An ode to antibiotics and gingerale

I´ve been there before. We all know I´ve been there before. After enduring all the symptoms of malaria every 3 days for a month in Southeast Asia, I´m pretty much a travelers-sickness afficianado. (Not to mention I think my stomach now has a steel lining....let´s hope for no repeats.)

Jen, on the other hand, is just a spring chicken when it comes to getting deathly sick in a third world country. Not anymore! Poor girl woke up at 3 in the morning on Thursday not feeling so hot, shall we say. I´ve been more than extatic to run mini errands as her private doctor, since fetching 7up is pretty much all one can do to help. After a full day in bed yesterday, she finally made it out into the sunlight TWICE today. (And trust me, that´s a big day!)

This morning on my way to pick up a pedialite for my little invalid, I stopped in the local fruit and vegetable market which you would never know existed as it is hidden in an old, unmarked building with two hidden, unmarked entrances. Once I finally made my way inside, I was overwhelmed by the number of vendors selling pretty much the same thing: fresh fruit and vegetables. Once again the only gringa in sight, all eyes were on me to make my pick of vendors. I first opted for a small vendor in the corner where I bought a ginormous bag of green beans for $1. With my extremely limited spanish, I asked the older man behind the counter if I could take a picture, and with the smile and si, si, si goahead...kindof had a field day with produce pictures!














Since I was standing there looking like an idiot for so long, playing around with the color settings on my camera, zooming in on random vegetables, etc.. I wanted to show the woman behind this counter what I was doing. I think she was a little confused at first, because she looked back at the vegetables (probably to make sure they all had color, not just the red cabbage). She loved seeing all the pictures, and she called her husband over who then yelled for their little boy who had been chillin on the ground working on half a watermelon the whole time. He could NOT get over the pictures, and we ended up playing a game where he´d have to find the colored item and shout the color....it was probably the cutest thing I´ve ever seen. And it definitely made me want to learn spanish even more, since all I could manage to say was "uhh errr guapo!" (uhhh errrr handsome!) after taking his picture.




Just striking up some convo with our neighbors...you know.