Bichos
DISCLAIMER: (Please excuse the graphic nature of this entry, but I was sick this past week and feel the need to explain.)
I am not sure if I mentioned this already but during the first week of orientation here in Ecuador we had a doctor speak to us for about two hours about the ins and outs of living healthy in Ecuador. The presenation was actually very informative, with power point and everything, but one specific factor of her presentation stood out as creatively funny. After showing numerous slides on Malaria, Dengue Fever, and washing vegetables, all decorated with insightful information and creative drawings, she finished with one final slide. The title of the slide said, ¨Bowel Problems¨and the body of the slide said ¨You´re going to have them.¨No frills, no fuss, just cold hard reality.
We later got to see poloroids of various volunteers holding up eight inch night crawlers that they had miraculously sent on an all-expense paid trip through the theme park ¨MY INTESTINAL TRACK! FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY,¨but the bowel slide stuck with me. What would these movements be like? Should I eat poisoned food just to see the outcome, or should I wait it out and see what could manage to hit me on its own?
I decided to go with option B, thinking that such an experience might prove to be more authentic. I figured that if 60 year old Sly Stallone could take real punches, I might as well go with the more realistic approach as well. Luckily for me the real thing didn´t show up until about three days ago, but let me assure you, it was well worth the wait.
Allow me to clarify quickly: Unfortunately in Ecuador a person possessing ¨Regular Bowel Movements¨is about as common as a person not having a love crush on Shakira. I mean every time you pass something relatively solid, one feels the need to stand up on the toilet seat to give you intestines a voracious round of applause. It´s just the reality of living in a place where many crops are fertizlied with, shall we say ´rhymes with key-cal´ matter. No one gets paralzyed for three days by irregular bowel movements.
However, Irregularity´s angry step-mother, ¨bichos,¨is a totally different story. Bichos is the step mother from hell. In English, ¨Bichos¨literally means bacterial infection. What it should mean is, ¨!"·$%&/((%"·$%&/"%&/(.¨Here´s the basic rundown:
- Tuesday 9:00PM: Come home from a long day of work. Sit down to a delicious dinner of ¨Tortilla Espanola¨-basically a meat and egg omelet.
Note: (Looking back now, I remember thinking that the omelet tasted a little weird. It was basically the exact same feeling I got watching Luke and Layla´s weird romantic tension in the first couple of StarWars. You knew something was up, but couldn´t quite put your finger on it)
-Tuesday 10:45 PM: While watching television my stomach starts doing the water cooler impression-the tell tale bichos sign. It was like someone had opened a bottle of beer in my stomach. I shrug it off as ¨irregularities¨, but start to get slightly worried.
-Tuesday 11:30: I got to bed, hoping for some safety in unconciousness.
-Tuesday 11:30-Wednesday 4:00AM Unbearable tossing and turning of half sleep and half awake misery. I feel like if a leaf fell on me I would be crushed to a pitiful pulp.
Wednesday 4:00Am: Thanks to college, I have a pretty strong stomach. In fact I haven´t involuntarily heave-hoed since I got here, and knew that I probably wouldn´t unless I took matters into my own hands. Since my stomach was going absolutely nuts, I felt I only had one option: pull-o el trigger-o.
Wednesday 4:15AM-Present: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be RIDICULOUSLY out of shape? Well that´s been my last couple of days. Standing up invokes vigorous sweating, a sharp heart rate increase, and a rapid breathing rate. I have the scrumdiddlyumptious taste of bile in my mouth all the time. If I eat a crumb of bread I feel disgustingly full. Going to the bathroom is just a complete mission. I have about as much control over my stomach and intestines as Rick Vaugn without glasses has over his fastball. It´s just absolutely brutal. Luckily today I was able to walk to work (a 25 minute trip that usually takes 10-I had to take some rest stops), and I really feel that I am on the homestretch to beating the bichos. My host mom even made me chicken noodle soup that I was able to wolf down normally. Hooray for me!
Couple things: First off is that someone with drawing skills needs to sketch a FarSide comic about Bichos. You could basically have a Gringo chowing down food from a bowl at a breakfast nook table. The only other thing on the table would be a box of cereal that said, ¨Bich-OS!¨In the back, carefully hidden, would be an Ecuadorian host mother with a sneer on her face. The caption would be something like ¨Unbenownst to Little Johnny Smith, Host Mother Rita has had enough of his evil white person antics.¨Also when I get back to the states I am going to take every single anti-parasite medicine on planet earth. Anybody know any good brands?
Hope nobody else is sick,
Kanedogger
I am not sure if I mentioned this already but during the first week of orientation here in Ecuador we had a doctor speak to us for about two hours about the ins and outs of living healthy in Ecuador. The presenation was actually very informative, with power point and everything, but one specific factor of her presentation stood out as creatively funny. After showing numerous slides on Malaria, Dengue Fever, and washing vegetables, all decorated with insightful information and creative drawings, she finished with one final slide. The title of the slide said, ¨Bowel Problems¨and the body of the slide said ¨You´re going to have them.¨No frills, no fuss, just cold hard reality.
We later got to see poloroids of various volunteers holding up eight inch night crawlers that they had miraculously sent on an all-expense paid trip through the theme park ¨MY INTESTINAL TRACK! FUN FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY,¨but the bowel slide stuck with me. What would these movements be like? Should I eat poisoned food just to see the outcome, or should I wait it out and see what could manage to hit me on its own?
I decided to go with option B, thinking that such an experience might prove to be more authentic. I figured that if 60 year old Sly Stallone could take real punches, I might as well go with the more realistic approach as well. Luckily for me the real thing didn´t show up until about three days ago, but let me assure you, it was well worth the wait.
Allow me to clarify quickly: Unfortunately in Ecuador a person possessing ¨Regular Bowel Movements¨is about as common as a person not having a love crush on Shakira. I mean every time you pass something relatively solid, one feels the need to stand up on the toilet seat to give you intestines a voracious round of applause. It´s just the reality of living in a place where many crops are fertizlied with, shall we say ´rhymes with key-cal´ matter. No one gets paralzyed for three days by irregular bowel movements.
However, Irregularity´s angry step-mother, ¨bichos,¨is a totally different story. Bichos is the step mother from hell. In English, ¨Bichos¨literally means bacterial infection. What it should mean is, ¨!"·$%&/((%"·$%&/"%&/(.¨Here´s the basic rundown:
- Tuesday 9:00PM: Come home from a long day of work. Sit down to a delicious dinner of ¨Tortilla Espanola¨-basically a meat and egg omelet.
Note: (Looking back now, I remember thinking that the omelet tasted a little weird. It was basically the exact same feeling I got watching Luke and Layla´s weird romantic tension in the first couple of StarWars. You knew something was up, but couldn´t quite put your finger on it)
-Tuesday 10:45 PM: While watching television my stomach starts doing the water cooler impression-the tell tale bichos sign. It was like someone had opened a bottle of beer in my stomach. I shrug it off as ¨irregularities¨, but start to get slightly worried.
-Tuesday 11:30: I got to bed, hoping for some safety in unconciousness.
-Tuesday 11:30-Wednesday 4:00AM Unbearable tossing and turning of half sleep and half awake misery. I feel like if a leaf fell on me I would be crushed to a pitiful pulp.
Wednesday 4:00Am: Thanks to college, I have a pretty strong stomach. In fact I haven´t involuntarily heave-hoed since I got here, and knew that I probably wouldn´t unless I took matters into my own hands. Since my stomach was going absolutely nuts, I felt I only had one option: pull-o el trigger-o.
Wednesday 4:15AM-Present: Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be RIDICULOUSLY out of shape? Well that´s been my last couple of days. Standing up invokes vigorous sweating, a sharp heart rate increase, and a rapid breathing rate. I have the scrumdiddlyumptious taste of bile in my mouth all the time. If I eat a crumb of bread I feel disgustingly full. Going to the bathroom is just a complete mission. I have about as much control over my stomach and intestines as Rick Vaugn without glasses has over his fastball. It´s just absolutely brutal. Luckily today I was able to walk to work (a 25 minute trip that usually takes 10-I had to take some rest stops), and I really feel that I am on the homestretch to beating the bichos. My host mom even made me chicken noodle soup that I was able to wolf down normally. Hooray for me!
Couple things: First off is that someone with drawing skills needs to sketch a FarSide comic about Bichos. You could basically have a Gringo chowing down food from a bowl at a breakfast nook table. The only other thing on the table would be a box of cereal that said, ¨Bich-OS!¨In the back, carefully hidden, would be an Ecuadorian host mother with a sneer on her face. The caption would be something like ¨Unbenownst to Little Johnny Smith, Host Mother Rita has had enough of his evil white person antics.¨Also when I get back to the states I am going to take every single anti-parasite medicine on planet earth. Anybody know any good brands?
Hope nobody else is sick,
Kanedogger
posted by ecuadortraveler at 9:42 AM
1 Comments:
haha, pull-o el trigger-o
is that the colloquial translation?
keep writing man.
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