what to do when in a foreign country with an unnameable rash that just keeps spreading? hydrocortisone cream? check. try and forget about it? ohhh check. doctor's visit. check. SCABIES LOTION?!?!.....check check.
yes, that's right, i now have the right to say that i had scabies in brazil. and my host family had to do 2 loads of laundry every day just for me and check to make sure that they weren't itching..yet. i'm not really sure how i contracted the little mite, but i remember that it started when i was still with my other host family - i wonder if they have scabies now, too..hmmm. it started with a small harmless itch in my armpit that over the past couple of weeks spread to my chest, the other armpit, my back and torso. eeks! so i finally did go to a doctor with the help of one of the girls who works in the CIEE office here and whose mom is a doctor, although my own google searching helped more than her words, but seriously don't type "scabies" into the image search, you'll get the most disturbing images. you've been warned.
what WAS fun was my first experience with anti-histamines. they can seriously mess with you. you've been warned.
what happened was last tuesday i bought the scabies lotion that you have to rub allll over you and leave for at least 12 hours at a time, doing this for 4 days, but you're supposed to buy an anti-histamine to counteract the itch! oops. i didn't. the ENTIRE tuesday night i was itching so bad it was like i could picture little bugs crawling all over me..needless to say i only slept about 20 minutes and was OUT the door wednesday morning at 6am to see if any pharmacies were open yet. as soon as i bought those babies i popped 2 instead of the usual 1, and then another at 11 when my first class started. oh, overdosing on anti-histamines. during that class the teacher asked us to form little groups and discuss what our impressions were about the black woman in brazil, and all i could do was give a glazed-over look to my friend, amy, and oh no. i just noticed what i think are new red bumps. man, if this wasn't scabies i'm gonna be so pissed off.
oh and WEDNESDAY night the CIEE group brought all of us exchange students to go see a play in one of the theaters here that was a piece from the absurd genre, starring 3 men and 3 women all dressed in the same purple spandex dress, lamenting the arrival of a refrigerator in their living room, courtesy of his/her mother for a birthday present. apparently it's supposed to be a monologue about a woman who was raped by her father and blamed for killing him, but, well, it was absurd. at one point i was really feeling the anti-histamine groove, feeling kind of warm and fuzzy, when i realized that the "warm" part was because there was a big bright spotlight shining. over me. just me. and ALL of the actors were staring me with this look on their face daring me to do something. do what?!?! oh no oh no oh no i was soooo not paying attention but they JUST KEEP STARING. so i got up. and walked forward a little. and ran back to my seat. i think they figured it out after a while because they just continued on with the play, but my friends explained to me afterwards that they had said, "go open the window". ooops! lesson learned: when drugged out and in a theater of the absurd...sit in the back row, not front and center.
this week also concluded the most popular novella in Brazil, "Paraíso Tropical", that i did get kind of hooked on, i'll admit it. i was really happy that it had only just started when i got home from capoeira - which is SO much fun to play!
This afternoon i'm going to my host brother's (Matheus) soccer game to cheer him on with my grandma! he's 13 but really cool but it's funny because i can see why ben called me a punk at that age. he can be a punk sometimes. as for my other brother, gabriel (17) he went out with me to a club/bar last night to meet up with some friends and dance, and i was SO proud - i got the jeitinho brasileiro right! (quick translation: "jeitinho brasileiro" = sweet-talk your ass off and you can have anything your heart desires...) that is, when we got there the doorman asked him for his id and i was like, "ohh you have to be 18 to get in? but see, he's my brother, i'm on exchange and he's my family here, and my other friends are inside...i promise he won't drink, i'll keep an eye on him, we just want to dance..." doors: opened. the only thing that was missing afterwards was a club rodrigo (AKA dancing downstairs with rod's kick-ass soundsystem that would shake the entire three-story house until the sky started to get a little lighter..even if rod,himself, had already passed out and gone to sleep).
well, that's all for now. lots of love.