Fevers, Apples, and...Home

Home now…not quite sure what to think of all this but the hot showers, apples, Starbucks, and clean feeling are just pretty sweet. Seeing my beloved peeps is pretty awesome too. So far most of my activities have included moping around the house as I was sick last week. I spent the week before that in Kansas City attending a class for international public health. It was a good way to reenter this American world by putting the focus back onto international health and being with other people interested in health issues in the third world. It was all awesome (including doing our first load of laundry in the washing machine, the Kansas City BBQ, and the carton of ice cream we hid in our mini freezer all week!), except for the fact that I was starting to feel pretty sick; fevers, body aches, fatigue. I don't think it was exhaustion from four months of steady work...I think it WAS a bizarre tropical disease. A few nights I woke up drenched with sweat. I was like, oh no... I DO have TB!!! (This is my secret fear most of the time in Haiti, but it's actually not so secret because in reality I’m just a very vocal hypochondriac). By the time I landed in Seattle, I was still having body aches and just so so tired. Then the next day my whole body broke out in a red blotchy rash! I called Sara up (a little freaked) and she said she had the same thing!! How crazy is that? Anyway, although we don’t have an official diagnosis, we settled on the fact that we probably had a little dose of Dengue Fever. Just a little Haiti I brought home in my pocket.

But now I'm feeling better. Just bored some days, just so tired other days, and other days enjoying sitting in my house in this Northwest when the sun decides to make a rare appearance and makes us all believe that yes, maybe summer is really coming. But I've had summer for four months…um extreme summer, so hanging out in pants and hooded sweatshirts isn't all that bad. At least my extremities haven't gone numb yet....

As far as news from Passe Catabois, I haven’t heard much yet, but know that Dr. Michael and Esther were able to take a small vacation with their family in the Caribbean for a few weeks. Dustin and Annelies (and Rob of course) are still holding down the fort (their blog is www.haititrip.org if you want to keep up with them). And that perhaps Anne-Marie is on her way back to Haiti soon. I am missing them all as well as my Haitian friends, as the relationships we have there are the most golden things about being in Haiti.