Every now and then, a moment comes along when you do something without thinking and you must face those consequences for the rest of your life. Sometimes that comes in the form of an emotional scar and sometimes it comes as a physical scar that will literally always be on your body as a reminder to never do that action again. These things are very humbling to us, b/c then your mistake is made public to the world and everyone sees it.
I made one of these mistakes on Saturday and have thus been paying for it ever since. I believe in an earlier post I mentioned that most people get around on "motos", which are guys that drive motorcycles around for money. Occassionally us tres amigas (3 friends) will grab a moto if we are tired to walk or have alot of groceries to carry home or if a place is really far away. On Saturday, we were headed to the pool and we thought we would catch a moto. In order to do this, you wave at one of them and they usually come to where you are and off you go. On this particular day, there were 4 of us and about 6 motos pulled up. Somehow in Spanish we tried to convey that we only 2 motos to take 2 people. After the confusion and rejection for some moto drivers, I decided to get on from the right side of the moto. If you know anything about motos you know that you NEVER get on from the right side...WHY you ask? There is this thing called the exhaust pipe that is BOILING HOT!!! If you touch it, you get burned...so guess what I did without thinking? I burned myself really bad on my right calf. It definitely blistered up, oozed liquid and is now an open wound. Maria and Cecilia have been wonderful nurses to attend to my aid and while it is looking better, these pictures show me grittin my teeth as they pour soap and hot water on it to clean it.
The funny thing is that when people see it, Dominican or not, they all say "Hey, you got a Dominican tattoo!" Apparently, Dominicans and others all do this at some point in time. This makes me feel better momentarily. That is all for now...