Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired -- August 25

Isn't there a song that goes like this? 

Well, if there is, then I should be singing it right now. MAN, this is the second week that I've had a cold. What's up with this? Usually it only lasts for a week, but this time, just after getting over it, I got right back into the sore throat, stuffy nose, clogged sinuses and all that jazz. I'm building up a resistance against the nose-spray. Yesterday I had to administer it every three hours, while it lasted for 5-6 hours when I started taking it ten days ago. Today I took it just about ninety minutes ago, and my nose passages are clogged already. On the other hand I'm starting to feel the side-effect: I'm constantly drowsy. I can't wake up to go to the beach in the morning, and by noon-time I'm ready to go to bed. Not good!

But am I surprised about having a constant cold in a nearly-tropical climate? Not in a school full of air-conditioning! Picture this: after the five minute bike-ride to school I'm drenched in sweat as if I had just come out of the sauna (fully clothed of course). With the humidity it is nearly impossible to dry in the sun, or in the shade for that matter. Instead I go and sit down in a classroom where I get hit by a cool breeze of 18 centigrades, blowing full force out of the AC. Now, going through that four times a day can make even the strongest person sick. I know, almost everyone in our group has come down with it at some point.

My two neighbors, two other students living at the house, have offered to give me some remedies. Caroline from France has something homeopathic, that she says works wonders. Monika from Germany practices an ancient technique called Reiki, which I will try just for the hell of it. What I'd be really interested in trying, however, is something I've heard from the German student, Anette, who had been staying with us before.

When she arrived, she had a bad a case of stomach-acid... I guess she had too much of it, or something. So someone told her to visit a famous Mexican witch-doctor, and she took a bus out there. It was a ride of more than five hours. He used a chicken egg and some smelly stuff to examine her. His diagnosis was that her stomach was inhabited by some sort of evil, and that she needed surgery. Since his fee was relatively low, compared to what a western-style surgery would cost, she accepted.

He took out a razor-blade, and accompanied by some mumbo-jumbo cut a few long lines onto her skin above her stomach, mixed some strange yellow powder into the wound, then covered it with a patch. That was the "surgery". Days later, when she showed it to me, the marks of the surgery were still prominent, red and inflamed, and she told me she didn't even believe that it would help. But in the end somehow it did. Her stomach felt much better, the acid got balanced, and now she can partake of the same quesadillas with salsa verde and horchata (not to mention the peppers, onions and tomatoes), that everybody else is eating round here.

So I wonder... what that wizard would do to my nose? Stick some bamboo splinters into my nostrils to drain the phlegm out? Maybe... and I wouldn't even object. Hell, I might even pay him to do that! Unfortunately Anette is gone now, so I can't ask her where to find the witch-doctor.

What else can I do? The answer is obvious: leave this place behind. On Sunday I know I will. Can't wait to get out of Playa. I don't want to go too far (just a thousand kilometers, or so...) up to a higher elevation where it's cool enough not to need air-conditioners. My chosen destination is Oaxaca. I've only heard good things about it... lots of culture, lots of art, good climate... well, I'll write about it when I get there.