A Very Peace Corps Thanksgiving

Oh, how wonderful Thanksgiving is. Friends gathered around the dinner table, the delicious smells of turkey and apple pie wafting from the buffet table, and a vomit inducing bacterial infection from hell.

Needless to say, I had a very "Peace Corps" Thanksgiving this year.

I was so excited for my first ever Friendsgiving. Last year was a bit of a romp and was really more about escaping the campo than spending time with my new PC friends. This year we rented out a cabin in the middle of nowhere to ensure maximum togetherness. The place was actually very cute and came with a helpful family who lived on the property. I don't have any pictures of the place because I spent most of the time wrapped in blankets and fighting back the urge to spew.

The whole house ran on a generator and we had about 4 hours of electricity at a time which we spared out according to what needed to be cooked. Being the hyper organizational types, we created cooking groups weeks ahead of time to figure out all of the Thanksgiving meal preparation. I was truly amazed by the food these groups were able to pull off. Everything was from scratch and used fresh herbs from the on-site herb garden. I don't think I've ever had an entire Thanksgiving meal entirely from scratch. It was delicious! I forced myself to consume every bite and hold it in as long as I could.

Unfortunately, that didn't last too long. The Friday after Thanksgiving I asked the caretaker to drive me to the road so PC could take me to the hospital. Of course, the doctor listened to my symptoms and told me "Oh yeah, you got the chikungunya for sure." Then some labs tests came back and she changed her tune to, "Oh yeah, totally a UTI." I have no faith in this doctor.

Either way, I've been on antibiotics for a few days now and I'm feeling better. I wish I could've enjoyed Thanksgiving more. It's weird to think that next year we won't be in El Salvador together, but we'll be moving on to bigger and more sanitary places. I'm thankful for the new friends I've made over the past year and all the experiences I've had.