Kyle week 4.2 Popping a stinky balloon.

It is a natural tendency for a child to tense the gluteus maximus muscle when nervous or in responce to a sharp stimulous i.e. a needle.

Thursday was my day to travel with Dr. Javier and Lexi to Duyure for the medical program. We checked on individuals that had been previously cared for and were unable to travel to a clinic. To some families we delivered food and gave prescriptions, to others we gave checkups and the occasional shot, others were in the process of digging latrines so I was volunteered by Javier to jump in and help break bedrock. The latrines were being dug to help waste control and prevent contamination of a water supply. A meter square hole dug three meters deep will act as a sufficient filter and will last a group of families nearly twenty years. The problem is that three meters is a deep hole! Javier´s great sense of humor sent me to the bottom of one of the latrines, swinging a pick down onto solid rock and then hoisting out the gravel with a shovel. I have a lot of respect for those families that finished the project. One family went above and beyond, well I guess below, what was expected of them. As we walked up to the worksite, all we could see was a group of people standing on a huge mound of dirt looking down into a hole where occasional jets of dirt would burst forth from below. The hole was so deep that I couldn´t even see the shovel as it lofted the dirt into the air. I gaped when I saw a man working alone at the bottom of a twelve foot hole and the ladder that was needed to escape from the pit. My conversion is probably a little off but I believe twelve feet is more than three meters. This guy didn´t hold back when digging an outhouse. None of those wimpy porcelain toliets would do, his latrine was going to be able to handle anything Honduran cooking could cause.

At one home a young boy about four years old had a bad fever and needed an injection. Javier prepped the syringe and handed it to me as we walked into a back room where the boy was waiting over his mother´s knee. Being slung over your mom´s leg, drawers around your ankles is not the most reassuring position one might find oneself. The poor boy was already stiff as a board when I swabbed his cheek. Javier had ahold of his arms and his mom had a tight grip on his legs, preventing him from going anywhere, but the boy had a fighter´s heart and was battling the only way posible in that given position. He was screaming his lungs out and clenching his butt so tight that his posterior was beggining to turn from brown to white. My job was easy, even if I was the most despised person in the room. All I had to do was slip in the needle, push down the plunger and the ordeal would be over, no hard feelings. Problem was, as the needle broke the skin, it also broke the final straw and the boy gave a desprate lunge. He was firmly held in place by four strong hands so the only reaction to his last effort of defiance was a tremendous burst of gas right into my face.
Nothing could have prepared me for that moment.
A mixure of disgust and convulsive laughter flashed onto my face for just an instant as I looked up at Javier and then at the mom. But only for a moment because neither of them flinched and the now intensified wailing quickly brought me back into the job at hand.
I quickly finished, with as best professional manner as I could muster, and patched him up just right.
The stink was hideous. Poor boy was sick.

On Friday I cleaned out a young man´s ear. I washed out a glob of dirt and wax that looked like the tip of my ring finger from the last nuckle. Didn´t phase me. I getting better at this stuff.

Point me toward wierdness Honduras, I ready!