Our existence here in Guatemala has lost of ups and downs. Yesterday’s corn harvest was great. Today, not so good. We woke up a little after midnight this morning to a bunch of commotion outside, and Nas Palas yelling for me. “Jaime, Galindo tomo veneno y tal vez va a morir.” So, I stumbled out of bed and opened the door to meet a distressed Nas, who repeated the news that his grandson (aged 17) had taken poison and was likely to die. I threw a jacket on and went into the house on the other side of the yard.
Still not quite awake, I stumbled into the adobe-walled, dirt floor house filled with about a dozen concerned people bustling around. Lina (Nas’s wife) was sitting on the bed, holding her grandson, who looked… well.. awful. His eyes had a blank stare, he was curled up, and sweating profusely. They were rocking together, so I sat next to them to steady Galindo so he woudln’t fall over. “What did he eat?” I asked, thinking he might have acute food poisoning. A lot words were flying around in Q’anjob’al and Spanish, and I understood that he has somehow ingested a poison called Tamaron (a strong agricultural insecticide) a few hours earlier. I tried talking to him to get more info, and he was unresponsive. “How much did he take?” I asked Lina.
At this point, we were interupted by Masha bringing in a big bowl of laundry soap/water mixture, which they forced him to drink. He didn’t want any part of it. A jar of cooking oil also showed up and was forced down his throat, as he moaned and rocked. People were crying, shouting, bustling around. Suddenly his face exploded in a shower of of bright white, milky vomit. It reeked of insecticide, not like vomit at all. It was all over his legs, splattered on Lina, all over the floor. He kept going.
About that time, I noticed Emily standing there. “I have to go outside, or I’m going to be sick too,” she said. She stepped out, and did something really smart: she called the Peace Corps duty nurse. The nurse said we need to give milk and get him to a hospital ASAP. This is bad: the nearest 24-hour clinic is two hours away; the closest hospital is five.
We went back in to tell them, but we needn’t have bothered: an adult loaded Galindo up onto his back, and marched away with him through the cornfield, dozens of relatives (and us) in tow. A pickup was waiting at the bottom of the hill, and about a dozen Guatemalans piled in the back, and the semi-conscious Galindo was put up front with the driver. There was a brief, heated arguement as a drunk brother climbed in to go with them, then they were off, starting the 40-minute trek to town.
We went back to our house, wondering if we could have done more. Then we decided to call the doctor, to let him know they were coming (we have his cell number, we’re buddies). Turns out, the doctor was in Huehue (5 hours away) for a conference, so that wasn’t much good. We found out later that they took Galindo to a private doctor when they coudn’t find our buddy. Heck, we didn’t even know there WAS a private doctor in town.
So what does all this mean? We have been getting sporadic reports and information throughout the day. Our language instructor told us that there have been a rash of Tamaron suicides in the area in the last year, and of the other 4 cases he knows of, three died immediately. The other one died after 20 days of being ill, when his organs finally gave up. We hear that Galindo is still in town under care. What bugs me is the psychological aspect of it. This kid was one of the friendliest people we deal with in town. Heck, if you go back two posts, he’s the guy that gave me the pretty corn. He was intelligent, one of the few local kids that continued on to high school in the main town. He had stuff to look forward to- I’d talked with him a few times about working with me in the new computer center. He had some problems, too, though: his mother left him a few years ago, and his father has been working in the states for years. There is suspicion that he was having girl trouble. I guess it just goes to show that suicide is a complex, unpredictable thing.
And I can still smell the insecticide drifting out of our neighbors’ house.
TAMARON ® 600SL – 58,5 % methamidophos
A systemic insecticide for control of aphids, tuber moth and cutworm on potatoes, aphids and diamond back moth on brassicas, Heliothis bollworm, semi-looper caterpillars, leaf miner and red spider mite suppression on tomatoes, aphids and red spider mite on cotton and ants, aphids, cutworm and budworm on tobacco.