La radiografía

No, those are not fingers.

Fractura

When the urine slipping, wall kicking incident happened two Saturdays ago, I thought for sure I had broken my toe. I almost cried. But by the end of the day I had stuffed my bruised and swollen foot (even though only my pinky toe made contact with the concrete wall, the swelling and bruising extended down into the outer part of my foot) into a shoe to kick around a soccer ball. Such is my competitive nature.

The following Monday one of the trainers for the men’s soccer team had a look at my toe. After quite a bit of time poking, prodding, pulling, and pinching, he determined that it was not broken reasoning that no one would be able to put up with the pain of that treatment with a broken bone. Although it wasn’t the most scientific of methods, I was pleased with the diagnosis, so I didn’t question it. I was cleared to play.

And play I did. But a week of sports with the kiddies, four soccer games, and a basketball game later (4 Ws and a tie), it turns out that I really do have a broken toe. Damn.

I actually would still be playing had not the head coach of the men’s team taken a look at my toe this past Monday and insisted that I get an x-ray. The trainer was trying to massage out the swelling, but the coach noted there shouldn’t even be that much swelling 10 days after the fact.

So Tuesday morning Peace Corps sent me to Galeno, the private hospital in Cobán, to have the toe checked out. I waited nearly two hours for the doctor to take one look at my toe and then send me to get an x-ray. Now in the states getting an x-ray would simply involve being escorted to another floor or room, but of course it is not that quick and easy in Guatemala. I was given a slip of paper with the name and address of a radiologist some seven blocks away from the hospital with the instructions to go there, get an x-ray, and return with the results…on foot…with a possible broken toe. Okay.

Despite its close proximity, I don’t spend a lot of time in Cobán so I needed a bit of help to make sure I was heading in the right direction to get to the radiologist. I stopped to ask a guard outside a bank but he had no clue where I trying to go (surprisingly he told me as much; usually people here will give you directions regardless if they know where the place is or not), so he sent me inside to consult with two other guards.

“I’m looking for this clinic, and I just need to know if 6th avenue is that way.” I showed the two men my slip of paper.

Guard 1: “Ah. This is the place where they give ultrasounds.”

“Actually it’s my toe. I think…”

Guard 2: “Yes, it is. You can get an ultrasound there.”

“I kicked a wall. It might be broken.”

Guard 1: “To get to the ultrasound place, you need to go…”

The guards proceeded to give me directions to where I could get an ultrasound, I mean x-ray of my toe. Ironically enough I might never need an ultrasound since the technician didn’t bother to cover up my lady parts during the x-ray. Or I might have a child with three arms.

The technician was also rather confused as to why I would bother to have a toe x-rayed.

“You want an x-ray of your little toe?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Just a toe?”

“Yes, just a toe.”

I guess he couldn’t understand why I would waste $20 getting an x-ray of my toe when nothing could be done for it even if it were broken. But for me the results of that toe x-ray were to be the deciding factor of whether I should continue to play through the pain or stay off my right foot. It looks like I am going to be sidelined for a while.

The doctor was very concerned that after 11 days there was absolutely no sign of any healing taking place. Hmm, I bet I know why. Here is his diagnosis:

Edema de tejido blando a nivel del dedo chiquito del pie derecho. Lo anterior es secundario a fractura oblicua y alineada del vértice externo y distal de la falange proximal del dedo chiquito, la cual tiene componente intrarticular.

Roughly translated as:

Edema of the soft tissue of the little toe of the right foot. The preceding is secondary to an oblique fracture that is aligned from the external apex and distal of the proximal phalange of the little toe, which has an intra-articular component.

And further translated and paraphrased as:

I have an abnormal accumulation of fluid in the soft tissue of my pinky toe on my right foot caused by a fracture that cuts across the first bone of the toe and extends into the joint where the first bone meets the second.

So not only do I have a broken toe, I have the kind of fracture that meets a joint (intra-articular), which frequently causes long-term posttraumatic arthritis. I am currently on 2400 mg of ibuprofen a day to reduce the swelling and edema and staying off my foot and keeping it elevated whenever possible. If the swelling and edema don’t subside within the next couple of days, I’ll be making a trip to the capital to see a foot specialist.

And all this pain and suffering because I didn’t see a pool of dog urine.

Warnings

I find product warning labels rather amusing. It is as if there are people whose sole job it is to think up stupid ways in which consumers could harm themselves and to make little illustrations to prevent that from happening. This may lessen the number of injuries, but more importantly (for the company) it lessens the number of lawsuits: “Your case has no grounds because we put a drawing right on the package showing that this curling iron is not to be used on eyelashes.”

Anyway, these labels are from a retractable dog leash my mom sent me from the states. Perhaps no one else will find them as humorous as I do.

The whiplash effect.

My personal favorite.

Broken toe?

The result of running barefoot through my living room, slipping on a pool of undetected bish (thanks Mapache), and ramming my toe into the door frame.

Carro de mareros

I'll venture to bet that when those in the marketing department of Kia decided to run this ad in Guatemala they were completely oblivious to the fact that tattoos are almost exclusively associated with gangs here.

Beat it

My neighbors, Emerson and Cristian, aged 7 and 6, have a penchant for popping into my house unannounced. Well, it is not completely unannounced. Emerson will usually say, “¡Con permiso!” after he is already in the middle of my living room. Denying a kid entrance into your home is a lot harder after he is already in it.

There is much to be written about these two characters, but this post is just going to be about an incident that occurred last Friday.

Late Friday afternoon my sitemate, Lorba, and I were watching a movie. Emerson and Cristian brought over seven other kids who all wanted to play with Mapache. I had never even seen these kids before, but I told them it was fine for them to play with Mapache in the yard. About five minutes later, Emerson was in my bedroom.

“Con permiso.”

“Yes.”

“We want to take Mapache for a walk.”

“That’s fine.”

I got Mapache into his halter, attached the leash, and handed it over to Emerson. The pack of children left for the street, and my home returned to its usual tranquility. But that child-free calm ended up lasting for only less than ten minutes. The dynamic duo had managed to ditch the rest of the kids and just the two of them returned with Mapache. Once again Emerson was in my bedroom.

“Con permiso.”

“What do you want now?” (After three interruptions in the past 20 minutes, my patience was running a little thin.)

“Can we play in the yard?”

“Yes, that’s fine.”

Once again the kids went back out into the yard and once again we resumed watching our movie. But, of course, they weren’t content to just play in the yard. Within minutes they were in my room.

“Con permiso.”

“What?” (My patience was on its last thread at this point.)

“Can we watch Michael Jackson videos on your computer?”

“No. We are watching a movie.”

“But…”

Emerson was unable to get any more than that out before Lorba yelled, “Children! Outside!” and escorted them both out of the house.

I really expected them to be back in my room with another request in under ten minutes, but surprisingly we were able to watch the rest of the movie without any further interruptions. They apparently got Lorba’s message loud and clear…or not.

When I went outside to see Lorba off, I noticed my hammock lying on the porch. This hammock was set up by the volunteer who lived in this house before me and has supported the weight of countless adults, yet two skinny little boys somehow managed to rip it out of the 10-foot high support beam. That’s a challenge. They left in such a rush after tearing down the hammock that they forgot to collect their toy cars.

I was angry. No, the hammock was not broken, although it will be a bit of a hassle to borrow a ladder and a power tool to hang it back up. But I wasn’t angry about the hammock; I was angry about the fact that the kids didn’t tell me they tore it down. It’s not as if I wouldn’t know who did it.

I thought about going over to his house to discuss what happened, but I realized his parents would be infinitely angrier about the situation than I was. I didn’t want to be responsible for the misery of a child, so I decided to wait to bring up the hammock until I caught him alone in the street or away from the house.

Sunday presented that opportunity as I ran into Emerson at the Tactic soccer game.

“What happened to the hammock Emerson?”

“What?”

“The hammock. How did you and Cristian tear it down?”

“We were spinning in circles and it fell down.”

“Okay. Why didn’t you tell me what happened?”

“We thought you were going to beat us.”

So the frightened Guatemalan children ran away because they thought the angry gringa was going to beat them. I guess I can’t be upset about that.

Chopping

Drawing from my knowledge of deciphering rudimentary English, I believe this sign is meant to say something like, "Well to come in shopper," or a little better said, "Welcome to come in shopper."