a VERY important lesson

Don't drink the milk that comes in the little plastic bag. Oh, sure... "that seems like common sense," you say? Bollox. Everything is topsy-turvy here. You never know where the hit is going to come from.

I used to think I had a stomach of steel.

"What? The eggs have been left out of the fridge for a few days? No problem."

"Oops. I dropped my sandwich. Hurry! Pick it up! Ten second rule!"

Weeeehehehell, no more, my friends. No more.

Sunday night we were at the school, where we have been for a solid month as we try to get ready for an open house for recruitment of new students. Around 7ish, I start to feel a little funny. First it has the symptoms of a kidney infection, then stomach upset, then PAIN. MY GOD, the PAIN. It faded a bit, and we went home. As I started dinner, it came back with a vengeance. I left Denise to the cooking, and I went to my room to die. I tossed and turned and seriously considered going to the third world hospital (Want to know when your hidden bias against developing countries pops up? When you consider going to the hospital for an internal medicine issue). Finally, around 1am, I was about to try to find comfort again by spining in circles on my bed, and suddenly I got that surefire feeling that I was about to be violently ill. And I was. And then the world was a better place.

Everything I had eaten that day had also been eaten by someone else in the household. Finally, it dawned on us. The milk in a bag. Households here purchase milk in small quantities daily from the local shop. I've had milk from the small cartons with the two day expiration date before. No problem. So, I didn't really overthink putting the milk from the bag into my cereal. Well, that's the unpasteurized kind, apparently (something that could have been brought to my attention EARLIER). Not exactly fresh milk either. I guess Lahcen's system is used to it. Mine... had something to say about it.

Happy ending though. I was feeling so much better by mid-Monday that I was able to participate in the very American rite of a child's birthday party at McDonald's. One of our students, Adam, turned 5. Here he is with Denise.

And there's Yassine with Ronald. Adam and Yassine are our 2 Moroccan students. I bet they can handle unpasteurized milk.