Amber the Unlucky

In spite of the fact that absolutely nothing has happened lately, I feel a little bit obligated to scribble a few lines. Last time you checked, Amber had just gotten out of the hospital. And if she weren't lucky enough to be female, her tropical disease would have made blood spurt out of her ears.

But at least that would have saved her a few boxes of tampons.

And diapers. Did I mention that there were no tampons or pads to be found anywhere when she started hemorrhaging? So she wore a diaper, complete with little happy bears on it. I am not making this up.

And really, she's fine now. Still weak, still spacey...but fine. No fever for four days now, and she's eating fairly well. We still have to make a couple of trips to the hospital for testing and the full green light from the doctors, but I have every reason to believe that this mess is almost over. We should be on a fast boat down the Amazon by Saturday.

At least for me--and I think this also applies somewhat to Amber--the toughest thing lately has been boredom. I've basically chased my tail in circles around downtown Manaus for the last couple of weeks, trying to turn grocery shopping into an interesting adventure. Amber has mostly sat in front of the TV.

From a cultural perspective, I despise globalization. Those of you who have known me for awhile have heard this before, but I find it maddening that most cities in the world have so much in common with each other. There are shopping malls, fast food, and American shoot-'em-up films everywhere; sometimes you actually have to go looking around a foreign city to find something uncomfortable or unusual. If you conked me on the head and dropped me in my old neighborhood in Santiago, Chile, it would take me a few hours to figure out that I wasn't in Los Angeles.

But for an American dengue fever patient, globalization is cool. TNT and HBO and ESPN--programming in English, commercials in Portuguese--have made her life a little bit easier. I can't say that Amber gives a damn about ESPN, but I got to watch the Red Sox close out the World Series. That provided a little bit of joy for me in the middle of the most worrying phase of her illness.

Still, we're in one of the most fabled, exotic-sounding places in the world, and I can't say that it feels unrelentingly foreign. Maybe that's just because this isn't my first trip to South America, but I honestly believe that relatively little is different. Sure, there are plenty of little things that you can't help but notice on a daily basis--the insanely sugary coffee, Brazilians' incredible patience and lack of pushiness (even in the most crowded markets), the ubiquity of prostitution (see the classified ads in any Brazilian newspaper for starters), the incredible Brazilian appetite for a good party.

But it's still amazing how you can have a fairly "normal, American" life in a place like this. It might be a little bit tricky to find a jar of peanut butter, but you can always find ways to close your eyes and pretend that you're still in the United States.

At least until one of those two-inch wasps, poisonous caterpillars, or fist-sized spiders decides to nibble your bum.