Honing my Kraft

Since I last wrote, dear readers, I paid another visit to the medico. And let me tell you: watching a trained professional´s eyes bug out of his skull like he has just seen Jessica Rabbit while in fact he is surveying the results of your fluids test is surely a primary experience to be checked off by those who plan on making a career out of scooping up rare and beastly pathogens. However, for me, the sight was a bit alarming.

So the ultimate plan for my "eecolee" is that I start taking Cipro, drinking Pepto Bismol after every "meal"--though I´m not sure what you would call my diet lately. I am forbidden any meat, fruit or vegetables, and was told not to trust any food not prepared by my own hand. Which means, since we´re still living in the Bates Hospedaje without a kitchen, that we must come up with more creative means of packing the life in.

John, of course, has rather stoically eaten the same things I have the last few days, which has made me unfairly snappy, as someone who would much rather enjoy the savory flavors of Peruvian cooking without crawling home after--"You don´t have to do this! I do! I DO!" Relishing my own self pity at having to down a steady regimine of saltines, gatorade, noodles, instant soups, and yogurt.

We bought an instant water boiler, which racked up 120 Soles at the haven for Rich Peruvians, the Mall Saga. So far we had only tried instant soups in it, cleaning it out with coffee filters, whatever we had onhand, soap, and several boilings of bottled water.

Yesterday I worked through my classes with one dream in my head: delectable Kraft Macaroni and Cheese.

Which apparently a laughing Jah did not want us to have last night.

After an hour long process of cleaning out the water heater, the grimy bowls that we had bought, and then buying the last water available from the hostel, we began licking our chops.

After popping the loveable noodles in, however, I began to smell the thin crackle of smoke eminating from the plug. John lept to my aid, reaching down and jiggling the outlet around, as it sparked and hissed, like some gallant knight battling a dragon into submission, while keeping his finger on the boil button.

We tried to boil the macaroni so many times in vain that it forced us out of the room and up and down stairs trying furiously to move couches, find other plugs, but apparently the only outlet that would fit our particular plug was in the room. The angry plug.

Finally, when we resigned ourselves to eating partially cooked noodles, we opened the container and realized that the steam inside had cooked the noodles into a lumpy gruel that would have made Oliver turn his nose up in disdain.

Disheartened, we tried to add the cheese, which may have seemed wise at the time but only made the resemblence to bile far too uncanny to support.

We dined on pecans, gatorade, and The Simpsons.

It has been so far a wake up call to the advantages that I enjoyed at home, and the simplicity of a full, peaceful stomach.