Saturday morning

I've managed to get seriously eaten up by bugs in the last day or so.  I suspect fleas, but since I don't have a lot of hard-core evidence, I have to say there is still an outside chance it could have been a mosquito.  No use tarnishing one bug's reputation without sufficient reason to do so.  With that said, however, something  climbed up inside the sleeve of my sweater yesterday and left patches of bites along both arms.  A few years ago, this would have seriously bothered me.  I would have freaked out.  Seriously.  And proceeded to wash my clothes, my room, and hang all my bedding in the sun.  However, this time I realize that this didn't happen at home.  While I had put bug spray around my ankles, I had neglected to cover my arms...it just happens in Guatemala.  You go outside, you get bit.  They're everywhere.  As further support to my hypothesis, I went to the market today and came home with a few more bites than I had had before.

It happens.

And I'm not going to worry about it anymore.  Not when there's a laundromat so close to where I live.  Not when it's so easy to carry my laundry there and then go back to pick it up later.  (In Guatemalan laundromats, the people who own the laundromat put the clothes in and out of the washer and dryer for you.  They just weigh the bag of laundry and give you a time to pick it up later.)  Before, I carried all my laundry on a twenty-five minute walk to use the washer and dryer at school.  The laundromat is so much easier.  And so far, I haven't had to make any unplanned trips there.  I truly have been getting bitten when I go outside...

So I'll itch for a while...it's still better than being on cold medicine like I was last week.  I quit cold turkey today.  No cold medicine.  No cough drops.  Nothing.  And so far I am feeling okay.  I think by Monday I might be back to my normal self.  (I am kind of anxious to see what teaching these classes is like when I'm not sick and in a daze from the medicine.)  To celebrate, I think I'll get together with some of the other teachers--be social in a way I couldn't when I wanted to sleep all the time.

After I dropped off my laundry this morning, I went to run some errands, picking up a few things I needed from a couple different places around town.  I love walking in different cities, exploring different streets, learning my way around.  That's one thing I like to do in my spare time whenever I travel.  I think the Spanish students (the foreigners who come here from other countries to learn Spanish) think I'm a little strange in that regard.  They always want to know what major sites I've visited or hope to see.  I tell them where I've been, but when they list off other sites (mostly places that require more travel) they always seem surprised when I tell them I have no plans of going there.  If something comes up so I have to go, I will, but until then I'd really rather explore the inner workings of the city I'm in.

So today I wandered around the city, stopping at the market to buy a bag.  They have sacks that look like they are made from woven plastic bags--very heavy duty and very handy for carrying around all kinds of things.  This time, instead of sticking to the outer shops, I dove into the market's center, melting in with the press of people coming and going in the narrow entryway.  I found just what I was looking for--a man selling all kinds of grains (like rice) in big open sacks on a table had several bags hanging from a beam above the table.  Just the size and color I wanted. 

However, upon leaving the market, I got turned around (either that, or I just forgot to turn--I'm not really sure which).  By the time I realized my mistake, I was in another part of town.  (And why, I asked myself, do my instincts always lead me back to that particular place--especially when I don't live near there anymore?)  So I retraced my steps for a while and then asked a nice lady in a tool shop for directions.  She said to go straight and within about fifteen or twenty minutes I made it back home.  It was an unplanned detour, but I enjoyed the exercise and the chance to see some parts of town I had not seen.  (Some surprising things I saw while I was out this morning:  There was someone dressed like a giant glue stick outside of a school supply store.  And I also saw a woman hula-hooping for money.  The strange thing was that she didn't look particularly Guatemalan...I wondered if she was maybe a tourist or backpacker who spent too much money and needed to raise funds to make her visit here last longer...)