By Alex Moore
Dear Immune System,
The entire month in Thailand, we did not get sick once. We were a true team! Sure, there were the occasional MSG overdose quakes from that crazy Thai cooking, but that can hardly be blamed on you. I even began to brag about how strong you were to the rest of the group.
"It's a good thing that I rolled around in muck and ate M&M's off the ground when I was little," I said. "I have done a decent amount of traveling already, because my immunity is dynamite!"
And then came India.
Where have you been? We have been sick three times in two weeks-hardly a "dynamite record."
First, there was Jaipur. I ate only at nice, clean restaurants and all of a sudden I had a temperature of 102.1. I had to miss time with my host family, three lessons, a visit to a temple right before Diwali and a camel trek into a nearby village. And of course everything in-between.
But, it did not take too many days to feel back to myself and I thought, "Oh, at least look how quickly my immune system bounces back after its only fall."
But then on the last night in Galder, our village home stay, you lost it again. I had to miss our going away party-the full community celebration with food, music and dancing. I couldn't even stay with my host family on the last night to enjoy a proper goodbye.
And now this! Have you gone on vacation?
Perhaps you are out on the town with Dianna, John, Emma, Tate and Jordan's immunity. On yesterday's 16-hour train ride, I threw up about seven times. Seven. Really?
Not that being sick on an Indian train is not comforting, with the lack of privacy and all the people, bugs and the occasional mouse. Not to mention the bathrooms with no running water or paper. With five plus of us taking turns spewing in the bathrooms, they were far from neat and sanitary. There is nothing quite like moaning over an Indian train toilet-which is little more than a sanctioned off hole in the ground-watching the tracks pass beneath you with the unidentified spatter marks on the walls reminding you of the hundreds of tourists that have been in your very same shoes in the very same bathroom before.
Now, instead of staying as a pilgrim at the Golden Temple in Amritsar, learning about and experiencing the Sikh faith, I have been in a guesthouse bed next to equally-as-miserable Dianna for the past 18 hours with a fever, aches all over and as weak as a mouse after purging myself of all of my liquids and nutrients.
My stomach's recommendation would be to strike seeing the Taj Mahal off your list of things to do before I die. Perhaps we are just bitter, but in a town teeming with tourists like Agra, you would expect restaurants to be accustomed to catering to the western stomach's hyper sensitivity. But with six of us becoming sick from various restaurants, my stomach feels that Agra does not deserve our business.