Cold Spaghetti

Will was worse today. His poor little nose is constantly running, he has a productive wet cough, and as a result of how crappy all that feels, he had a restless, wakeful night (I have a feeling tonight could be like this, too). He’s not running a fever and the diarrhea has abated, so there really isn’t anything to do but treat the symptoms and wait it out. We’re thinking of giving it another day or so and then re-assessing whether it’s worth another trip to the pediatrician. Poor little man!

What is hardest about him being sick is that it is both difficult for me to leave the house and difficult to be here. He wants me, there is no subsistute for Mommy, and I do not want to leave a crying child with anyone. Josefina has been wonderful. Somehow, I still managed to get a decent amount of work done today. The times when both of us watched him gave me an opportunity to ask her about herself, which proved to be a wonderful conversation. Still, it is difficult to strike a balance with a sick kid and puts a lot of strain on her since she so wants to help him, as well as help Paul and me.

Adventures today: finalizing private spanish classes for Paul and I, meeting to help with the PRISMA proposal that the med student here is working on, and meeting her cousin and friend who are visiting (they work in the film industry), using Skype (works great), and being asked to cut in the front of the line at the bank by virtue of my pregnant state. (This was the same in Honduras — pregnant women are ushered first in line as a curtesy.)

Being here is wonderful for my thinking and focus. Even with everything going on, as Elizabeth reminded me when she called, being abroad is the best medicine for a clouded mind. I am getting much clearer on the questions I am interested in asking and beginning to get a sense of how to apply my questions on the ground. It feels right to be here now and I am so happy that I have Paul and Will supporting me through it.

Will picked up a cough, stuffy nose, and diarrhea sometime yesterday afternoon. He was clingy this morning and uncharacteristically whiny. We discovered that the home phone is now functional (hooray!) and I used it to call the pediatrician. We had an appointment at 4 with Dr. Spangenberg of Pediatras Asociados. He was great; easily one of the best visits I’ve had with a physician. Will seemed to like him as well, especially after Dr. Spangenberg gave him a lollipop (right before Will had a diarrhea incident and got changed right on the exam desk while I spoke with the doctor!) It was expensive: 180 soles (a little less than $60) but the state of mind it bought us made it worth it. We now have a pediatrician in the city in the event of emergency and a baseline for Will in the event of serious illness.

Other acheivements: I have a working cell phone! I managed to get it functional and acquire the prepago ClaroRecarga tarjetas. It’s pretty darn expensive (roughly 2.5 soles per minute to local cell phones not on Claro plans) but worth it for how we need to use it.

On the work front, I began to make appointments and contacts. I met for the early afternoon with a medical student who is interning on a fellowship with PRISMA, a local health organization that works in various barrios in Lima but most notably with Las Palmas. She has no real research background so I’m helping a bit with that, specifically with survey and questionnaire design, in return for networking. I’ll go with her to PRISMA on Thursday afternoon.

Interesting moment. I didn’t have enough cash to pay the doctor’s office (of course they only take VISA and we only brought M/C to Lima — we should have known better!) but I did have my emergency US $20. So I ventured out to find someone to change the bill. Street changers are the common way to change — and the one I used hassled me! He insisted that I didn’t give him the bill and I insisted I did, showing that I no longer had US bills in my hand. When he pressed me, I asked him if he wanted to ask the police guard on the other corner what he thought of the situation and walked away. This happened on a very busy street corner with Will in the stroller with me. It may have been a mistake on his part. I learned that I performed a slight breech of ettiquette by giving him the bill in trade: you are suppose to inspect the soles (look for a watermark) and after clearing each one, then give the bill. I didn’t quite do this, so maybe it was an honest mistake. But it certainly didn’t feel that way so I’ll stick to my “how I handled the guy who hassled me” story. I will be more careful to follow full protocol in the future (or suck it up and wait in line at the bank.)

Will and I did make a stop at Wong (same store from yesterday) as the pediatrician is up in the same ovalo. Found out that you can pay in US dollars and get change back in soles. Wow. We also took Will to the park this evening to run around at twilight before bed. The Lima coastline is truly a beautiful place for sunsets.

Don’t get me wrong: I love New Orleans and I *love* our house. Truly and completely.

In our insomnia, we’ve been researching taxes in our neighborhood. No wonder our neighbors look at us like we’ve grown another head when we lament that the taxes on the house are slowly bankrupting us. We pay more than twice — yes, *twice* — than they do. In fact, we pay about what folks in homes more than two times the cost of ours pay. And why is that? Corruption of course! We think the “official” rule is that the #*%$ city doesn’t reassess homes on a regular basis, so if you’ve got a family place that you can just pass down generation to generation — even if it’s a 150-year-old mansion on St. Charles — you can pay pennies in taxes year after year.

I think I could hack it if we all were reassessed regularly and shouldered an equally high burden. But the fact that we do it to such an extreme amount (and get the country’s worst schools for it) it pretty much pisses us off.

Hmmmm… Miraflores ocean view apartment bigger than our house for about half the cost of it? Seriously tempting…

It’s 11:34pm, local time.

Our normally quiet neighborhood street is teaming with families and kids — including skateboards, strollers, and the like. These are some late night folk. Restaurants don’t even open for dinner until 8pm. Bummer that we are all sleeping in second story rooms with windows open to the street… totally preventing sleep. *sigh*

Paul, still suffering from his tummy ailment (although reporting improvement) braved the outdoors twice today with Will and I. This morning, we walked up to Parque Kennedy (named after the US President who once gave a speech there) so I could show Paul the kid’s playground and the general fun things around the parque. From there, we took a cab to the Supermercado Wong in Ovalo Gutiérrez, between the swanky neighborhoods of San Isidro and Miraflores (where we live.) Wong was sort of like a WalMart with a little bit of everything. In my opinion, El Metro was much more fun, but Wong has clean bathrooms — a major detail for a pregnant woman.

In Wong, we managed to get most of what we needed (despite forgetting the list, again) including a cell phone! Now we can actually make local calls. It is a prepaid phone — basically, I bought the phone for about $40 (139 soles). It comes with a few minutes and after that, I buy cards that are inserted in the phone that give me credit. The calls I make are charged according to number (like subscribers cheapest, international calls highest) and I fill the phone as necessary with new cards. I managed to charge it and the friendly sales clerk provided the basic set up, but I anticipate the possibility of adventure in actually using it regularly.

The Ovalo presented us with the first assault of U.S. branding: McDonald’s and Chili’s. The first of both we’ve seen thus far. (Maybe that’s not quite true. There is a BK and Pizza Hut in Larcomar food court, but they are surrounded by local chains so maybe it doesn’t seem quite so striking.) It was interesting that a McDonald’s was on the Ovalo, considering there was also a McD’s inside Wong only a few steps away. Just like being in the U.S.!

The morning errands wore Will out. Little man was a puddle in my arms for the taxi ride back to the house. After nap time and lunch, we ventured out to Larcomar. It was too beautiful a day to not enjoy the ocean air. I fear that all our photographs will be of Larcomar; it is about the only sensible place to whip out a camera since many others (non-gringos included) are also snapping away.

Beautiful afternoon in Larcomar, an upscale shopping/dining/place to be seen. Will played in the playground, we walked around, got ice cream (2 soles — about 60 cents — each!), let Will play on the ‘Coney Kids’ games, and just hung out.

Will plays with some of the kids at the park (they gave him kisses before he left.) Another precious moment: when a smaller girl cried because her older sister wouldn’t give up the swing, Will went over and gave her a hug to make her feel better. (I started out as parent-running-after-him-on-the-hot-sand, but Will insisted on Paul… thankfully! I got to stand in the shade with other mothers who all were so interested in Will. He drew a crowd on several occassions.)  

Paragliders among us. 

Will waves to me from the elephant ride. 

Larcomar and the view