The streak ends

It was a good streak. Longer than some. But like all streaks, it had to end. And end it did. It must have been something we ate yesterday. It didn't hit me too hard, but Kristen bore the brunt of it. We have been sidelined to our hotel room for the vast majority of the day. Laying around, eating crackers, and drinking water. All I got was a slight ache in my stomach for the first part of the day. Kristen's has been worse, but not as bad as it sounds. We have not been miserable by a long shot. Bored and frustrated with sitting in our room, and constrained by the distance from the bathroom is more like it. We are, however, feeling much better this evening. We ventured out to buy secret santa gifts for the volunteers whose names we drew at New Market, which took longer than expected because I tend to get picky. I think that tomorrow, we will probably feel close to normal and be able to go out as normal since whatever troubled our system has obviously passed. We haven't really felt hungry all day until now, and I'm getting a craving. Cravings always seem to be something you can't get here. Tonight it is my Dad's blueberry pancakes. If you could mail me a couple of those, Dad, I would appreciate it. (They probably wouldn't be any older by the time they got here than the ones Scott used to keep on his nightstand). The secret santa with the volunteers is fun and helps us remember that tomorrow is Christmas eve. Pretty much everybody here celebrates it too, but it's just different. All the christmas trees are made from crappy tinsel stuff and the plastic santa claus figures wear a lot of eye makeup. Today, we were sitting in our room reading, when we heard a knock on the door. When we opened it, there was no-one, but a note from my secret santa and an indian fruit cake on the stoop. We were supposed to get a small thing today (like $1) and the big gift tomorrow (max $5 or 200 rupees). I love all kinds of cake, except one. And that is fruitcake. I've managed to pick around some of the weird little red and green things that are somehow considered fruit even though they were probably never part of a plant, and it's not too bad. We're hoping that Kristen's is waiting for us when we get back.

There is a family on our street whose husband has been unable to work for over a week because he's been sick with a bad fever. We went with them to the Doctor last night and went in while he was examined. They prescribed him some mecicine, and also got their daughter some anti-worm pills and multivitamins. This, plus some blood tests on the father for typhoid and malria cost under $20 dollars. Pretty amazing. Also, since the father's little chai stand on the street is their only source of income, they had run completely out of food. So, we bought them enough rice and dal to last them a couple of days. They were much more appreciative of the help than anyone else has been and it was good to see that we actually helped somebody and hadn't been duped. Tonight, we went with them to get the results of the blood test and he had neither malaria or typhoid, plus his fever had broken and was now fairly small. He will be back to work tomorrow or the next day and they will have some money again.

I think it's time now to go get a tomato and cheese omlette, or maybe a grilled egg sandwich. I'm starving.

Stephen

P.S. For those interested, I got my second LSAT scores back yesterday with an 11 point improvement. I'm pretty pumped.