Well it certainly has been an interesting couple of weeks here. I have been winding down with my online school stuff and getting very excited to come home! I have been spending more of my weekends relaxing on the beach too. However, a couple weeks ago, I show up to work scratching like crazy! My legs were so itchy that I didn't even get much sleep the night before. A fellow teacher walked into my office while I was furiously applying bug spray and scratching like a monkey. I had these three red bumps in a row on one of my legs, and I had a bunch more tiny dots all around my feet and ankles. I had some on my arms and a couple on my hands. Now, I normally get a ton of mosquito bites in one sitting. My workplace is just invested with them, and for some reason they love me on this island. However, these bumps to me did not look like normal mosquito bites. The teachers immediately panicked and told me I had scabies!! Since I had never heard of that, I immediately took to Google. FYI don't do an image search. Gross! I definitely didn't look like anyone in those pictures, but the bumps the people had, sort of resembled what I had except a lesser amount. What got me even more panicked was that the teacher said she heard on the radio that Scabies is going around especially in day care centers. Uhh red alert for me! I have been seeing a client at one of the day care centers on the island! She also said it's contagious, and freaked out and started following me around with a can of Lysol. She takes me to show the principal and another teacher and they were both like yep you need to go to the hospital. Great... So I didn't exactly know how to get there, so the principal and another teacher refusing to drive in my car for fear of me being contagious hopped in their own car and I followed them. It was so embarrassing, that when we got there, they wouldn't even let me in the waiting room, so I had to wait outside! Meanwhile the teachers keep giving me weird looks and telling me they are noticing more dots on my neck and arms. Fantastic. So, I finally get let in through this sneaky side door, and they stick me in a room with all this equipment and posters on how to do CPR. Umm, if you need a poster to tell you how and you are the doctor, I'm in trouble. The nurse comes in and checks my pulse, of course it's high, people are telling me I have some sort of disease!! A few minutes later a doctor comes in and looks at all my dots. He is also one of the teachers from Kyle's school. Not wearing gloves, or anything, he freely touches my little bumps, then asks if I have been to the beach lately. I said yes I went on the weekend (this was a Tuesday). He said oh those are sand fly bites. So I'm not contagious? He laughs and says nope. I said, great because those teachers out there think I have Scabies. The nurse laughs and says Scabies?!?! I haven't seen that on this island in years! Crisis averted. The doctor still gave me a prescription for some oral meds and some cream to put on these bites, and the trip to the hospital cost 40EC which is about 20 CAN. Oh and I had to go to 3 different pharmacies to get the prescriptions because none of them had this stuff. So for the whole ordeal, and stress it cost about 80EC. I was keeping Kyle updated as best as I could but he was stuck in class so he couldn't really do much except to tell me to calm down over text.
So now for my car problems. The other night Kyle and I were driving home from yet another potluck dinner when we heard an interesting sound coming from the front of the car. Kyle was just like huh that's weird, and kept on going. It eventually went away and we thought nothing of it. The next day as I am on my way to work, I round a corner to my school and I start to hear that same noise. As I pull in the parking lot, I have to go down a slight hill, and I start to brake to park the car. I then hear a loud clunk and my foot is to the floor and I am not breaking. The tires screech, and thankfully there was a curb so the car stopped. Shaking coming out of the car, I tell my principal that I think my car just broke. I explain what happened and she was like Oh migamo! (Which means omg) She calls up a mechanic she knows and he shows up a little later. His name is Sargent and he opens up the hood and says well there is no leak anywhere but I'll come back with my boss. While he is gone, some of the kids think it's hilarious, especially since my car isn't the nicest to look at. One boy tells me to check under my car. He takes me to my car and bends down and picks up a piece of metal. That's when I notice fluid near the front right tire. This kid seemed smarter than the mechanic!! So Sargent comes back with his boss, and I show him the piece of metal. Oh you just need new break pads, no problem! So his boss jumps in the car and starts driving it... using the hand break he manages to drive it back to his shop. Surprisingly I was able to pick up the car at the end of the day, and for parts and labor it cost $250EC. Not bad considering back home, you can never have your car in the shop for just a day! Mind you, this guys' "shop" was just a shack with a bunch of old cars around it. Interesting enough, his shop was across from the Suzuki Dealership. Anyway, I drove the car home in one piece and I was able to stop! No problem ;)
I am pretty proud of myself that I was able to handle all this. Yes I did have help and made a few panicked phone calls to Kyle, but I survived and I am so thankful the car broke down as I got to school, and not down the windy roads and hills.
Anyway, here is a picture of a cool rainbow on my way home from work today. It was a peaceful reminder to just remain calm in stressful times, and go with the flow.
There was also a full moon this week, maybe that explains all the craziness around here!
