Why I haven't called or blogged in a while

After a perfectly healthy month here, my body decided to crash and burn. First my digestive system suddenly realized that I'm in Peru and went on strike for an entire week. It was annoying, but easy enough to ignore.

Then a couple of days after I started feeling better, my immune system decided to follow the trend and go on strike as well. I think I caught a cold from a volunteer who only stayed here for a week. Colds aren't a big deal, so I pretty much ignored it.

But my immune system apparently isn't fighting back, since this cold started morphing into something even lovelier, even after two full days of rest. What started out as a runny nose changed into sinus pressure and a sore throat, which led to a cough. I went to a pharmacy and got medicine to deal with the sinus pressure, so that went away completely, and also antibiotics. (I got the medicine checked out by our resident doctor, who said that it's what she would have prescribed.) But then the cough moved from my throat down into my chest, where it's wreaking havoc right now.

So if I promised to call and/or write and haven't, this is why. In theory, the antibiotics will clear this thing up soon, even though they've been ineffective for the last 3 days. And if that doesn't work, two Peruvian women keep giving me herbal remedies that should clear it up. The first attempt worked, but only temporarily, so now they're trying something different, which is doing well so far.

As soon as I feel better, I promise that I'll catch up on the blogging and calls I was supposed to do. It'll just take some time, but it'll definitely happen soon. It's way overdue.