Send and e-mail to "Gaines Johnson" <Gaines_Johnson@BENG.VOA.GOV>
(For more information on southern Belize and its Maya population check out
http://www.catch22.com/~vudu/pgbel.html )
Date: Thu, 15 Aug 96 16:36:46 EST
This message sent to the Bz-Culture Mailing List from "Gaines Johnson"
<Gaines_Johnson@BENG.VOA.GOV>:
Greetings All!
For those of you who have never visited the Toledo District of
Belize, I would like to share with you some observations about the
indigenous peoples who live in the rain forests here - the Mopan and
Kekchi Mayan indians. And tell you a true story that happened this
week.
There are several dozen villages scattered across the Toledo
District. Most have no electricity, no running water, no public
telephone. The typical family lives in a thatch roofed home that has
a packed dirt floor and cooking is done on a floor hearth. Families
tend to be large and survive on subsistence farming. Corn is hand
ground each day by the women to make tortillas, the staple of the
average family diet. Many of the women make beautiful traditional
crafts to supplement the family income. These are sold to the
occasional tourist that passes through.
It is currently the rainy season here in Toledo, and it is a tough
time of year for many of those families; it is the off season for
tourists, so there are not too many people to buy the crafts; the
rivers swell from the daily downpours and the roads to many villages
are cut off for days at a time; they are between crops and food
supplies are getting low. Now, to make matters even worse, cholera
has broken out in many of the villages. Accounts reaching my ears
are that there have been at least 30 known cases in the last two
weeks and in several villages. With all the rains, it is feared that
the situation will get worse before it gets better. Allow me to
explain why.
I am not a doctor, but I do know a little about this disease.
Cholera is a water borne bacterial disease that kills by quickly
dehydrating the victim through diarrhetic infection. People living
in many of the villages here get their drinking and washing water
exclusively from the rivers and streams. The bacteria in the feces
discharged by the first people infected is washed by rainfall into
the streams and rivers (and occasionally into shallow wells in very
porous soil). Those downstream who drink the water or wash food in
it then contract the disease and continue the chain reaction.
Fortunately, if treated in time with antibiotics and rehydration
fluids, the chances for recovery are quite good in older children and
adults. Unfortunately, very few of the villagers know this, or how
the disease spreads. Many only know that when someone in the village
gets sick, that way, they are going to die. Cholera outbreaks are
not new to these people.
This fact was driven home to me and my wife this week. We both have
a lot of contact with many of the women's groups in the villages and
have many good friends there. One family, with which we have a very
warm friendship (and who owns a very large sow named "White Pig"),
live in the village of Santa Cruz. A few days ago we were driving to
town to do some shopping. Our route normally passes by the Punta
Gorda town hospital. As we were rounding the curve my wife said that
someone was running towards us from the hospital trying to wave us
down. It was one of the daughters of that family from Santa Cruz.
With eyes full of fear and tears she pleaded for us to come in and
see her father...."he is dying!" I asked what was wrong. She said
he was vomiting and had diarrhea real bad late last night. They had
brought him to town that morning in a hammock on the bus. We pulled
our truck into the gravel parking lot and followed her into a small
room with a curtain divider that is located on the ground floor back
entrance of the hospital. As we walked in the door we saw the
mother, her face filled with anguish and concern for her mate. I
pulled back the curtain and saw my friend, Mark, laying on a canvas
cot, with darkened and sunken eyes that appeared to be staring at a
sight far removed from this earth. I asked him what was wrong and
all he muttered in his delirium was "I'm finished...I'm finished."
The daughter spoke, "He has made his peace with God..he knows him die."
I observed that there was an IV drip on a stand next to his bed, and
it quickly crossed my mind what this might be. I told them I would
ask what was wrong and went upstairs to the nurse's station. I
explained that I was a friend of the family and asked if they could
tell me what was wrong. "Is it cholera?", I plainly asked.
Reluctantly, the answer was given. "Yes, there is an outbreak in some
of the villages."
I went back downstairs and told the daughter and mother not to worry,
he was going to be ok. They listened with eyes of disbelief, yet
which had seized on this spark of hope in my words. It is difficult
to communicate to these people the concepts of antibiotics,
rehydration and bacterial infections, but my wife and I did our best
to assure them that he had been brought in quickly enough to be
treated and will probably be ok. My wife and I then left them to do
our errands. There was little we could do but be their friends in
this time of need.
Two hours later I stopped by the hospital again and asked the wife
how Mark was doing. She speaks little English, but when she
understood my question she smiled and said "better."
That was Monday, three days ago. This morning, my wife took Mark and
his wife and daughter back out to Santa Cruz. He had recovered.
Now, as I sit here in my air-conditioned office, listen to the rains
pelting the window glass, and drink my instant coffee (made with
chlorinated water, of course) I wonder how bad things are going to
get out there in the villages before this is all over. Earlier this
morning I had breakfast with one of the doctors who works at the
hospital. He says there are eight people being treated at the
hospital today, including a nine month old baby and it's mother. "The
babies are so hard to treat", he related. "They dehydrate so fast."
He sadly shook his head. Nothing more needed to be said.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Thank You for using the Bz-Culture Mailing List
Send comments to owner-bz-culture@psg.com
1327 9th Avenue # 1
San Francisco, CA 94122-2308 USA
(415) 665-4829
Visit Harry's Universe at http://www.catch22.com/~vudu/
Information on Belize, Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Barbados,
Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines
cults. and more! Artwork, photos, and links.