Isn't turpentine a known carcinogen, or am I making that up??

My internet silence these past few weeks is not to be taken as a sign either that I have been unusually happy and therefore too busy to write or that I have been unusually despondent and therefore too depressed to share any news. Rather, I have been unusually – even for me! – ill and too pathetic to stay out of a prone position long enough to make use of the internet, my verticality being preserved for essentials like teaching and playing tennis (actually, I only managed to play seven hours of tennis in the last three weeks compared to a typical fifteen, and three of those seven hours occurred on one blissfully, if temporarily, healthy day). 

Anyone who knows me well is probably not shocked, as I have a reputation for catching every cold and flu that even considers flitting past, but this time it’s ridonkulous. I mean, seriously – twenty two days of phlegm, cough drops, and mysterious pains in my elbows and knees… not to mention other unpleasant symptoms, like a splitting headache and tonsils the size of golf balls (tennis balls would have made for a more fitting, if hyperbolic, metaphor). As my Dad would say, I’ve been sick as a dog.

Putting aside both the weirdness of this idiom (if I had internet access at home I would so be googling that right now!) and the various folk wisdoms I’ve been told about how foreigners always catch this particularly virulent flu (I feel reverse kinship with the native Peruvians upon first contact with the germ-bringing Europeans), the change of seasons always makes people sick, and drinking pineapple juice is bad for the flu because it makes you cold (regardless of the temperature at which it is drunk) – and that’s a lot to put aside – let me make the profound statement that being sick really sucks. There were a few moments when I almost abandoned my anti-antibiotics stance in my desperation to feel better, especially for the five days when I was coughing about fifty percent of the time I was conscious and my lungs were tight little knots in my chest (just as I was about to break, my chest loosened at last and I could breathe, praise jesus). But don’t worry, all ye believers in the antibiotic, and especially my mother – the doctor came to see me today and he pronounced my lungs to be of sound health, free of pneumonia or bronchitis, and prescribed something to help open my bronchial tubes. I have never been so excited about taking deep breaths! 

Also they sell something called “Vapor Rub” here but one of the ingredients is turpentine… please tell me that Vick’s does not have paint thinner in it and that this is a sad third-world poisoning only. I slathered that stuff on and even dissolved it in hot water and inhaled the fumes, as per the directions, before it occurred to me to check the ingredients out of curiosity. Turpentine!

Anyway last week we were on vacation, although as I only enjoyed three days of good health it was not quite the song and dance it should have been. But I had a few moments of real joy – a healthy afternoon with teacher friends in Havana Vieja, drinking beer and sangria and having real conversations in Spanish (which only included minimal lapses into English on my part when I really did not know how to describe something any other way); teaching my sister to play pool and watching her beat my brother, who wins at nearly everything; kicking said brother’s butt at ping pong (ok, it was a two point win so “kicking his butt” might be an exaggeration. And I am ashamed to admit it but he is eight); re-reading Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince in four days; my brother Jimmy telling me in English “you a bad sister because you farts smell really bad” (add the little kid Cuban accent and the fact that he is three, and you can see how this shocking insult transforms into pure cuteness); actually winning a game of Spider Solitaire on the Medium difficulty setting!!

It’s the little things in life. 

In short, I am happy and well – or at least, I should be in three more days according to the doctor – and the only thing to dampen my spirits is the distinct lack of email from certain parties (emails that only say “tell me what you’re up to” don’t count – it’s a back and forth, people!). If I fall into that category myself, let me only say, “oops.” I’ll write soon, I promise.

I’m flying to Miami this Friday for a few days with my mother and brothers – cannot wait to see them! – with a list I have been compiling of “things I really really want to bring back to Havana from the non-embargoed world.” 

Top of my list is Nyquil – you would not believe how difficult it is to get your hands on a bottle of cough syrup! Ooh, and an electric tea kettle – a little piece of England in Havana…