This last weekend I was invited to go to Natal with some friends here. I went with Luana (she was an exchange student in Michigan last year) and her mom and dad. It was sooo pretty there!
On the first day there, Luana, her cousin Camila, and her cousin's boyfriend Rodrigo and I all went to the beach. Everything started off so well. The weather was nice, the beach was amazing, we got agua de coco (coconut water) and we were just sitting down talking for a while. Then we started walking into the water. We got about knee deep when I felt a really big pain in my right foot. I lifted it up and (sorry if this is too graphic) blood was going everywhere! The first thought that came into my head was "Oh my gosh a shark is going to come with all this blood!" Luana and her cousin had me put each of my arms around them and the brought me back to the table where her cousin's boyfriend was sitting. I left a trail of blood on the sand too :/. They had me sit in a chair and put my foot up and they brought a bottle of water and ice over to clean it up. I wouldn't look at my foot until they told me that everything was fine and there was no more blood! Luckily Camila is studying biology at the university in Natal, and she specializes in the ocean, so right away she called her professor and talked to him about what could have happened. They concluded that I stepped on a bagre. A bagre is a type of fish that when you step on it, a long spine goes up, so the spine was what went into my foot. They are pretty uncommon in the beaches here, but you know, since the exchange student came to the beach, it decided to show up!
We went to the closest hospital just to get it all cleaned out and to be sure it was nothing bad. It was my first experience in a hospital ever! We got in and were talking to the doctor and she sent me to a nurse to get it cleaned out and to get a band aid on it.
The whole time from sitting in the chair at the beach to driving home from the hospital, I was laughing. Of course a super uncommon fish would happen to come to the huge beach where we were and I, the exchange student, would happen to step on it just right so it would cut me!
The rest of the day we just sat around at Camila's house and I rested my foot, and later at night her parents took us for a drive around Natal along the beach. I told them that everything there felt like a dream, but my foot made me remember that I wasn't dreaming!
Sunday was Dia dos Pais (father's day) here in Brazil. It also happened to be Luana's grandma's birthday so there was a big party at her uncle's house. The whole time I had to sit down because I couldn't walk very well, but I tried talking to some of her cousins in Portuguese.
We came back from Natal on Monday afternoon, so once again, on Monday I just sat around and rested my foot. It's looking a lot better now. It's not too swollen anymore, and hardly hurts. They think I'll be able to walk like a normal person tomorrow or Thursday.
I'm going to go to school later this week too. I'm really excited to go! Everyone tells me that school here is really fun, so I'm really looking forward to it.
Portuguese is becoming easier to understand. If I'm not able to understand full sentences, I get the main point of what people are talking about. I've only been here for about a week, so hopefully in another week it'll be even easier!
There isn't too much to update here in this blog because I haven't been doing much lately because of my foot :(!
Tchau Beijos!
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