Sick Day!

I woke up this morning feeling a little queezy. After knocking on Rob and Travis’s door, Rob opens and looks like he’s been to hell and back. He tells us that hes been awake since six and spent half of his time in the bathroom. It didn’t help my queezyness when I saw him run to the bathroom and overheard him vomit his lungs out! I run to the elevator to avoid any more noise because the mere sound of someone vomiting makes me want to vomit. I tried to eat a full breakfast but couldn’t find myself managing to do so, so I only had a few pieces of fruit. This was the first indication that I was sick—I normally eat a full breakfast involving at least one plate’s worth of refills. We all go upstairs to get ready for our day and I feel heaviness in my throat. I run quickly to the bathroom and start vomiting. Two people down. After telling Dr. Eder that I was sick, I decide to stay at the hotel while the rest of the group went to HSU. Esther, my roommate, was also feeling sick so she stayed back as well. Since Rob and I were the only two thus far vomiting, I decided to go stay in his room in Travis’s bed because it was also nice and air-conditioned, whereas my room was like a tropical rain forest which wasn’t great for my sickness. Rob and I spent the entire day taking turns in the bathroom, sleeping, and repeating. I think I must have slept at least 15 hours, none of which helped my exhausted state. During the mid-afternoon Travis comes back to the room and surprise-surprise, he is vomiting as well! We decide to put the beds together so we could all fit and suffer as a team. Travis’s vomiting was projectile! I felt really bad because it sounded painful!
Being that I remember one of our assigned writings was about the comparisons of the poor in Vietnam and the poor in the U.S., I decided to reflect on this today since we didn’t have anything else to do. In the U.S. I feel like the poor have to rely on the government for help, which they don’t give much of. In Vietnam however, I feel like they can’t rely on their government for help and have to rely more so on providing for themselves through things such as farming their own crops for food. Another major difference is the amount of money that the poor make. In Vietnam poor means less than a dollar a day, while in the U.S. poor means minimum wage or unemployment. The living conditions that the poor live in are also quite different. I remember in the Mekong Delta that some people lived in open air houses without full walls, or on boats with rooms made out of sheets. In the U.S. the poor still need to keep warm though, so they have to stay in insulated buildings, and especially if it’s too cold to live on the street, there are usually shelters for them to stay at temporarily.
Later on in the day Amber starts feeling sick, as well as both Dr. Eder’s. We seemed to be dropping like flies. Looking back at what could have made us sick, we all agree on the pig ears from two nights ago, because eight out of ten of us ate them, and it was those exact eight who got sick. So much for being adventurous and trying new foods! We all go to bed tonight exhausted and hoping for a vomit-free day tomorrow!