Day 3- Well that was a doozy.

Day 3 started off rough. Warning: not pleasant reading ahead. Originally when I informed the cooks about my dietary needs one of them asked me if I could have soup with milk in it. Now normally at home I would say no, but here I didn’t want to be the pain in the ass American so I said a little. Should have said no! Yesterday the soup I mentioned for lunch was quinoa soup with chunks of potatoes, it was amazing. At the time I ate it.
That afternoon I was picking coffee then had a bit of a rest before dinner. During the rest I did feel a bit off, but started to feel quite ill at dinner. Dinner was good; beets and a vegetable casserole with mashed potatoes on top. I ate the beets then had 3 bites of the casserole and felt awful. I retired back to the cabin and began complaining of stomach upset to my co-volunteers, but this happens often with me so I thought it would be fine. As I went to bed the pain started. OH THE PAIN. I will not give you a play by play of the rest, but suffice it to say I was vomiting out of both ends all night and could not sleep because I was in the worst pain of my life. Legs were cramping kind of pain. I took 3 different stomach medications, but my body had its own plan. By morning I had slept approximately one hour-ish and felt awful; dizzy with major leg pains- akin to when one has the flu.
All during this time I had this fear in the back of my head that it wasn’t due to lactose and it was a parasite eating up my insides. Oh and I forgot to mention my companions in the bathroom… a tarantula and cockroaches. This morning a cockroach was on my bedroom floor, gross! They can fly too! (Found out later one of the volunteers found one under her pillow one day… umm didn’t need to know that.)
At breakfast which was rolls and eggs with ham (I had one roll)the co-managers were very sympathetic and very concerned. They had to drive to the nearest town for a building part and offered to take myself and the English chap to town so we could call home. I called my Dad and only spoke to him for ten minutes, but it was so nice hearing a voice from home. It was also a strange feeling, standing in this phone booth, a local woman yelling in Spanish behind me and chatting with my Dad as if I was calling from Santa Monica. Oh and he told me to take a taxi next time I am in Quito. (:
I have had this discussion with the other volunteers, about how strange it is to think of things routine as usual at home while here we are on another part of the world. I am sure this feeling will be ever present on my trip next year as well. I can understand why people do not travel if they had the choice, coming to a place like this puts you out of your comfort zone and really challenges you to make the best out of any situation. More on that later.
I was let me off manual labor for the morning so I headed down to the garden with the female volunteer who has been here for two months and is leaving next week. She has primarily taken over the garden thus I gleaned her garden knowledge to put into the garden manual. The sun was blazing and the air was very still; it was about 75 but felt like 90. I was still nauseous with painful leg cramps so we sat in the shade while gathering info. We had a couple of friends join us in the shade, one of them being a poisonous caterpillar; they look so friendly and fuzzy but are lethal! Okay maybe I am being dramatic, but their spikes can infect your skin. Apparently they drop on you from trees. Eek!
We were also joined by the crotchety old gardener, who has his own ideas about gardening, for example tomatoes don’t need support, they can just grow on the ground. Also why put all of the same vegetables in one container? Let’s do a mish mash! Shall be interesting when it is just him and I out there, this may be one of those times that I am glad my Spanish is no muy bueno!
Post gardening I was able to start typing up the manual in an area of the lodge known as the “Living Room” It is an upstairs outdoor space, and so peaceful with birds flying around, the sound of the river rushing by in thebackround, it was hard to stay awake.
Lunch was soup-dairy free this time, hooray! I told the cook about my stomach this morning (no I didn’t share details, only YOU my readers are special enough for that! But I did look up vomit in the dictionary- vomito, well that seems simple!)The soup was perfect noodles and vegetables, kind of like chicken noodle soup. It was followed by a cucumber tomato salad and mixed rice. Had the cucumbers, skipped the rice as my stomach was still pretty iffy.
Post lunch I was able to go to the orchid garden and start cleaning up the plants. There are trees constantly dropping debris on the orchids thus there is a lot of cleaning to be done. Michael the English chap joined me up there and we discussed how living and working here could feel like a never ending battle with moisture and nature in which nature is clearly winning. Soon I will begin cleaning the leaves which have a bit of fungus on them with a lemon water solution. This evening I was informed I will be writing up a script for the orchid garden tour, that should be fun! When I originally read about the orchid garden I imagined flowers everywhere, well not to be had. Maybe one or two for about fifty plants! It is really interesting thought that here bromeliads grow on EVERYTHING, the sides of trees, orchids, and the ground.
In addition to the stomach issues I found out today that their website here has not been updated, and the price that is quoted for volunteers is actually about $200 less than the actual price. I was really disappointed to find this out as I have a pretty tight budget for this trip and this was quite unexpected. It already feels strange to pay as last year in Ireland my work paid for my room & board. In all honestly I am not surprised that more volunteers do not come, as the price is off-putting. Currently there are three “regular” volunteers (including me) not counting the co-managers and two of them are students who are 18 & 20. There is no way I could have afforded this when I was in school! I had a grumpy mood about it for a while but I have worked through it now and it is what it is. On a side note, the co-managers couldn’t be nicer, and were very apologetic and had no control over the whole thing.
I guess maybe this is life telling me once again to expect the unexpected, from money to cockroaches. Some of the volunteer opportunities I have looked at for next year in India I would have to pay for, but it is nominal, I guess such is life in third world countries?
I am still going to try to make the best of my time here and go with the flow. I do love structure, but life is not structured is it?
After work today which ends at 4:30 (work hours are 8-4:30) I took a serious nap. Dinner was spaghetti noodles with vegetables and gluten which is a meat substitute on top. It was quite good followed by banana bread. The portion sizes are huge here, I feel bad but I cannot finish what is on my plate. Maybe with more manual labor I will. (:
Going to bed now, hope to sleep all night long.