Of Markets and Marathons

I woke yesterday feeling rather unwell. That feeling worsened as the day progressed. I’ve been coughing now for three weeks, but the past few days it has been improving dramatically since I started another round of antibiotics.

But I had no time to deal with feeling unwell because chores had to be done early, and the truck had to be loaded up to head to market. Percy had planned to be here an hour early to help, but he showed up just as I was ready to leave.

My head was more foggy by this point, and my heart rate was up over a hundred, but off to market we went. We got the table set up after asking a lady to give us our new spot. She moved down under a roof to sell her lettuce while we took the open sun. Not a great exchange.

Lucrecia came close to 9:00 to help. I decided to wait around awhile. Anne and Abbey had come along to help sell, too. I’d brought Marshmallow the buck to sell, but no one wanted to buy him. The animal section was jam-packed with sheep.

I went hunting for an umbrella of some sort to block the sun. I walked over the whole market four times before someone arrived with umbrellas to sell. I got a large one. Our plan was to use an umbrella this week to be sure what the plan would be for next week.

Partway through the morning, the president (Mario, I think), came by and said he wants us to move next week all the way up to the entrance. I can’t decide if that will be nice or crazy.

Andréa, who is on the committee, said she is fighting the president to pay us for having to move and for the gravel we left behind. She says it made everything better because now most people have roofs and gravel, following our example.

At 11:00, I walked down to our old spot and talked to our neighbors. They were all sad that we couldn’t be with them. I bought chicharrón from our former neighbor lady. She piled a nice amount on. Then she turned to her customers eating at her tables and loudly declared about the injustice of our move. I had to chuckle.

I was out of breath, so I sat in the shade awhile to get my strength back before Percy and I went to get a sack of potatoes. He doesn’t trust me to buy anything without being taken advantage of. He’s a great help. We got a sack of roughly fifty kilos of potatoes.

There was no way I could carry that in my current state, but he told me to help him put it on his back, and we left. At home, I crashed on the couch. My oxygen was down to 90 with my heart rate over 100. I was able to rest until 1:00.

I got up and made ice cream for Lucrecia and the girls. Percy stayed behind to weld stuff while I went back to market. We stayed another hour because a vendor beside us wanted to take milk with her when she left. She paid me with pumpkin and onions.

We loaded up and carried stuff up to the parking lot, only to discover I’d forgotten where I’d parked the truck. I left the ladies on the shoulder and walked back up the street to where the truck actually was.

Back at home, I debated staying home, but I decided to go ahead to deliver stuff in town as usual. I checked my oxygen. It was up to 93 after dipping into the upper 80’s, so I decided I felt better.

Back from town, I wanted to go straight to bed, but we’d earlier in the week invited Percy’s family for pizza. House floors don’t sweep themselves, you know. We had an hour until supper. I tidied stuff up while the children chored and Steph pizza-ed.

I stopped to catch my breath. It felt like I’d been running a marathon. Apparently, sweeping is tough work. In town on Wednesday, I’d found prednisone. I decided to take one. Within half an hour, I wasn’t gasping for breath anymore, and my heart rate had fallen to something acceptable.

We had a lovely evening with Percy’s family. After supper, we had devotions, as usual. It took some extra time to show them how the songs worked by stanzas, but they enjoyed it. The children played Uno while we taught Percy and Lucrecia how to play 10,000. They thought that was great fun.

Then I was glad, glad, glad for bed.