One More Update

So apparently I didn't have Giardia because I got sick again yesterday. Usually it only happens about once a month, but this is the second time in two weeks so you can imagine it's really frustrating, especially since I'm about to go on vacation with my parents. I called the doctor and she had me go in for another stool sample (my second in two days) to see if it's a parasite. The last two tests I've done have come back negative, but I wasn't having symptoms then so she asked me do it again. I don't have much faith this is going to give me any answers, but we'll see. The girl who works at the lab said it might be a bacterial infection that needs to be treated in a whole other way. The first time I gave a stool sample, they said it showed that I have a bacterial infection that doesn't seem to be going away, but didn't give me anything to treat it. I just let it go, but now that I've been sick 4 times in the past three months, I'm starting to get really annoyed (not to mention how worried my parents are that this is going to have long term effects on my health). They told me the name of another test I might have to do if this one comes back negative again. I mentioned it to my doctor and she told me not to worry - that she'd talk to the lab and get it figured out so we'll see. Keep your fingers crossed that I finally get an answer to this.

In other news, I had a great weekend with Hana and Lindsay. Today is Hana's birthday so the three of us celebrated it this weekend since we never get to see her. She was in town for a conference during the week so she just took a few days of vacation to stay on to visit us. We got massages, watched movies, had sleepovers, and bought our favorite cake - Princesa cake (chocolate peanut butter) - to celebrate! Believe it or not, we barely even ate any of the cake because we were too full from everything else we had that day! Everyone in the group knows us as the dessert queens, but we definitely did not live up to our standards that weekend - haha. It was so much fun to have Hana in Cajamarca and show her around because she's never been here before. There were actually a lot of visitors in town this weekend as it seems to be "visitor season". We met two friends' parents and siblings and another friend's daughter! His daughter is my age so we were talking about how cool it must be to visit your dad in the Peace Corps. It made me really excited to see how happy our friends were to be with their families since my parents will be here soon too!

On Friday night we got to Lindsay's house around 10 pm and tried to go downstairs about a half an hour later to brush our teeth, but when Lindsay opened the door to go outside, it sounded like someone was out there because we heard footsteps of someone running away. We asked who was there, but no one answered and we shined a headlamp, but didn't see anything. All three of us are sure we heard something, but Lindsay was the only one who saw anything when she first answered the door. She said she saw someone's feet and it looked like the ran to the left of her door. Her room is on the second floor and you access it from the outside, but the only way to get off the balcony is to turn right out her door so we were really scared that this person was just hiding somewhere, waiting for us to come out again.

Of course we were scared shitless and kept trying to figure out who it was and where they came from because in order to get back to her room, you have to walk through the house. We didn't see anyone when we came in, but we weren't exactly looking either. You have to go through two doors to get to Lindsay's room and the person was standing outside of the second door so we figured the person saw us go in and thought we were in for the night. There was no way we were about to go back outside so we just sat there discussing all of the possibilities for a good 30 minutes. We were all still really scared so we decided to wake up her host parents and tell them. Her host mom came up and looked all around with a flashlight, but after looking around for about 20 minutes, didn't find anything. She asked if we saw the person and Lindsay said yes (even though we didn't, but otherwise we were sure she wouldn't believe us). She said it was a man and he was short, which isn't so far off since most Peruvian men are about my height. She assured us there was nothing to be worried about, escorted us downstairs so we could brush our teeth, and told us it must have just been a ghost.

The next morning at breakfast they were talking about it again and her host mom (who is about 60) kept saying, "I really couldn't believe you guys because I didn't hear anything and no one was out there." The fact that she didn't hear anything doesn't matter because she often doesn't hear Lindsay come home. There is another girl, Dannie, who lives at Lindsay's house who was at breakfast too and was saying she was sure it was this guy down the road who is dying and came to "reclaim his steps". She said that before someone dies, they visit all of their favorite places, or places that have meaning to them so she was sure it was him. Her host mom said he already died though so that theory was thrown out. Then she told us that it couldn't have been his ghost either because he was tall and Lindsay said the guy was short, so that was out! Oh man. They still insisted it was a ghost and I'm sure her host mom thinks we're crazy, but the next night Dannie put up a huge wooden stick to bolt the door shut. Looks like someone believed us....

Finally, I want to congratulate my neice Monica who became a mom on May 26th. Yes, that means I am now the proud GREAT aunt (at the young age of 23) of Edward Franklin Miller! She was due on May 27th so when we woke up that morning, I announced to Hana and Lindsay that we should be getting a phone call sometime that day to tell me I've become a great aunt. I had made my parents and my sister promise that someone call me when the baby was born so I made sure to have my cell phone with me at all times over the weekend. Well wasn't it a surprise to me when we went to the internet that morning and found out by EMAIL that she had the baby - and worse yet, it wasn't even a personal email, it was just a forward that my mom sent to the rest of our family! I couldn't believe no one had called me! I asked mom and dad to bring me socks (along with TONS of other things) so she called me the other day to ask if I wanted no show or ankle socks, but she didn't call when I became a GREAT AUNT! This is a monumental occasion in my life and I didn't even get a phone call! (Mom you know I'm just teasing you about all of this because I know you were extremely busy running around buying all of the stuff I have requested.....it's just a joke!).

Mom called me a little later after she got my email and gave me all of the details of the birth. Let's just say that Monica and Edward were both troopers and it was a long, hard labor, but they are both healthy so that's what counts. Mom gave me the information to call the hospital so I was able to talk to Monica, Brittani, and Ann briefly. Monica sounded happy, but exhausted. Ann and Brittani promised to take good care of her and send me lots of pictures so I can't wait!

Well I think those are the only updates. Now it's just waiting around until Mom and Dad arrive! Woo hoo!