Surviving the Bolivian Medical system

Well, I've been sick for the past few days, with fever and aching muscles through my whole body. I'm staying with a family in Santa Cruz, and they were convinced I had dengue (which is common here), also called "breakbone fever" (because your bones feel like they're being ground to bits inside your body. Delightful!). So they convinced me to go to the hospital, which I resisted for a day or so because I didn't really have any of the dengue symptoms, plus I just wasn't so excited about turning my body over to the Bolivian health care professionals. But we went, and they took my temperature (yes, I had a fever), and some blood, and some pee. And they tested my white blood cell count, and concluded that I had a mild or onsetting case of dengue. And, since I was coughing, I had a throat infection and needed to take antibiotics. I tried to tell them I'd had that cough since I got here and suspected allergies, but the doctor shrugged that off. I skipped the antibiotics. They told me to take some medication I'd been taking anyways, so I did that. I never developed any dengue symptoms. But it's been several days of just laying around with no appetite and being sick.

Since I was out last week, I missed my opportunity to interview Gabriel Dabdoub, the president of the Santa Cruz Chamber of Commerce, who's quoted in the press a lot as rabidly anti-Evo (he's in La Paz this week). So that's a shame, because I still haven't had that interview. I spoke with a representative from the Hydrocarbon Chamber, who was critical of the nationalization policy but not as critical as I had expected. At any rate, I have one more interview on Wednesday with a guy from the mayor's office who is supposed to be a legal expert on the nationalization decree, and then a seat reserved on a flight to Tarija Thursday morning. I had been planning to go to a little town called Camiri, where they're mad about the nationalization being just a tax increase, but it's 8 hours each way over unpaved roads, which just sounds too awesome after getting over the flu and I don't think I deserve that much fun. Maybe I'll end up going, but I'm kind of over my project right now. I'm just feeling totally apathetic about the whole thing at this point. Mostly, I think I just want to get out of Bolivia, where a lot of the men are hostile, the women are indifferent, and a lot of the food is out of the federal school lunch program (mayonnaise and white bread, anyone?). OK, it's not all like this, but enough of it for me to be ready to see what Argentina is like.