Happy fourth of July!

Well, I’m finally back in San Salvador again on a beautiful independence day. I had planned to celebrate with Salvadorian beer and a Cuban Cigar, but it looks like that will no longer an option.

Like I said in my post two days ago in Cajutepeque, I am sick again. It's been quite an adventure.

I was feeling much better in Cahute (the city's nickname), so I declined to visit a clinic. Big mistake. I started feeling much worse later around five, and when one of my host mother's friends suggested medicine, I thought that was a great idea. Little did I no that the only place to get medicine at seven o'clock, when we arrived in Cahute, is the hospital. We were there for two hours, and I felt like vomiting while I was there. I eventually did vomit, which made me feel a little better. The doctor gave me some medicine for my stomach and the vomiting, and told me to return at 7pm with a stool sample.

Trying to sleep that night was all but impossible. My stomach still hurt, and I was drinking water and peeing frequently. And then the animals started to make noise at about 11:30. Dogs barking at one another, and roosters crowing every hour. When Doña Maria, my host mother, got up at 5am, I figured I may as well too. At 6am I was on a pica to Cahute.

I was very tired when I got there. I did my best to leave a stool sample in a toilet that had no seat, which is very awkward. I gave it to the labratory, and checked into a hotel room for some sleep after calling my parents.

At about two I was awoken by Sally and Javier, who had just returned from the G-8 summit in Germany, where he was giving a presentation against a proposal to encourage the use of genetically modified foods in Africa. The ride made me feeling, and I almost felt like vomiting at points. To make things worse, we got a flat tire (don't buy Firestone), which took too long to fix, since Crispaz's good tire iron was stolen. When I finally returned to the Crispaz offices, I walked up to my room, and sleep from 4pm to 6am. It felt amazing.

In conclusion:

1) America is the greatest nation on earth! We may have our faults, but we were the first modern Democracy. Except for Iceland, which doesn't count because it is small and cold, and nobody wants to live there.

2) Don't buy Firestone tires or Subway sandwhiches.