odio los arañas

Those who know me well know i hate spiders. Now even more.

My friend was bitten by a poisonous one last week and it has been quite time watching this thing progress. We went to the doctor 5 days ago and he was prescribed corticosteroids and antiinflammatories, and I gave him his injections as needed, glad I was available and hoping that would be the end of it. No such luck for him, as within only a couple days I knew we were looking at a bad infection. However, he is so stubborn - ¡El Valiente! - he would not return to the doctor again until that thing was causing him unbearable pain and once he agreed to go, it ruptured just prior to our departure and poor guy had to endure my hot compresses and draining it in order to calm it down enough for us to take the 25 minute walk to hospital. Off we went to hospital yesterday, and now he has got a bunch more shots which I will administer each evening for him, in addition to draining the abscess daily and general nursing him as he really is in pain. Poor guy.

What a place Mexico is. When you are given your prescription and if it includes shots, you are not given the injections in the office. You pick it all up at the pharmacy, and you could choose to go to a hospital to have them given, but - a few hundred pesos for someone to give a shot when here I am, an RN, so of course every ill student has come to me. I have not minded, I am glad to give my 2 cents and help out as well, and have been pleased to see my friends go to the doctor when I have suggested. Two folks had respiratory infections, another two with gastritis, and now this spider bite. As a result, I have administered 8 injections of steroids and antibiotics in only the last week, and had another 2 episodes with needles as I worked on lancing an infected mass on a fellow student. Wow, not what I expected to be doing here..... but no complaints.

I feel my spanish getting better though I still struggle with verb tenses. Today in class my maestra corrected me, saying no, use the subjunctive! I drew a blank, and really couldnt come up with the right way to say what I meant. Arrgh. I can keep a conversation, but I need a few more months here to get it. This small town is so enchanting, I never go a day without running into people I know from various places, and always feel at home.

Speaking of, I am finding it harder to consider not staying here. I will come home to wrap up some things and then return. I talked with the headmaster of the language school today. It is either return here or travel elsewhere, as long as I am immersed in this culture which I love. It is probably good to take the time to do this now before really finishing school and having the hard reality of not being a student anymore.

Though it would be weird to leave here in a week (aha! I added a week!) and then return without my guy being here, we leave on the same day. Can one make a best friend in only a month? I think we did. So anyway, it might be better to return to a different city in Mexico at first so I dont feel the emptiness that would be there without my constant companion. Oxaca is sounding pretty good...... Options abound.....

Another student is leaving today, I will miss him. How odd to become so close with people and then they leave your life. Tonight is a goodbye party for him.... So off I go. More later!