Foreign Germs

I remember when we brought our oldest daughter to day care, everyone told us, "be prepared for all the foreign germs." What a weird term, I thought. But of course they meant, "be prepared that your daughter will bring home every sniffle, cough, fever, rash and random throwing up sickness that any other child is exposed to." We were fortunate in the US that this didn't happen all too much, but certainly more than when she and her friend were exclusively cared for by a nanny.

Here, however, "foreign germs" really means just that. Since we arrived in June, one of us has been sick every month, and that has, sadly usually been me. They say that the kids here pick thing up at gan, get a little sick, and then the parents who are "new olim" or new immigrants, get it even worse. It's true. Mim has had fever a few times, but that is it. I've had ridiculously high fever. Silvie will have a runny nose, and I'll have a full-on head cold and cough.

I've just come off of four days of what I call "random fever." It was ridiculous. It came on and just wouldn't go away and all I kept thinking is, "why again?"

Well, June 11th we'll have been here one year. One of the things I desperately hope for the next year is that the "foreign germs" go find some new foreigners!