Saturday, May 31, 2008

Fly Me!!!

Well now I have not written a blog in donkeys years, so lets see if I can’t write one that will make your hair stand up on end. Recently life in my site has been very good, I have been teaching a little bit of environmental education in the school, and we have gotten a space ready to plant some trees and vegetables which will be added to the students merienda (snack) that is typically beans and rice than has been given to the schools by the government.

Other than that the tree in the vivero (nursery) in my house are growing and I have gotten a number of coffee producers that are also planting the trees on their farms. In reality where I live is not a danger area for deforestation, the valleys of Honduras and the Biosphere de rio platano which is on the other side of the country are the real danger areas for deforestation. But it never hurts to plant trees and I like to do my best to encourage it because someday deforestation could be an issue here and it is better to prevent then have to fix the problem.

In my house I have planted some different vegetables (to test) some seeds I was given and also so I can produce some of my own vegetables to consume. All of the seeds I put down have come up, so in a couple of months I should get to eat some onions, carrots, radish and maybe some tomatoes.

Recently I had a medical issue that was a little different than anything I have ever experienced and is (according to some research I did) only found in Central and South America. About 2 weeks ago I had a horribly swollen ankle and has hospitalized for 2 days with a staff infection, this was kind of disheartening cause I missed part of a workshop I had been waiting to attend for a couple of months with my Counter Part from my community. Anyway, after a lot of pain, not being able to walk much and 9 days of Antibiotics I still wasn’t healed, and the hole in my leg where pus had come out did not want to shut. I talked with people in my site and they all swore I had something called torsalo, of course I had no idea what this was, but it was described to me as a worm that lives in your leg. I decided I wasn’t to get a professional opinion and so I went back to the clinic in San Pedro Sula where I had been hospitalized. The doctor looked at it and told me I had an infection, but that it wasn’t torsalo, which I later found out to be a botfly larva.

Anyway the doctor took a sample of the pus to do a culture and I stayed in San Pedro and did some research about how the botfly larva works, and it turns out although the doctor swore to me this is not what I had, my symptoms were exactly that of the botfly larva. So when I got home the next day I cut off the “air hole” with duct tape and in 15 minutes where I removed the tape, low and behold I had a little worm looking for air.

I called and talk to the PC doctor and she gave me some advice as to how to get it out, I followed the advice and after having the hole plugged for over and hour I managed to squeeze (with a little bit of pain) the little bastard out of my poor ankle. I would have put a picture online but he came out in two nasty pieces, and I was tending the open hole so I didn’t get to take the picture, however if you look online you can see some “great” videos of people who have had botfly larva’s growing in their bodies, let me tell you its nasty stuff, but such is life.

Oh well, you live and you learn, I could have had that worm out of me a lot faster if I had listened to the people in my community!

Cheers