Breakdown

I dropped my bags in the room where I would be staying, grabbed my shampoo and soap, and fairly ran to the shower. Showerless hours count: about 60. I hopped in the shower and turned on the water and waited for it to heat up. And waited... and waited... Finally, I decided that a nice hot shower was not in the books and crying, I relented to having a cold shower. I cried throughout it, and as I dried my hair after, and as I got dressed and went upstairs. I called Lerone; I knew that he would make me feel better. When he answered, I said "I want to come home," and cried some more. But Lerone made me feel better, and gave me the courage to go talk to Rosa and tell her that I really wanted to return to the U.S. That it wasn't her fault or the fault of anybody else in Chile. That I just wasn't happy. I was cold, and exhausted, and homesick for the first time ever in my life. I continued crying, so much that I made myself sick and threw up the seaweed and pork. Rosa was wonderful, as she always was. She asked me to stay in Chiloe for a week, instead of the originally planned two, and then we would return home and I could reevaluate my decision of going home.

The next morning Rosa brought me breakfast in bed: coffee and fruitcake. Upon realizing I was still in Chile, I cried a bit more, but soon regained my composure and went downstairs. Rosa, being the amazing woman she is, had heated water to boiling and filled a couple thermoses. She said that the best way to shower would be to mix some of the hot water in a bucket with some of the cooler in the shower, then pour it over my head. I did, and it made me feel so much better. Rosa was going back to the farmhouse to be with her family, but she promised to send me Caroline as my chaperone for the day. Caroline would show me around the city of Ancud.