Leala in Honduras!

This weekend I went to visit Linda & Fernando, two of my friends in Santa Fe, Colón. Santa Fe is a Garifuna community on the North Coast and is located right on the beach. JJ, Adam, and I went there to throw a surprise 25th birthday party for Linda. It turned out great: full of music, new friends, food, cake, laughter, swimming in the ocean, night skies filled with stars, and cracking open coconuts with machetes.

To get to Santa Fe from Olanchito, the easiest way is to take a bus to Sava, then take a bus from there to Tocoa or direct to Trujillo, then from Trujillo a bus to Santa Fe. Normally if you catch all the buses on time, this would take about 3.5-4 hours. JJ, Adam, and I decided to take jalons (to hitchhike) all the way to Trujillo from Sava. Thus, we saved a lot of money and met some very interesting people. Jaloning is something very normal here, and in general it is safe if you use some common sense. However, I personally would not do it if I did not have someone else with me. Also, since I have a major bus terminal in my site, I generally do not have to do it. Well, we saved about 80 or so lempiras, so I was happy. On the way back home, though, we were not able to get a jalon from Trujillo, so we decided to take the bus to Tocoa, and switch to an Olanchito bus there. Why am I giving you all of these details? I’m coming to it, since this decision forced me to grow just a little bit older. When we got on the Olanchito bus in Tocoa, there were not too many people on there, so the bus kept stopping and stopping to pick people up. This is very normal for chicken buses, by that I mean old United States yellow school buses that have been recycled to be the cheapest form of bus transportation we have in Honduras.

To continue, one time we stopped on the side of the road to pick someone up. I was not really paying much attention when suddenly I hear this *CRACK* and then the screeching of tires. I look outside and see a motorcycle skid across the other side of the road and its drivers tumbling into the grass. Why did they crash? Did the bus hit them or something? I did not know. All I could see were the skid marks next to the bus. Then, I hear the chatter of the other passengers saying that the motorcyclists hit a woman. But where was this woman? That I could see, there was only a sandal and a plastic bag full of her things in the middle of the road. Suddenly, I hear them say that she is under the bus. “Good god!”, I think, “Are you serious?” Apparently, it was true because there she appeared bloodied and broken as the bus drivers moved the bus forward. Looking down at her, I was confused, appalled, grotesquely fascinated at the same time. *Skip to the next paragraph if you do not want to know the details or have a weak stomach* This old woman was laying there in the fetal position, whimpering, and with her right ankle cut open, ankle bone shattered into pieces, and her foot only remaining attached by the skin and tendons of her calve. There was not too much blood, but it was ugly. She also seemed to have trouble breathing and was clutching her side in pain.

At least she was still alive. So what did we do? Well, for a little while, we did what everyone else was doing, stare because we were in shock. I kept asking people if anyone is going to call the police but they only said that someone should, but nothing was happening. So tired of people not doing anything, my friends and I decided to go help the woman. It was real difficult though. Someone had also called her relatives, so they had come, but they were just in shock and could not help us with much. At the very least, Adam is a certified EMT, but that did not help much because we had no supplies with us. We had only the very basics in the first aid kit we had brought with us, and what she needed the most was to be taken to the hospital. We did not even have anything to use to make a splint. So we took charge, tried to calm her and her relatives down, organized a ride for her, and carried her basically broken body to the back of a pickup truck to be taken to the nearest medical center.

Afterwards, we continued with our bus ride back to Olanchito. Life seemed to just go on with passengers coming and going, but the blood stains on Adam’s shoes and on my hands and the anxiety we had every time the bus stopped continuously reminded us that this had not been just an ordinary ride home.

I hope she is okay. There was nothing more we could have done, since what she needed most was medical attention, but I still feel like I should have done more. Since the ride home, I have been trying to process what happened and what this means to me. First, it really makes me appreciate what I have, especially in the United States. There is almost no such thing as an ambulance here, if we are not talking about the 3 or 4 biggest cities in Honduras. This means that you can’t call 911 to get medical attention. You have to figure it out yourself. The United States works efficiently with emergencies. Though you will get blindsided with the medical bills afterwards, you will at least be alive to later to pay them or declare bankruptcy because of them. Secondly, what if that had been one of us, a PC volunteer? It could have easily been me or one of my friends. Motor vehicle accidents are the most common cause of injury among PC volunteers. An accident like that in Honduras would first leave us without a foot because of the quality of medical care here. Because of that, it would end our PC career. Even though PC would be paying for all our medical care for life after an accident like that, we would be medically evacuated never to return to Honduras again as a volunteer. Third revelation? It is so so frustrating and disappointing when people just stand around and stare and not do anything. Shock is understandable; I am still in shock, but something has to be done. First, stop being shocked and get the person some help. You can continue to be in shock later. She wasn’t dead yet, just gravely injured. Che.

The day after I was just all out of sorts, not fully awake the entire day. However, I am feeling a lot better since this happened though. Being busy and always around friends helps.