Castes, Kids, and Dengue

When I arrived and was waiting for the other volunteers at the airport, the volunteer coordinator pointed to a mosquito that had landed on my suitcase and said "you have to watch out for those." I told him that I knew all about Malaria but was almost willing to risk it because I felt so awful on the prevention meds, which is a great irony because it means that I am getting sick from preventing getting sick. Much to my dismay, he shook his head and said "no, not Malaria-dengue." Dengue fever! My arch nemesis from Costa Rica! The unpreventable, untreatable illness that makes your bones ache for days! Just another ailment to add to my list of what I could catch out here. Food poisoning or GI upset of some sort is a given. However, the mother-daughter volunteers from San Francisco (the mom is almost 70, WHAT? I had BETTER be doing stuff like that when I am 70) insist that a tablespoon of whiskey every night does the trick warding off GI disruptors.

I want all of you to stop reading this for a moment and, before you resume, go take a nice shower with water that is not so hot it singes your skin and not so cold it turns your lips purple. I want you to enjoy it so I can enjoy it vicariously through you and forget about the one I just experienced. I sound like such an American girl whining about something so mundane, but so be it. I know that about two posts ago I predicted that I would be unable to shower this whole trip, so i should consider it a treat that I got to at all. But this was the kind of shower that made me rather go without. Turning the heat knob one millimeter the wrong way made for unbearably hot or cold water, and the shower head emitted three measly streams of H2O. Yeah, I will opt out the next few days.

I am trying to observe the caste system with no judgement, but it is really hard to watch people get treated like dirt because of a societal hierarchy. The maids at my host family looked terrified when I spoke to them and introduced myself with a smile. No one acknowledges them at all. These people whose life roles were determined at birth go about their jobs as maids and cooks and nannies and simply accept it as their fate. They expect no contact from anyone else. It is a system that, to me, seems so backwards.

The stray dogs are also a pathetic sight. They lay docile in unbelievable numbers and hardly even move their heads as cars and people approach. Flies circle their heads and bugs line their patchy fur. It was heartbreaking to see a puppy in such a state. The begging children are also difficult to behold. I had been warned not to give any money to a single kid because doing so would cause a wasp-like swarm of more, but I did not realize to what extent these kids get up "in your grill" (as rappers say). We would be standing around in the open market and these kids would infiltrate our circle, tug on our clothes and poke us in an attempt to extract money. Such desperation is so hard to see.

People are also fascinated by our whiteness. When we stopped at a gas station en route to our home stay, three guys came up to us wanting their photos with us. People stop and say hello to us and wave all the time. Speaking of my new home stay, below is a picture of my room. There are 6 beds crammed along the wall and I believe 12 of us staying here now. There is a brit now living in Calgary, the couple from New Zealand, a nurse from Boston, an electrician from New Jersey, a young man from Canada, the mother-daughter from San Francisco, and a guy from Bangladesh who everyone thinks is Indian.