Me siento mucho mejor

Thankfully, I am feeling much better and today I was able to eat normally. I may have overdid it a bit with the galletas (cookies), but after a couple days of eating things like jello and rice, I couldn't help myself. Throughout my sickness, I was given a few different remedies and I have no idea what they were. Some involved herbs, but one was kind of like a hot, jello like substance that you drink like a tea. My mom did warn me about accepting random remedies, but nothing seemed too extreme. My dad told me a story about how when he was living here he was once really sick and they called up a witch doctor who did things like place hot stones on his chest. People do like to play doctor here though, every person who found out I was sick offered up their own diagnosis of the cause. I'm glad I'm feeling better because I was getting bored from lying around so much.

Yesterday I did feel well enough to go to La Quinta and teach a movement class at the Special Education School. It ended up being a lot of fun. I worked with a group of about 12 girls (and I'm relieved that they were all girls because the boys were all over the place and very physical, I'm not sure I would have been able to keep their attention). They were all teenagers and two of them were in wheel chairs. I had prepared something very simple as I wasn't sure what to expect and I was pleasantly surprised by how open they were to the activities. However, a few of them were a bit disappointed that we didn't dance to reggaeton, a couple of them started chanting "reggaeton" at one point which reminded me how the Dazzling Dolphins used to sometimes chant "Pump it Up" and it drove me crazy. I tried my best to explain to them that it is possible to dance to music other than reggaeton. For the most part though, I think everyone really enjoyed themselves. One of the best moments happened at the end when I was having everyone show me how they were feeling with a movement, and one girl who's movement is greatly restricted (but she did some wonderful dancing with her face and her hands) showed me a huge smile. Everyone who worked there was super nice and they told me I was welcome back anytime. I definitely plan to continue going once a week.

I'm planning a trip to Santiago this coming week so that should be good. We've also started planning my mom's big birthday party which is just three weeks away, so I'm getting excited for that. It will be so great to see my parents and hopefully I will get to do some traveling with them too.