Stepping Out of the Boat

I (Claire) am home from school today because yesterday evening, I came down with a UTI - a urinary track infection. If you've ever had one, you know how painful and uncomfortable it can be. At home in the USA, it would be bad, of course, but here, in foreign country, where we don't know the system, we don't have a doctor, etc., it's just that much worse.

To make a long story short, when I started feeling not so good, I was a little worried. A few hours later, I totally freaked out. Then, we looked up my symptoms online and low and behold, I have a UTI. We thought to try to figure out what we could do and ended up calling Holly, our supervisor, who it always helpful when we are in a tight spot. She said that she has had 3 UTIs since she moved here and had never had one before she lived here.

She said that I could try to go to a doctor - she recommended one who speaks English, or since I knew what the problem was, I could just go to the pharmacy and ask for a certain antibiotic. Here, there is no such thing as a prescription. If you're willing to buy the drug, you can get the drug. We decided on the pharmacy route because we didn't know how I would get to the doctor today. John has to work at school, and I really shouldn't go anywhere by myself. Whatever we were going to do, it had to wait til daytime since everything was closed.

I was in a lot of pain and discomfort and it was getting late when we remembered that our friend Sonya who lives accross the hall is practically a walking pharmacy. She brought all kinds of medicine here with her from home. After several attempts at waking them up, it finally worked, and she had antibiotic that her doctor gave her specifically for UTIs. So, we thanked her and thanked God, and now I'm feeling much better, although not quite well enough to teach school.

Staying here alone all day is kind of weird. It seems I get most homesick when I'm not feeling well. I left all my school stuff at school, so I can't really catch up that way, but I have work to do here... like sewing.
This is a somewhat blurry (sorry) picture of John's ripped shirt. It's one of his favorites - green silk - and yesterday because of the heat (read yesterday's blog post), it ended up ripping.

He didn't have any airconditioning in his classroom yesterday because the custodian lady pushed the wrong button on her little remote in the momrning, and by the afternoon, it was a sauna in his room. So, as he was teaching, he went to write on the chalkboard, and as he tells it, he was so sweaty that his shirt was stuck to his skin, and when he moved his arm, his shirt didn't move with it. So, alas, I have a torn silk shirt to repair, and the rip isn't on the seam. I've also got several buttons to sew on other various things.

Last night, before the UTI business started, we had Sonya, Becky, and Wayne over for dinner. Now that Wayne has FINALLY moved into his apartment downstairs, he has been hanging out with us a little more. We found out that this is his 30th year teaching, and he could retire back in Canada after one or two more years teaching, but he decided to have an adventure instead of just staying home. I don't know many teachers in his stage of life who would do something like this. I really respect him for taking this step and taking the risk.

I made Jamaican Stew Beef and Spinners for dinner - one of my family's favorites. It was a lot like a family dinner, in a way, since we've all become a sort of pseudo-family here in Santo Domingo.

On the table, you can see the tub-o-salt (white lid) that we use instead of a salt shaker. You can't use a salt shaker here because it's so humid that when you shake it, nothing comes out. It's all stuck in the bottom. So, here instead of , "Please pass the salt shaker," it's "Please pass the tub-o-salt."