I'm Such a GOOD Friend!!

We made a trip up country. It is a beautiful small city of just over a million. I know that to some of you a million is a huge city, but if you lived where I live, one million is barely larger than a village. Anyway, it was a ministry/business trip technically, but we always manage to work in some fun. The couple who is doing recon on the Thai/Burmese border met us there and we spent a couple of days mostly goofing off and believe me, we all needed it. She just found out that she is pregnant, and although she hasn't been hurling, she has been gagging a lot. She is very sensitive to smells and here in this country smells that Americans have a real hard time with are abundant. Things like fish in the market that have been laying around in the sun for a few hours, really weird foods cooking that are basically unidentifiable, open sewers, all kinds of animal poop laying around because livestock roams through town and leave their droppings behind wherever they feel like it, and nobody follows behind with any of those cute little shovels and scoopy things.

Sooo, we all decided to go up the mountain to the very top where there is an ethnic Hmong village. It is a really interesting village and it is very remote, yet there are hundreds of tourists up there and there are all kinds of handicrafts and handmade stuff for good prices. We roamed around up there for a couple of hours and then on the way back into town we stopped at an elephant hospital and rehabilitation center. While "D" and "D" saw an elephant show, we got coffee in a shop and waited for them. We have seen a lot of elephant stuff and we were getting really tired, so we were sitting and waiting for them. We ordered mocha lattes. The first taste of mine and I thought it was a little "off," but I went ahead and drank it anyway. Real bad move. I felt fine for about an hour. By the time I started feeling a little queasy, we were already swinging down the mountain road and the stuff was beginning to gurgle in my stomach. By the time we finally hit flat road I yelled for Mr. "D" to "PULL OVER, I'M SICK!!" He hit the brakes and pulled off the road just in time for me to get the window half rolled down. I hurled about 2 feet out into the parking lane. As I said I got the window rolled PART way down. The stupid windows in this rental car were having a few problems. You would push the down button and it would go down a ways then start back up. So here I am, puking things up that I ate when I was a little kid, and the window starts rolling back up on my head! Somebody said "open the door." Great idea! So this is the thanks that I give Mrs. "D", the pregnant lady, who has a very sensitive nose and gagging problems. Needless to say we drove the rest of the way to the hotel with the windows down. Sorry "D", you really deserved better.