Winter of my Discontent

Yes, it finally is winter here in Nicaragua.  As I write the rain in hammering the tin roof of the house again, hard and loud and long.  This is the third time in as many days.  The only question is how long it will go on.  Sometimes a couple of hours, sometimes eight. The effect could not be more dramatic.  The world is a cool damp place now, even when it isn’t raining.  The skies are often cloudy.  There’s a break from the sun.  Things are clean and weedy.  The hills around here are greening up and the river that passes by my town is actually flowing with water. Mosquitoes are down while it rains; they show up again when there hasn’t been rain for a few days.

  I’m still trying to figure out the complex relationship people see between health and rain.  Rain isn’t considered too healthy—it brings bad germs down on your head.  Last night Candida’s granddaughter, infant great granddaughter, the child’s father and the child’s niñera (baby-sitter) were visiting at about 5 o’clock when it started to rain.  They live 2 blocks away.  They didn’t leave while it was raining.  Next thing I knew Candida was making dinner for everyone.  “Don’t they have an umbrella?” I asked, knowing that of course they did or could borrow one of ours. “They don’t want to bring the baby out in the rain,” she explained, even if she won’t be touched by a drop of water. So the rain continued and they stayed till Candida was making evening snacks for everyone.  Still here at 9 p.m. when I went to bed, and again at 7 a.m. when I got up—Sleep-over.

Just as the rains started a week or so ago, I got sick—and I for one see no causal connection.  It just was my turn to be sick, I having dodged any illness except a cold since I got here. What I had was a urinary tract infection that showed up on the same day as a case of dengue, the notorious tropical scourge of volunteers and Nicas alike, or at least that is the working diagnosis. The combination of symptoms from the two left me pretty knocked out for 9 days or so.  I am almost completely recovered now. But even though my usual positive outlook has returned, thank God, I feel compelled to say that being sick in another country is as bad as I feared it would be. What I always suspected is that emotional reserves would be shot while I suffered through the body aches, fevers, etc.  This was true. I not only wanted someone to take care of me, preferably my mother, but in my weakened state, I was visited by all the worst demons of self-doubt, second-thoughts and self criticism. What a miserable state of affairs that is, and why it should be so I don’t know, but it is, and there is not much to do about it but exclaim in wonder when you are better and the confidence returns with the-más o menos-pink cheeks.

Bright lights during convalescence: Candida peering shyly into my dark room holding out a golden glass of fresh melon fresco; the super sensitive care of Peace Corps doctor Marta who long distance listened to symptoms, decided on lab tests needed, prescribed and told me how to get everything done without having to get on a bus and always wanted to know if the plan we made sounded OK to me; my Kindle and its 3G connection.

So that’s all.  For some reason I needed to say it and I did.