Broken
By Paul Prosser
My feet go free, I turn to look for a handhold, grab for a planter that looks larger than it actually is, extend my right hand backward as my feet fly in front of me. The full weight of my body drives my hand into the unyielding tile and I hear a sickening crunch. A thunderbolt of pain races from the heel of my palm to the tips of my toes as I hit the ground. Sitting up, I see my twisted forearm and instinctively grab it, pressing and twisting it to where I think it needs to go. Friends come to my assistance and want me to stand, but I refuse. I hear someone ask, through the buzz in my head and the rain pounding on the metal roof, if I can get up. I don’t remember answering. I feel hands on my back…faces shimmer in front of me, then fade to black.
In Chocola the previous day, Anne and Wendy from the Wuqu Kawoq NGO recounted the failures in the Guatemalan medical system for Mayan citizens. Mothers refuse pre-natal care so babies don’t get so big they need hospital care to birth them. They’d rather risk themselves and their baby’s health instead of accessing a medical system that lacks a human touch. That sentiment is echoed in San Juan in my conversation with Albino and Alejandro, two Mayan artists who visit the local curandera (healer) for broken bones instead of going to the nearest hospital. The curendara gathers medicinal plants high up the mountain, grinds and mixes them, burns them over a fire and applies the concoction to the fracture site once a day for three days. Alejandro says, in twenty days, healing is complete.
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