Teaching While Sick

Well, last Wednesday I woke up a little achy, and thought it curious. Later that evening after teacher, I had a sore throat and a bit of a fever. Then I knew I was sick. By Thursday night I had a full on cold, and Friday morning I couldn't make it to work. I thought if I satyed home Friday morning and had someone cover my 10:00 class, that I feel rested enough to teach my 4:30, and 6:10. It was important for me to go to those classes because I was going to bring my guitar and sing "What Shall We Do With The Drunken Sailor" to teach imperatives, i.e. "Put him in the bilge and make him drink it", and also to teach English syllable and stress patterns. Also, most importantly, my 6:10 class (Threshold 2, the highest level), was having a debate, and I made them brownies. So, I figured instead of taking the whole day off and subjecting the rest of the teachers to having to cover my classes, I just took one early and easy class off. Turns out this was the worst decision I could have made. On Friday Fritz called in Sick, and Annie called in sick, and the only person comming to work early enough to cover my 10:00 class was Wade, who was planning on taking his mother-in-law to the hospital, and spending time with he and his wife instead (none of this I knew until after the fact). So, Wade had to come in early, teach my class, and figure out how to disribute five other classes fairly. Later that day I got a lecture about how if I decide to stay home at all, it should be for the whole day. Turns out that the rest I got proved to be only temporarily beneficial, too. Consequently I had to stay home all of Monday because my voice was completely gone. Kinda hard to teach English when you can't speak. Much tension arose between all the members of the teacher's household, but thankfully now it is mostly diffused.

Being sick in the tropics is very strange. Normaly when we get sick, it's during the colder, darker time of the year. Here, it's never colder, and never darker. It's almost hard to tell whether you have a fever because it's so warm and you were ALREADY sweating anyway. But, I seem to slowly be getting better. Teaching is about the worst medicine for a cold though. Imagine having a sore throat, fever, and achy body while at the same time being required to entertain physically and intellectually (and especially verbaly) a group of 8 students, 4 hours a day.

Anyways, more new to come very shortly, I have to switch from Wade's computer to the internet cafe because he needs to use it!

So, a dios for a short time.

-Nick