So. Many. Hormones

So I guess I have a lot to catch you up on. As I mentioned in my last blog, I got super sick when Lily was here. Thursday night I got sick, Friday and all weekend we were busy and in Mexico City, Monday I went back to work, and finally made it to a doctor on Tuesday.  I’d barely gotten my symptoms out of my mouth when she asked if I wanted a shot or pills. But  - but…. You don’t know me or my history or more details – @*&%*^ this system! I asked for more specific tests and she sent me to a lab. So for the next 3 days I would wake up at 6:45 to walk 40 minutes in the rain to deliver my stool samples. During this time, naturally, I couldn’t take any meds, so I started drinking lots of garlic, ginger, thyme, dragon’s blood tincture and honey teas. I stunk, and my new roommates (Jay and Maggie – I’ll talk more about them in a minute) thought I was really weird. I also read that cider vinegar and grapeseed oil are helpful under such conditions, so I took a couple doses of those as well. I was on a strict diet of boiled apples and spinach, rice and the occasional banana. And you wanna know something, my body healed itself! I mean, I cut it close a couple days later with the chipotles on my cemita, but I will-powered myself to recuperate slowly (which was really hard on Friday when I felt much better and all I wanted was ice cream and brownies and beer).

I finally got my results back, after a very confusing bureaucratic process during which I was convinced they’d lost the poo and dropped my name from their system. I’m going to send the info to a holistic doctor I found in Tepostlan (a hippie town in the next state over) who is going to make me some tinctures to strengthen my system altogether. I feel much calmer about this process than just taking generic antibiotics. I think that the burrito cart dude, the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies are all in cahoots.

As alone as I feel when I’m sick sometimes, I never really was. My family was really supportive even from a distance, and we have two new volunteers who just arrived. Maggie got here a week ago Saturday and is super enthusiastic about life. She’s 20 and spending half of her junior year volunteering and the other half hopefully studying at La UDLAP where I play Frisbee.  We’ve already had some pretty interesting life discussions, which is one of my favorite things. So despite the age difference I think it’s going to be a healthy partnership. Jay is here for a month and is probably one of the nicest men I’ve ever met. He folded our laundry, offers to get us a drink when he gets up and listens when we talk. My mom asked if I could marry him and sounded a little bummed when I told her I didn’t think it would work out. But to say the least I am incredibly grateful for my new housemates, especially as we prepared for our next group to come. They only had a few days to settle in because last night 40 high school boys from private schools in Arizona and Nebraska moved in for a week and a half…

(Preface: This was written on Monday. Today is Saturday. I'm adding new revelations and observations presently...)

Actually, they seem like pretty cool kids. They’re really hard-working and very enthusiastic and I’m still waiting for the your mom jokes to start. Today was their first day of work and we started out digging dirt out by the river to haul up in bags. We were making bokashi – a natural fertilizer made of composted manure, dirt, hay, yeast, sugar and corn. We’re going to put it on the amarinto we planted on the land. Amarinto was a staple crop of the Mexican diet until Spaniards got rid of it to gain more power over the native culture. While we were digging one of the boys asked me what I thought about job outsourcing, and right now I’m half-listening to their conversation on immigration and border control in the next room. These boys are smart cookies and really connected to the world.

In the afternoon we had the chance to help our neighbor, Don Alfredo, plant beans in his plot. I volunteered right away. Rather than measure out the rows and the depths, the deal is that you take off your shoes and walk in as straight a line as possible. Then someone follows behind and drops three beans into each footprint. Then we cover it with a swish of our foot. It was very rhythmic, and nothing like the diligent planning of the rows at the Dickinson Farm, or hunched over planting meticulously at Beardsley. We went so slowly compared to Don Alfredo, but I got the chance to have some really great conversations with a couple of the boys, and sink my feet into farmland, so I was quite content. Then we smushed 20 people into the 15 passenger van (with two riding along the bumper on the back) and headed back to Ina’s house. I always had a good bit of respect for mothers of teenage boys, but so much more now that I have seen many of them eat all at once. It was a lot like a plague of locusts. I’ve been hiding in my room writing since the frenzy ended. I’m sharing the 10x8 room with Maggie and my boss’s niece who is also working with us for the week. I tried hiding under the bed, but it was too dusty (even though we swept twice). Soooo a lesson in finding your inner sense of peace (and adolescent male). I’ll try to write yall again soon assuming I survive the soccer tournament and campout we have planned for 100 boys from various communities next Saturday. If you don’t hear from me by the following Thursday, have someone check under the bed.