A Break In The Routine

Coming here to Peru for the Cuerpo de Paz, I expected curve balls, hurdles, and mountains to overcome... but I definitely didn't see this one coming.
This past Friday after a long day at school a bunch of us decided to play some futbol at a place near our Center. It was an intense game, as futbol around here usually is. Also, when we play here there is no such thing as green grass fields-- I'm talking old cement courts with a bunch of sand/mud dust all over. Five minutes in I took a spill landing flat on my knee. It hurt at impact, but adrenaline somehow temporarily erases a lot of pain. So I played the rest of the game fine. It wasn't until the game ended, before I realized that my knee was hurting. I figured that ice and Asprin would do the trick and I'd be up and ready to go the next morning (Sabado) because we had a big trip to Lima planned. Welllll, my inability to walk the next morning led my host mom to call our PC doctor. Somehow one thing led to another and I soon found myself lying on a doctors table in Lima getting a shot in the backside with several nurses and doctors trying to speak to me from every which way with words I could barely understand. A frightening time, to say the least, but I did my best to keep my composure as things were already hectic enough as it was. Wheelchairs, Xrays, and a few signatures away I then found myself being told I needed to put on “the gown”. I couldn't fully understand what was going on because I thought they were just going to give me a brace; after all, it was only a tiny hairline fracture on my knee. But as it turns out- Peruvians don't have braces, they have cast molds. Yeah. Sooo two Peruvian doctors then proceeded to mold a cast to my leg. I'm not talking a little knee cast or something. I'm talkin' my ENTIRE leg-- ankle to upper thigh. Yes, upper thigh-- and if you can just imagine the discomfort as I am trying to keep my gown down while they're fiddling with the cast mold... as I'm lying there wishing I could just wake up from this nightmare. Pretty much the only thing that kept me sane at this moment was I kept saying to myself “Well, at least I have on cute undies...!” Jajaja. After that, I found my way back a few hours later to my host family's doorstep. I was so drained at this moment that I honestly couldn't get any Spanish words out and just simply had to retreat to my room to lick my emotional wounds for a while.

My nickname is now “Caty la tortuga” (Caitlin the turtle) because I can't get around well with this monstrosity on my leg that I am incredibly slow. I feel bad for whoever is behind me walking down/up stairs! The fun part is that everyone wanted to sign my cast, so it now has a variety of english/spanish writings and drawings. Someone even drew my boyfriend Panchito (the llama we have at the PC Center that somehow has been dubbed mi novio by my host family- they thinks it's the funniest thing in the world). Jajaja. Oh and they also love to knock on it and pretend someone is knocking on the door. ...So, as with all things- for every bad there is some good. Life sure has a funny way of giving us surprises and challenging us, doesn't it? I feel this is Life's silent way of seeing how badly I truly want this. And this is only the beginning. But I'm ready.