The path from the road to the clinic site. It was steep and slippery!

Dave relaxing a few minutes, with Pastor Lalo sitting in the background.

Our visit to Atoyac this past week prompts a few observations and reflections.  The people’s faces are noble, beautiful, and even regal, despite advanced age or poverty.  They see much, they understand much, they endure much, they accept much.

When a daughter is single, she stays at home in these villages. One woman, 30 years old and with a strong appearing body, presented with symptoms that had no clear explanation.  “How is life at home?”  She responds, “My dad is an alcoholic.  He goes around town and buys beers, and tells the shopkeeper that his daughter will be along to pay for them.  I have to work extra jobs.  He beats me at times.”

A young man, 30 years old, comes in with two small children.  “Why are you bringing them in?”  He responds, “I am helping to raise my sister’s children because she was killed by her husband with a machete.

Meals were served in a nearby home. They were very gracious.

The ubiquitous dust.  When I think my sandals, clothes, nose, eyes or hair have too much, I think of my truck.  After a mountain trip, it takes 5 minutes using compressed air to blow out the air filter.  The dust has been so thick on some of our vehicles that a rancher from Kansas told us that when their truck was spray-painted at a road block, it washed off when the dust was washed off.  It finds its way into the cargo box even when the cap door is tightly closed.

The body lay on the highway on the way home; the motorcycle in pieces on the shoulder.  He was unconscious but with a pulse, and breathing.  He had a huge gash on his scalp that went down across his forehead; the skull looked a bit depressed.  Another large gash went through his mouth, nose, and chin.  His right elbow was open down to the joint; left leg was possibly broken.  He had not been wearing a helmet (we have seen only a handful of helmets during our many road trips).  The white vehicle that had hit him had driven on without stopping.  An ambulance, with a driver,  an armed guard and a gurney arrived; no medical personnel or supplies.  We took a few sheets from our supplies, rolled him onto the sheets, stabilized his head, lifted him onto the gurney and said “GO!”  The hospital was fortunately only 15 minutes away, but to our knowledge it had no one on staff with trauma expertise.  We have no way of knowing what has happened to him.  When do we stop praying for him?

Mixteco translators; theirs is a difficult job!

Bertha and Mary Kay leading the children in "God is so Good" in Spanish and Mixteco.

House calls are always interesting and it is a privilege to visit people in their home.  Here it almost always means someone is terribly ill, possibly in the very terminal phase of an illness.  In Atoyac, the pastor came to us the second day and said there was an elderly man in the village who had been sick for a week with high fever, abdominal pain, and diarrhea.  We gathered up the “black bag”, IV bags, equipment for starting IVs, IV antibiotics, pain medication and trekked over to the house with the pastor and some team members.  It was a tiny, windowless adobe hut.  At the doorway sat an older woman, dressed in traditional Mixteco ie a long, heavy striped skirt and a necklace-she was scowling and would not permit us to enter, saying “He does not want to see you”.  As we milled about, a younger man (his son) appeared, brushed his mother aside, and went in and spoke loudly to his father.  Eventually we were allowed in (only the translator and I)-he was huddled in a corner on a blanket on the dirt floor.  We could hardly see, and it was extremely hot.  He was emaciated and his skin was very warm, and he could barely speak.  We eventually learned that he had gone to the local health center when the illness began, and then went to the local witch doctor, but was getting worse by the hour.  He had quite a lot of abdominal pain and tenderness.  We suspected he was probably septic (ie infected in the blood) , probably from a urinary tract infection, or possibly an intestinal infection.  He was very dehydrated as well.  Though we could barely see what we were doing, we were eventually able to start an IV and gave him two different antibiotics, and also gave him a shot of pain medicine.  We were able to leave IV fluid for a day or so and additional IV meds and oral meds as well.  They asked the pastor with us to pray for him, though clearly the woman did not approve.  She apparently was openly and vocally hostile to the pastor and his church.

As is so often the case, we do not know how he fared.  Hopefully the fluids and the IV antibiotics were sufficient to treat his infection.  Perhaps when we visit the village next year, the pastor will be able to tell us what happened.

Right after the house call, Mary Kay was stricken with abdominal pain and was unable to work.  But she was wonderfully ministered to by the team; they set up a comfortable place to lie down, gave her medicine, prayed over her, and one young woman fanned her for over 2 hours (it was beastly hot in there).  By the time the afternoon was over, she had improved significantly, and by the time we encountered the motorcyclist in the roadway, she was able to jump out and assist the others in assessing him and getting him into the ambulance.   The concept of teamwork had special meaning that day.