You can take the American out of the United States, but you can't take the American work ethic out of the American.

When I first moved to my village, I enforced a strict “must leave the house at least once a day” policy. (An equally strict noWest Wing before noon policy was quickly added.) The longer I’ve lived here, the more what actually counts as leaving my house has changed. (Going to school-ok. Talking to my friends down the street-legit. Only going to the market-iffy.) 

Tonight, as I was walking home from buying fish and eggs, I realized that this was the only time that I had left my concession today. And after being away for the past five days, the situation could have been better.

The thing was, though, that I had been battling a mild fever, a sore throat and a runny nose all day. Nothing serious, but enough that when I took my usual midday nap, I ended up sleeping away the afternoon. 

But still, as I walked home feeling like someone was playing a tamtam in my head with every step, I tried to justify to myself my afternoon of doing very little. “Bien integree” (well integrated) is a term that we throw around a lot here as a goal to be achieved over the next two years. What we don’t talk about is that sometimes, there are things that you can’t control, regardless of how much American medication and technology you have on hand.

When I booted up my computer and started lunging my way into P90x later, my post mate Dave shot me an incredulous look.

“Don’t you have a fever?”