Last night was set to be a calm evening. We’d gone to the chuj for bathing, fixed dinner, and I talked to my sister in the states for a bit. I thought things were going well. Galindo had seemed to improve throughout the day. We were under the impression in the morning that his grandfather was going to find an IV feeding aparatus but we found out later that he decided not to when Galindo was able to swallow again. At one point while I was on the phone Reina came to ask us to watch the house because everyone was going over to the other part of the house through the cornfield to pray. We’d been cooking food for them sporadically because the stove cooks faster than the fire and generally just trying to be supportive. But I thought I was on way my way to bed when I heard noises out by the house.

I opened the door to find Nas and his son Rigo walking from the house. They needed his maternal grandfather’s number again, which I gave to them. They told us Galindo was getting worse and they were thinking about taking him to the hospital but at the moment everyone was gathering at the house, so we went too. The scene was pretty awful. Galindo was propped up by his aunt who was sitting behind him and holding him. The affects of the poison and the pain wracking his body gave him the appearance of being intoxicated. He seemed to have only some control of his head movements, and his eyes would sporadically pop wide open. He did appear to recognize the people in the room, and would hold out his hand and call people to him in that way. When he saw me in the room, he called me up to the bed and said, “Puede darme este miel que me dio antes?” Can you give me some honey like you gave me that one time? About a month ago lots of people in the family came down with a nasty cold, and I was one of them. But I wanted to show them a tea that helped with the sore throat, so I had made lime juice and honey tea for myself and the others who were sick, Galindo was one of them. I told him of course I would give him honey. We’d been told earlier in the day he could not eat anything acidic, but his uncle then informed that he couldn’t have the honey either. The doctor had said no sweets. So I went back and told him I couldn’t give it to him, but he needed to keep drinking water. People here don’t really like drinking water, and lots of time when they boil their water they add sugar to it to make it more palateable, so he’d been refusing to drink water most of the day on account of not liking the taste. But when I told him that’s what he needed to do, he called for his aunts to get him water, and made a great effort to get it down.

We sat in the room helpless with numerous other family members and villagers and literally just watched him suffer. It’s one of the worst things I think I’ve ever seen.  He was in so much pain, but it was multiplied by the pain his family members were suffering in being there with him. All the women had red eyes from crying. I had to try not to cry for a very long time. I gravitated toward the door to get out of direct site of him, and there his uncle told me again, in a whisper, they were thinking they needed to get him to the hospital but we could not let him hear a word about it or he would get worked up and have more pain.

I called Fletch over to move ourselves to the kitchen were the decision making was happening. We were of no use watching the suffering, but if we could help convince them to make the next move, that might be worth something. So we went in the kitchen and began explaining what we thought the situation was. His grandparents were distraught, everyone was somber. They were afraid of taking him to the hospital because they had heard the hospital only lets one or two people in with the sick. In the Mayan community, birth, death, marriage, all important life events are done as a community, which is why everyone gathered in the house that night, but hospitals don’t allow that. They were talking about the money, as a concern, and rightly so. And they were talking about how they couldn’t leave right now for fear of highway robbers in the most secluded parts of the mountain roads.

There are so many things to get in the way of saving someone in this country. I asked them if there was any chance they could get a police escort for an emergency. They said for that you’d have to know a police officer, but they don’t know any officers. I asked them if they’d contacted the local Doctor (our local boss, the one I called the night of the poisoning) who was already in the state capital for work to ask if he had any advice. They hadn’t, so we all set to calling him and leaving messages until he called back. The decision was then made that they would take him to the hospital, leaving at 2:30am.

But after that you could feel the tension in the room grow as his pain seemed to escalate, and none of the women could keep the tears out of their eyes. I was walking around trying to find a way to be useful. They needed boiled water to sterilize a thermos they were going to fill with food for Galindo, so Fletch went to boil it. They were making atol and tortillas for all the people in the house, so I tried to help them pass things out. Various family members were on the phone with Galindo’s father in the states, and at one point Lina, Galindo’s grandmother, came quickly up to me and said, “Emily, can you get your camara?” She started crying, “His father would like to have a picture of him if he doesn’t make it. I can pay to have them developed.” I told her no problem, don’t worry about paying for the pictures. I ran through the cornfield to our house, and which point I burst into tears and had to stop crying before I went back with my camara.

He was in so much pain, they told me I should wait, so I just stood in the room, camara ready, to take a picture when they told me. The whole thing was so unbeleivably morbid. I had to fight crying as I finally took some shots of him when they stood him up to go to the bathroom. He started having uncontrollable chills, so I sent Fletch running to the house to get the hot water bottles to stick against him. Galindo is such a kind kid. I just found myself dumbfounded that he’d done this to himself. I just wanted to hug his sister, 16 year old Lina, who was bustling around trying to be helpful. She was fighting and fighting with tears. I finally asked her, “Do you want me to take a picture of you with your brother?” because it was the only thing I could really offer her as far as help. She is a very shy girl, who hardly spoke to us for the first few months we were here. She has this way of always keeping her head slightly bowed down, and she looked up at me timidly, but steeled against the situation and shook her head yes. She sat down by him on the bed, and I snapped the shot. Then she ran off to continue working. His grandfather came to take his pulse, to make sure it wasn’t too fast, perhaps to assess if he thought Galindo could handle the trip. I kept looking at his grandfather, a community leader, but illiterate, always smiling, even through most of this ordeal, who magically showed up with a stethascope, and I thought, “God, what these people could become if they’d ever been given an education, a chance at all.”

They decideded they needed to leave now, rather than at 2:30, and had found a second van, as they thought two vans would be less susceptible than one to highway robbers. They had to get Galindo in the van, but no one would tell him. Ten family members ran around changing into their nicest clothes, rolling up blankets, packing food, finding his national identification card while a few men had taken him out to use the bathroom. The vans arrived. Everyone in the house gathered to pray around him, and he heard something about a car. He said he was not getting in a car. His grandfather assured him they just had to see the doctor in town, instead of telling him they were taking the full trip to the capital. The movement started like the swell of a wave, and his aunts were running here and there, his uncle was helplessly holding one of his baby nieces, and I told him I’d take her so he could help carry Galindo. He gave her to me, her mother rushed by and paused, and I told her to stay with Galindo, her daughter was sleeping and I could hold her. I was one of the last people out of the room. His aunt who’d been holding him all night broke down as her mother ran through the room doing one last sweep to see if they were forgetting anything. She grabbed her daughter and convinced her to stop crying, but then they saw the young uncle in the corner also crying, the one who’d given me his niece. They all grabbed on to one another and walked out the door as we headed down the narrow paths to the vans. I could see Fletch at the front of the line with the men carrying Galindo, as we snaked down to the road.

We got to the vans and everyone was running around in confusion loading themselves into vans, but everyone who notices I had a child in my arms kept asking, “Which baby do you have? Where’s her mother?” I told them it was Michelle and her mom was with Galindo. Her mom was one of the two women who were staying with the house so she was in the van saying good-bye to Galindo. People loading in the vans were shouting last minute instructions to those of us waiting about not forgetting to pasture their sheep, or run tortillas to so and so’s house. Many people asked if we were going with them, but we said we needed to stay and watch the part of the house next to ours where no one would be sleeping tonight, and if we stayed two more family members could go in our place. They thought that sounded sensible. I also do not think our PC security advisor would’ve approved us taking this midnight trip through the mountains when we weren’t vital to the mission. Michelle woke up and began to cry for her mom, who emerged from the van and took her into her arms. All the doors closed, and the vans started moving and the women left watching just started crying.

Going to the hospital here so rarely happens. It’s a last ditch effort, the admittance that this person will likely die if he or she stays here, and no assurance is given that the person will make it from here to the capital.

We went back to the now quiet house full of dirty dishes and evidence of a scramble. They said they didn’t need any help cleaning, but asked us to be watchful of the house through the evening. We gathered our belongings there, and came home to go to bed. It was 12:30 then, same time as they’d first rushed him to the doctor in town two nights before.

I had a huge headache, from the commotion, from the smoke of the cooking fire, from exhaustion, and went right to bed, but I remember waking up hearing what I thought was a van coming back into town. I thought if it was back, he must be gone for sure, but then I heard no voices.

We got a call at twenty to 7 this morning that they’d gotten him admitted to the hospital and the bulk of the family was coming home. They arrived about 40 minutes ago. Reina came to tell us that her father, mother, brother and uncle stayed with him. The doctor said there really isn’t any hope because he thought too much poison has been able to enter his blood stream and his brain–my biggest worry all along. But she also said that a few nurses told her they’ve seen people come in looking worse, and they were able to save them. You just never know who will be the ones to stay or go. So here we are waiting again, but at least Galindo can receive medication to the reduce the pain, can have an IV and not have to struggle through eating.

Yesterday afternoon, when things were calm and we’d gone to see him, his grandfather was sitting there propping him up in bed to take his medication and drink a bit. He said to us, “Just two days ago we were all so happy out there harvesting. Everyone was laughing and smiling. Maybe he knew even then that he was just waiting for the right moment to do this? We were all so happy then.” I thought, if he does not make it back, at least in addition to the pictures from last night, we have a picture of the whole family together, smiling and happy before all of this happened.