Day 8: Monday

Today I woke up feeling sick. I sort of felt sick when I went to bed last night, but I thought it was just because of a long day. I was wrong. I got ready for class anyways and ate breakfast. We had toast and cheese, but I only ate one piece of toast and decided no more. My stomach was really upset and my head hurt. Dana convinced me to stay home for the morning because there was no way I was going to get any better at the school. So I went back to bed when Dana left for Hostos. Fanny (the maid) came in to get our laundry and was surprised to see me lying there, so I told her I was sick to my stomach. I could have sworn that while I was sleeping somebody else came back in to the room, but I am not sure. I think it was Monchi checking on me.

I got up around lunchtime and did some reading then Monchi came in the room to check on me. She told me to come the kitchen and then showed me that she bought me a Gatorade for my stomach. She also asked me if I wanted a “cookie” and I told her no at first because who wants a cookie when their stomach hurts, but then she showed it to me and it was a package of saltine crackers! Dana came home for lunch and showed me her purchases from the grocery store. We asked Monchi if she would take us back to the grocery store so that I would have a chance to get a few things. At lunch Monchi told me not to eat too much and so I just had a little bit of chicken and some rice. Monchi also told me that I was not allowed to snack at class that evening and she would make me mashed potatoes for dinner to help settle my stomach. We had a long break during the afternoon so I was able to sleep some more which really helped me feel better. It was really nice to have somebody take care of me while I was sick. Being sick definitely made me miss home even more. It rained most of the afternoon and so we borrowed an umbrella from Monchi to take to class.

We were late to class because Kanki was late picking us up, but none of us cared too much. I let Dr. Button borrow my laptop during class to show the power points on because her and Dr. Johnson are both Mac users so I used her Mac instead. It is a good thing that Andy has a Mac because it was not a huge leap for me to use her laptop. During our break I ate more saltine crackers, but the snack provided by the university did not look very appetizing anyways so I wasn’t too disappointed. If you couldn’t already tell the break portion of our university class is my favorite part mainly because I have heard all of this before.
After class we decided to not do the coach ride because of the rain. So Dana and I went home and we had cereal with yogurt and mashed potatoes for dinner. I know it sounds bizarre, but it did not hurt my stomach. Also I hear that eating yogurt when you go abroad helps your stomach adjust because it reintroduces the good bacteria to your system. Monchi said she thought that the salad that I had at Jaraboca made me sick, because some places wash their vegetables in tap water which my body is not use to. But honestly I think it was the pizza that we had at Monchi’s on Sunday night after Jaraboca. I say this because Dana’s stomach kind of hurt on Sunday night after we ate the pizza and one of the other girls on the trip got sick after eating pizza as well. Plus nobody else who went to Jaraboca got sick except for me so the salad idea does not make sense. I did not have the heart to tell Monchi that I thought it was her pizza so I just said it probably was my salad. After dinner Monchi took us to the grocery store and bought some rum, coffee, and vanilla. I meant to buy vanilla extract and I am not sure that I did that, but it was really cheap so if we go to the store again I will buy vanilla extract and just have both. After the store we came home and went to bed.

I am really behind my course work because I feel like I don’t have any direction and my time at the Hostos School has not been very beneficial. I feel like my host teacher does not really care for us being here, and so I act more as an assistant to her and am not getting much experience. Everybody else gets to talk to their teacher about what is going on in the class and the teacher takes time to get the Tech student up to date, but my teacher is just keeps going with class and I just help where I can. I have not had an opportunity to meet with the students that she said I could and I just don’t know what to do about it. I am hoping I can get what I need tomorrow and then I will just bounce around to other classes and observe.