-present coughing and congestion, I went on a 4-hour hike with some members of my youth group. The main object of this hike was to visit the Chorreron, a waterfall in my community, and see all the damage done to the river by Hurricane Ida. After that, we went to a sort-of swimming pool. It's really a group of cement basins people can swim in.

The hike might have not taken so long had I not stopped so often to take pictures. And here they are (well, some of them...)The waterfall. If you look really hard, you can see mini-youth standing on top...A landslide...but not the worst one!
Yikes.
A prettier view.

In other news, I heard Sleigh Ride on the radio this morning -- yes, in El Salvador -- despite the fact that I spent a bit of yesterday's hike trying to explain snow. It's harder than you think!

So excited to come home in TWO DAYS!

Paz y amor.

Guess I didn't knock hard enough...

My first seven months of Peace Corps service were marked by constant illness. But since June, I had not had any medical problems, a fact I would reflect on with relief. Other volunteers were getting sick and I would continue living the healthy life. "I haven't been sick since June," I would tell people, smiling in disbelief and knocking on wood.

So I got back from the English teacher training we had at Lago Coatepeque, a beautiful lake in the crater of a volcano, ready to spend a full nine days in a row in my site (which I had definitely not been able to do since the beginning of November) and what happens? I wake up Saturday morning with a headache, diziness, nasal congestion and a fever of 100.5, a fever that continued unabated until yesterday.


Needless to say, Peace Corps had me come into the capital yesterday to get poked and prodded in a lab so they could figure out what was up. "We don't know what it is, but something's wrong," was their conclusion. Then I started feeling better yesterday, the fever went away and they concluded it was a virus of some sort. So now I head home, hopefully not to leave until I fly to the States Sunday, after which I hope to see as many of you gringos as possible!

Megan and her school's English teacher Jairo wading into the lake

Our bonfire

Paz, amor y nos vemos pronto!