The plauge!

I wish I had the time for complete sentences. Last night I felt something tugging at my throat, as I was sitting on a bed inside one of the cabins, listening to Emery read me a poem she wrote. Then I walked outside and sat down in front of the fire where David and Palmer were sitting on white plastic lawn chairs, having a conversation about which tools they identify with. (David: Paintbrush. Palmer: Screwdriver.) "Stud finder!" I chime in and crack up laughing. Now, Palmer is the best laugher I've ever met and I've met some laughers. She nearly topples over in the chair, she hits my knee and practically screams 'oh Melina, you're so ENGLISHY!!" As I laugh I realize I can't breathe through my nose. Uh oh. So I go lie down in the tent for the night, and thus begins the night of misery. The barometer in my head plummeted and I thought it would explode. I was coughing and spitting out the tent door all night and slept just enough to have an anxiety dream about having to miss my world lit class.

Went I woke up and staggered through the woods to the cabins I found that Palmer started puking in the night, and so did Tracy. And so did Trop. And Ian. And Jackson? Who else?! All of them were happy and healthy yesterday. We had the best workout so far, with attaining, ferrying, boatcross, playing, and something called Wave Wars that was like boatercross in the hole, I avoided it. Everyone was happy as I've ever seen them....well, whatever hit in the night hit hard! Everyone is sick, lying in their beds in the cold film of sickness and sweat. Not easy for kids to be sick in a foreign country. David was running around doling out soup, sprite, gatoraide and Cipro. When he saw me, he conjured a cup of tea with half a lemon cut up in it. He can do about 10,000 things at once.

I started to feel a little better and was able to spend the afternoon bleaching bathrooms and bringing people soup (they groaned, turned away) and tea (they groaned, turned away) and cold sprite (this they accepted.) Then I bought a giant chocolate cake in town and told the healthy kids that if they did a good job in the rodeo (they were exhausted, we were supposed to go to the hotsprings today to chill out, but plans change when half the group is erupting like volcanoes) then they could devour the cake. So they took off for the river, the rest of the group lay in their beds, and I escaped the germs (with the exception of my own) and went into town to get things for Tracy's birthday tomorrow. I'm sitting here in Trawen hoping that Mellon juice is the panacea that it tastes like it ought to be. But now I feel like I have a fever rising in quick intervals with every passing minute so we'll see what happens next...