I needed to get out of the house for a minute, here, visiting old friends in Matagalpa. The whole city is in an uproar, so it seems…or maybe it’s just my social circle. Roger, local tattoo artist/painter/number-one-chum of Noel and crucial member of the Artesanosites, took his one-way flight today to Amsterdam, where he will live with his Belgian girlfriend until further notice. Stephanie, my faithful travel companion/former housemate/current girlfriend of Noel will board her one-way flight back to Seattle on the 23rd, having just completed her year of study under the Fulbright scholarship. Bobby’s beautiful girlfriend, Emma, who is nearing the end of her own Fulbright in Ecuador, is visiting for a couple of weeks and just arrived today. Natalí, Artesanos’ Barista/Acupuncturist/Noel’s sister/ex-girlfriend of Roger is coping with the departure of one significant other (Roger), and the re-arrival of Chapu, Spaniard/Musican/Significant Ex-of Natalí/current boyfriend of Sandra, with whom he is traveling in Nicaragua for three months.
Things here feel a little bit awkward, at the moment.
I’m just passing through, on my way to Bluefields (I leave this coming Monday), trying to catch all these loved ones in their various moments of transitioning. It’s hard, wanting to spend time with them as they prepare for their respective journeys, but also wanting to give them the space to be with the other people they need to spend time with. Hard being a couch crasher, when Stephanie and Noel are in their last week together, Bobby and Emma are reuniting after several months, and Sarah’s got company. So I’m in the cybercafé, planning my next move.
Actually, I'm at the cybercafé, praying that I won't write this post, only to have it get lost when the lights flicker on and off, as they've been doing for the past little while. I love this place.
I wrote earlier that my start-date in Bluefields has been delayed a week, which turns out to be not such a bad thing. In addition to spending all of this bittersweet but necessary time with friends who have one foot out the door, (I understand better now how it must feel for my friends and family when I hop on a plane every few months), I'm also just inching on over to the "all-better" side of MESSED UP. It all started last Thursday night, after an unremarkable meal of rice and beans and tortillas...
(Disclaimer: This is where those of you grossed out by my euphemisms such as "gastro-intestinal pyrotechnics" should jump ship.)
It starts as a grumble, that turns into a gurgle. Always the grumble first...at which point, you think, 'Naw, it can't be...I feel fine!' And then it gurgles (grumbles being distinct from gurgles in that the latter sounds like a child sucking the last drops of a milkshake through a straw, as one wonders, 'How in God's name could that be happening inside me right now?'), at which point, after dropping to your knees and reciting a few Hail Mary's, just in case, even though you're not Catholic but it seems to be the thing to do here, you do some emergency profalactic rehydration, grab your roll of toilet paper, anti-septic wipes for the seat, miner's headlamp for the walk to and from, and make a mad dash through the dark towards the out house (no running water in these parts, folks!).
And what do you find? Not a hole in the ground, as you might expect. But a two-holed, oval-shaped contraption covered in several peeling layers of multi-colored paint, with a plastic toilet seat, unfastened, balancing on top. The 'toilet' is divided down the middle into two chambers: In back, the bottomless chasm that ends in unspeakable horror, and in front, a small little cup of sorts, with a hose leading out the bottom and, disturbingly, across the floor and into a nondescript hole in the back wall. I wish it weren't so, but the front of the toilet most closely resembled a beer bong. (Or at least, what I imagined a beer bong to look like. I've only ever read about them in books about those kids who used reefer in college.) Most mysteriously, a large bucket of white powder with a scoop sat on the floor in front of the seat. The instructions on the back of the door of the out house read:
1) Poop in the BIG HOLE. Pee in the LITTLE HOLE. If you miss, you have to clean it up.
2) Don't pee in the BIG HOLE, or it'll smell really bad. Make sure the HOSE IS FASTENED to the little hole, or your pee will spill on the floor.
3) Throw your HYGIENIC PAPER in the trash can, not it in the BIG HOLE. When you're done, toss some ashes from the bucket into the BIG HOLE.
4) Make sure not to get ashes in the LITTLE HOLE, or the hose gets clogged.
As I make my mad dash to the toilet, I'm thinking...
Ah....NOW I get it, a composting toilet. It totally makes sense, keeping the waste products separate. Keeps them from stinkin' so darn much, and the ashes help neutralize something down there in that chasm of darkness. Ok, logical...
YEAH RIGHT, THAT'S WHAT I'M THINKING! I'm thinking, WHAT THE HECK? TWO HOLES? YOU MEAN YOU WANT ME TO AIM WHAT'S GURGLING DOWN THERE? ARE YOU NUTS?
It was a high-stress situation, trying to read all the instructions with all of the holes and the various things one was supposed to, and NOT supposed to put in them. Turns out, I had no need to worry. The grumbling and gurgling was actually a ruse. A ruse that would last all night. My body did not, in fact, want to violently wring out my entire GI track, but rather make me FEEL as if it wanted to wring my body out from hair folicle to toe nail, recruiting much time and energy and sweat and tears and physical strength and determination...only to find out that someone had put ashes in MY TUBE (refer to Rule 4 above), and there would be no need for any ashes OR 'hygienic paper' that night. Ouch.
Unfortuantely, something else came out of that night in the outhouse...I woke up at about 3am in a fever, only to discover that somewhere between bearing down and bedding down, I had pulled something in my back. And it was BAD.
Now, I know this is going to make me sound like a big wuss...and my family back home, knowing what a hypochondriac I am, they're all gonna think I'm just being dramatic. But I've never dealt with such back pain, or muscular pain, for that matter, in my life. It was like a charlie horse in my lower back, that spread up into my shoulder and around to my front side. The pain was actually nauseating. I found myself short of breath, because anything but the shallowest breathing put pressure on whatever nerve or muscle was acting up, and caused this shooting pain that went all the way down my right leg. I was doubled over, and couldn't find a position, standing, sitting, or laying down, that provided any relief.
Thankfully, Friday was the last day of our orientation, and the field team in Matagalpa was kind enough to let me skip the day's activity, and try to sleep it off. Unfortunately, though the cramping that sent me to the out house in the first place went away pretty quickly, the back spasm and fever lasted, full throttle (with only one morning of relief Saturday morning) all the way through Monday night.
I went to a private health clinic, was poked and prodded and sampled in every which way, only to be diagnosed with "low white blood cells." That didn't help the back. (It's worth noting that when asked for a stool sample, I was sent to a bathroom with no running water or toilet paper, and a clear plastic dixie cup with no lid. Glamorous, no?)
Next stop, a 'natural medicine clinic,' where I was examined by a burly Nicaraguan doctor (burly not being a word often associated with Nicaraguan men, mind you). He squeezed every acupuncture point on my body, all 388,364,826 of them it seemed, making notes on a diagram. "Does this hurt? What about this?" This question, my friend, when repeated so often by a big dude squeezing you and poking you with his thumb, could reasonably be answered 'YES! They ALL hurt when you squeeze THAT hard, you big bully!' at any point, leading me to believe that this method of diagnosis is subject to some errors in objectivity.
He then asked, "May I inject you?" To which I responded, reasonably, "Um...with what?" Apparently, in his parallel universe, local anesthetic injected at accupunture points provides double the benefit of the traditional ancient eastern practice, for which I have the utmost respect in it's unadulterated form. Being open to an adventure and praying for relief, I consented to this injecting fiasco.
First off, it was a big ol' needle. And it was attacted to what looked like a cross between a tranquilizer and a caulk gun. THINK BIG. He started on my back, pinching the skin up, insterting the needle, and injecting. As he worked his way around my entire body, injecting my feet, arms, sternum, shoulders, and yes, even my GUMS with this big needle, he recited his diagnosis:
"It could be malaria. Yes, yes, very likely malaria, based on your fever symptoms. But the particular muscle that you've thrown in your back worries me. That muscle is associated with the gall bladder. It very well might be gall stones. Do you have a history of gall stones? No? Well, let's see. This point on your chest, where the needle is right now, does that hurt? Yes? Oh dear me, that's your kidney. Have you been drinking calcified water? Because you might very well have kidney stones, and a bladder infection at that. And it's certain that you have colitis...no doubt at all in my mind about that one at all. Yes, well have to inject you here, here, and here for that infection in the bladder. But, come to think of it, have you been driving on bumpy, unpaved roads? Because it could just be that your back got messed up from all that driving...But you feel better now, don't you? The shots are working, I can tell. What do you mean, you don't feel better? Give it some time, it will. If it doesn't, come back for another treatment."
He wrote a prescription for about 8 different natural herb supplements that I needed to take to cure each of the tentative diagnoses he had given---all of which could be conveniently purchased from his secretary at the front desk. Even in my pathetic state---back wrenched, body covered in what looked like mosquito bites from this evil, injecting maniac---I had enough sense to graciously decline the drugs, grab my bags, and run...
...straight into the arms of the massage therapist at the Japonic (Japan/Nicaragua) Clinic across town. What can I say, I was desperate. The massage salon at this clinic looks like a World War II army infermerary; a big room with high, whitewashed walls and 30 cots lined up in two rows of 15 on a linolium floor. Thankfully, there are curtains hung from clotheslines, partitioning each cot into a separate unit...at least until the oscillating fan kicks up a breeze and blows your 'front door' open. They have you strip down to your skivvies, lay face down on the table, and wait. The curtain opens, the fan turns on, and all you can see are shoes. White hospital sneekers, and opaque white hose are all I know of the voice that whispers sweetly into my ear, "Anything in particular hurting you, my love?" How much time ya got, lady?
This mystery woman, for all the sweetness in her voice, is kinda a wuss in the massage department. She rubs me down with all the strength of a 4-year-old playing with hand puppets. And while this is soothing, and certainly relaxes a few of the superficial hair follicles on my back, it doesn't do too much for the stabbing spasm that makes me want to surgically remove my own trapezeus.
As she wraps up, the sound of 29 other massage therapists simultaneously doing the "chop chop" drifts throught the room. Thanking her shoes, as she breezes out before I can see her face, I take ten minutes to get dressed, as it seems my condition has worsened. Looking into my wallet, I see that InjectoManiac and ChopChopShoes have left me so broke, I can't even afford a cab home. So I walk six blocks in the Managua sun (Think SELF-CLEANING OVEN) to the nearest ATM, stopping only three times to catch my breath, since I haven't fully inhaled since Friday morning at 2:59am.
After the ATM, I feebly wave down a cab driver, who, taking pity on me, offers me the local, as opposed to the Gringo price. He gets me to the bus station just in time to see the Matagalpa bus pulling away, at which he kindly honks his horn, allowing me just enough time to half-jog, half-crawl to the door. I get inside, but my backpack doesn't, as the anxious driver closes the door on me, pulling away. In fact, I don't believe he ever came to a full stop to let me on.
When my backpack and I finally find a seat, I turn to the guy and hand him my fare ($3), of which he hands $.60 back and says, "Sorry buddy, this isn't the express, this is the local." That means, instead of a two-hour, non-stop trip home, I get to endure the THREE hour, people-packed-in-like-sardines, stops-every-two-miles-to-let-on-the-traveling-preachers-and-panhandlers ride home.
When I FINALLY get there, wheezing as I plop down on Stephanie's couch, I find relief in the form of Roger's tattoo table (doubles as a massage table in times of crisis), Stephanie's elbow ("Harder. OUCH! SOFTER! Oh geez, that's the spot. OH LORD! Higher. OH NO, THAT'S THE SPOT! OH MY GOD, I NEED A BREAK!" "Kendal, please, we do have neighbors."), a hot shower, over-the-counter muscle relaxers, and a tube of Bengay ("OUCH! That's so hot! No one told me it would be that hot! It burns!").
I spent the whole day Tuesday, and much of the day today, lying on the couch, reading a book, watching TV, and playing my guitar. Sometimes, poking and prodding and products can only do so much. What you really need, is a good friend's home to relax in, her healing hands to rub on the Bengay, and some time alone with your book to feel better. Lesson learned.
Signing off,
Señor Dramatico
No comments:
Post a Comment