it was the best of times, it was the worst of times.

i'm home from work today, sick for the fourth time in the month i've been here. but this time i've graduated from just diarrhea to full on puking AND diarrhea. which is way cooler. (apologies for the picture, but that's funny! and cool!) i really hate throwing up, and to be honest, i think binge drinkers and people suffering from bulimia deserve extra respect, because i just couldn't do all that throwing up.

so today is a boring, crappy day. but friday was probably the best day i've had in ecuador. i thought i might tell you about it. the first good thing that happened was the discovery that i was working in recovery with maira (probably my favorite person in the OR), so we got to talk and whatever all day, which made me happy. maira's kind of like my friend betsy, which is definitely a good thing because while there's only one betsy, you can never have too many betsys. but that's not enough to make it the best day ever. to be the best day ever, you'd need some good video-clip style moments you could make into a highlight reel of the day. like the point at which dr. calderon the anesthesiologist decided to teach me to dance cumbia, so he, dr. cueva (another anesthesiologist), marta (a nurse), ximena (the boss of all the OR nurses), maira and i all danced in the OR. it was awesome. then ximena bought several of us lunch, which was obviously a bigger deal for the community happiness it created for me than for the $2-3 it saved me.

before the day was over, maira and i agreed to go get dinner that night, which marks the first time i've turned my work friendships into actual hanging out with ecuadoreans outside of work. which is obviously a good thing for me. they're real life ecuadoreans!!! i was having so much fun at work i stayed an extra hour, and then went home.

while i was there, i talked to janae (probably my favorite person ever) and we discussed when would be the best dates, and then she bought tickets to come out to ecuador. probably mostly to try the cuisine here, but i think partly also to see me. this took my already good day into the stellar-sphere (it was stellar, see). i went back to the hospital to meet maira, and as we were leaving we also asked fanny to come with us. TWO ECUADOREANS!!! i just doubled my productivity!

i had lots of fun at dinner, and afterwards we decided to go to a dance club. so i got to use my cumbia dance lessons and was also instructed in the finer points of salsa and regatón dancing. well, "instructed in the finer points" is probably a blatant falsehood. "was taught" might be an exaggeration. but maira DID shout in my ear what kind of music was being played each time a new song started, and then after awhile pointed at some guy doing a good job and said "DANCE LIKE HIM!!!" there was obviously lots of laughter and lots of good times. i think maira and fanny were both very impressed with my skills.

so that was my friday. it was good. in other good news, i made it through this whole story without having to go to the bathroom. i'm so happy!