my improving health

i am feeling a lot better these days. i am fairly certain that i am amoeba and parasite free and i feel loads better. i am on a special no oil diet, so the cooks make a special kate plate and my family makes food special for me, but it has helped a ton, as my stomach seemed to be reacting violently to the food here.

anyway, i cant believe i will be in the states again in three weeks. it seems like i just got here.

my hospital visit

so, i went to the hospital for a few days. they call it a clinic, but i had an iv and nurses came to check on me in my hospital-style bed, so i'm going to call it a hospital. i had a bad reaction to my parasite medicine. i feel better now, but health is still a bit of an issue for me...

my parasite

the amoeba is gone, but i have a parasite now... dang.

my somach update

still feel a little sick... but in theory the amoeba should be gone. i can see my
heartbeat in my stomach, and i'm pretty sure that's not good or normal, but what can ya do? i just need to make it another month until i get back to the states so i can go to a doctor that speaks the same language as me.
and oh yeah, the phlegm is back too, which kinda sucks.
in other news, my hermanos and i have almost finished mario 64. it's pretty rad. we had a lot of time to play yesterday because my hermano broke his leg. it got caught in a concho wheel. (see previous post for pic) he's pretty upbeat about it though.

My stomach

i have an amoeba. its name is carolina mala. i dont think thats healthy. so im going to get rid of it by taking some killer drug things. i wrote a song for my amoeba too. im going to try to post a video of it later

my mode of transportation

this is pretty much the norm here... its amazing.
were not supposed to touch the drivers, so im holding onto the bar on the back of the bike and kinda holding up my friend jenna...

my growing patience

we havent started doing anything tangible yet. all we have been doing is planning. it can get a little old. so much of me just wants to get out there and start doing something. i guess thats kinda the way i live my life. i dont always stop to think and plan before i start something. so im probably growing or something...
and my keyboard doesnt have punctuation. it kills me.
this is a pic of my host brother. he cracks me up. i tell him hes crazy and he says, no, im just happy. i taught him to make a fist and say word up, but he cant pronounce it very well. its amazing.

Mi primero semana

My family is rad. My padre is the coach of the major league prep team here in Barahona. Whenever I walk in he says, "Hello" with a lot of emphasis on the o. It makes me happy. My madre works at the sugarcane factory and is studying to be a lawyer and I have two hermanos that like to play video games and seem to like it when I play with them.
I am loving it down here. Aside from the freaky hotness of it, anyway. We have been doing a lot of planning this week and we are going to start english classes next week and tutoring the week after. The other interns are amazing. It is a little funny because of the seven of us, six are very similar in that we like to talk a lot. So far its all been good though. I am super excited to see how this summer plays out.

My arrival in the DR

I made it. So far we've just kinda gotten used to the culture and haven't done anything too exciting. I'll write more once something exciting happens. Tomorrow I get to meet my host family, which I'm pretty stoked about. It should be fun. Hard, but fun.
But don't worry, I'm not dead yet, and my stomach is no more weird than it was when I left the states.

My last night in a familiar place

Tonight was pretty fun. I got to have some crazy good food with my family and just relax for a bit. Then I got to hang out with my bible study from last year. Ellie, Anna, and I went on an adventure to find pencils for Dominicans. It didn't go very well, and Ellie had to be home relatively soon after we departed, so Anna and I plugged on... First we went to the bank so I could get some money, but I didn't have my ATM card with me. I figured that's why I have a credit card, so we continued anyway. So we went to 7-11 so I could get a last minute corn dog. I ordered my three hour old corn dog, and upon deliberating, decided that I didn't in fact want to put 82 cents on my credit card, so I handed the checker my dog and said, "hang on, I bet I can find a dollar in my car." (since it was my mom's car, this was no problem) So Anna and I continued. We made it into Top Food, and I found one of the things that I had been looking for: chalk. Although, still no cheap pencils, which bummed me out a little. And we also got some Go Diego Go yogurt drink, which was amazing. So we continued on. I let Anna decide which way to go at each light, and we ended up down in U Village. Since there is a 24 hour Starbucks down there, and I had a little bit left on a s-bucks card, I decided that we were going to go in. I got a scone, and upon giving my card to the barista-type, was informed that I still owed her 85 cents. Now, as we have already established, I didn't want to put a charge for that amount on my card, so I found myself asking the barista, "can I borrow a dollar from your tip jar? I have some money in my car, I'll leave my scone here, and I'll be right back..." Cheesy, yes, but I sure did enjoy my scone, and had a good laugh about the fact that I borrowed a dollar from a tip jar.

My mommy

... is amazing,
but she doesn't feel good, and that makes me sad. apparently she's going to have to deal with spells of vertigo for the rest of her life. sad.

My sick cat...

His name is Bagheera. He has AIDS. Don't laugh too hard. I'm serious.

naturally, our first thoughts went to how promiscuous our cat was being... but then we remembered that he had no parts to be promiscuous with.
then our thoughts went to how we noticed he was so addicted to cat nip, and wondered if that had spread to other, more dangerous drugs. we were thinking that maybe he started sharing needles with other neighborhood kitties. we do live close to the ghetto... but that's just ridiculous.
then, we remembered that our cat is a bad-ass and fought a lot of neighborhood cats. so we think that there was some accidental shared blood...
and i must admit, it is a little funny.

My countdown and youth

T - 13 days and counting
I am so stoked to go to the Dominican. And I leave soon. Yeah.
Today I went to a bridal shower for someone I went to high school with. It was weird. So many of my high school friends are getting married this summer. It's spooky. We're so young? Why are they in such a big hurry to start the rest of their lives? (note: i think part (read: most) of the answer to this is sex) But I'm gonna hang out and play for a while. And I'm gonna dig it. Different strokes though. Someday I wanna settle down, but there's a lot I want to do before I wanna get anywhere near that.
I just went back over and read my old blogs and I think it's interesting that from the time I showed up in Haines I knew things weren't right. And it's kinda cool that I wanted to come back to Seattle because I kinda knew that it would help the healing process, and it has a lot.

my nose

is really, really burnt. it burned last week from the car wash, and then this weekend it burned really bad again because i was out kayaking the san juans. but this weekend was amazing. my friend jamie and i ferried out to lopez island on friday and spent the night at a little state park. then saturday morning we packed up the kayaks and headed out toward shaw island. after giving jamie a few quick lessons on paddling, we kayaked around shaw and decided that we wanted some ice cream, so we went to friday harbor. upon our arrival in friday harbor, we saw san juan brewing company, so we also stopped for a beer. :) then we headed back across san juan channel (not a super easy task) and camped on shaw island. so that day was roughly 15 miles. then sunday we got up and kayaked back to lopez where the car was and headed back to the mainland. it was pretty dang rad. a little intense for jamies first real time kayaking and my first time out on the open water, but it was amazing.

My farmer's tan

yeah, you know you're jealous. i took this with my computer, so the contrast isn't very good, but trust me, i burnt my arm real bad until about 4 inches from my shoulder.