Mono and All That Jazz

Hello all.  Sorry I’ve been a slacker lately with my blogging.  My schedule has been a bit hectic lately with mid year vacations and a short bout with mono, but here are a few cuentos from the last few months. 

For a big part of May and June I wasn't feeling 100%.  I hardly had the energy to stand up in class let alone make it through a whole day of teaching.  I told my host mother about how I was feeling and she just kept reassuring me that I had “un gripe nada mas” (just a cold).  At about the same time many of the other volunteers weren’t feeling great either and within the next few weeks WT started invading Clinica Biblica hospital in San Jose. By the end of June, 14 of the 23 volunteers tested positive for mononucleosis, me included. The country declared us (worldteach CR) a national epidemic.

The doctor told me that I had to be bed ridden for the next 8 days and that I could not teach. My fist reaction upon hearing this news was “but I have to teach! My students can’t miss 8 days of english class.” My response actually surprised me!   Somewhere in the weeks between our mid-service meetings in May and the beginning of June I stated to really enjoy teaching.  Weeks prior I would have loved to have a legitimate excuse to take a few days off work, but now the thought of not teaching for eight whole days actually scared me a little bit. What the heck what I going to do in Vergel for eight days?  I couldn’t exercise, play soccer, or go to the school to use the internet (because of the risk of passing on virus to the kids). I was going to be bored out of my mind.  Luckily I had a few good books, some empty sheets of sudoku, and chess on my computer to keep me busy.  I spent my mornings sitting on the cool cement floor of my room switching off reading A Thousand Splended Suns and Think and Grow Rich,  both of which i really enjoyed.  Once school was out and all the guilas had gone home, I’d walk over to my classroom and mess around on the internet for a while. I did my best to follow doctors orders and rest. I worked in at least 1-2 siestas per day.  The eight days went by a lot easier than I thought they would.  All in all I finished two books, played at least 40 games of chess against my computer, and got some much needed rest.      

My first day back at school felt great. The kids greeted me warmly and were legitimately excited to have English class again, although some were a little bit concerned to come near me because when they heard that I was sick assumed that I caught Swine flu, or Gripe de Chancho (Pig Disease) as they like to call it.  Nonetheless, I think the best part of being back was just getting into a routine again, even if it was only for a few days.  Because at the beginning of July our midyear vacations started and I had plans to travel  Costa Rica with my friends Ricky and Jon.  

Be sure to check back later this week for more D’Amico and the Ticos...