Twisted Ankles and Toothbrushes

If there was a Cusmapan newspaper, I’d certainly be writing a letter to the editor thanking the gracious driver and assistants of “el Pizote”, the rundown and re-painted (with Rastafarian tendencies) late 1970’s North American school bus that runs the early-morning route between Somoto and Cusmapa.

I decided to stay overnight in Somoto, eager for the company of my Fabretto co-workers and in dire need of a night of being social in English. I knew full-well that the Friday night would probably end with little sleep, as I needed to take the 6 AM sleepy-eyed bus back to Cusmapa for a 9 AM choir concert on Saturday. Nonetheless, I decided dealing with the early morning would be a small price to pay for a bit of the good times. I played cards with Mike (one of the new volunteers), Oliver (my Peace Corps buddy), and two of Oliver’s Nicaraguan neighbors. We carried on jabbering and singing along to cheesy love songs until the wee hours of the morning. I knew the 6 AM wake-up call would come all too soon…

I slept lightly and awoke at 4, 4:15, 5, 5:30 to the fog-muffled sounds of pre-dawn Nicaragua. Roosters crowing, women dramatically relaying their latest string of life-inflicted barbarities on the way to set up produce stands at the market, taxis passing to and fro beeping at pedestrians in mock warning. At 6, I pulled myself out of bed and wrestled with whether or not I had time to shower (a 10 second match halted with the reflection that I hadn’t showered since Tuesday) and jumped in the ice cold garden-hose stream (what heavenly water pressure!) for just enough time to get soapy and endure a bone chattering rinse. I popped my pajamas back on and grabbed my carton of carrot-orange juice from the fridge, assuming I had at least 10 more minutes (as it was 6:06 and the bus normally doesn’t pass by the house until 6:15 at the earliest).

A too-close for comfort horn blared, and suddenly thrown into panic mode I made a mad dash for my backpack, oversized blue plaid umbrella, and with toothbrush still in mouth, ran full-speed out the door.

I forgot about the front steps.

As quickly as I’d congratulated myself for being ready to leap to action at a moment’s notice, I was brought down and a soul curdling pop resounded from my ankle. I immediately looked up to make sure the bus hadn’t yet passed, and seeing it rambling 30 yards away, burst into tears. An older man who happened to be walking by must have seen me fall then reach my arms out to the bus in desperation. “SUAVE! SUAVE!” (slow down!) he yelled at the driver, then grabbed my arm and got me to my feet and up the steps of “el Pizote” while explaining to the bus driver that he’d seen me take a fall. I never even got a look at this man’s face, he came in and out of my morning as quickly as I took that leap off the stairs. Through my streaming tears, I realized I hadn’t breathed in what felt like 10 minutes (but must have been more like 20 seconds) and started gulping the air desperately, trying to calm myself down.

I stretched my leg and propped my ankle up on the seat in front of me, figuring that maybe if I levitated it the throbbing twisting would cease. The bus assistant (I want to call him a “runner” for some reason, as his duties include running in and out of the bus during the whole route, tossing firewood and crates of tomatoes and rucksacks full of rice and beans onto the roof and giving his hand to aid teetering old ladies and gringas crying with an umbrella in one hand and a carton of juice and toothbrush in the other) asked me if I was ok and I tearfully asked him if he thought we could find a place along the way to buy some ice. The next stop, he set off out on a “hielo” search and the concerned driver regarded my foot like a chicken about to be beheaded- “it’s not the bone” he declared as he grabbed my ankle and gave my foot a good tug. I winced. “No, no es tan serio” (No, it’s not really that serious… though at the time I felt like I was lying). No luck with the ice at the first 3 stops on the pulperias lining main street Somoto. Finally, at the last chance pulperia on the way out of town the runner appeared triumphant with a block of ice just as my seatmate produced some sort of icy hot salve remedy and told me it would help. I spread the miracle salve on my ankle and winced with the 2 lb block of ice jostling against my tendons… watching the countryside pass slower than I’d ever imagined it could.

I noticed more wildflowers than I’ve ever seen before, and I’ve taken this trip dozens of times in the past 7 ½ months. Shooting stars, buttercups, and a red-antennae laden mad-haired flower straight out of the world of Dr. Seuss. I sat in the front seat and watched people’s eyes as they boarded the bus and wondered at their brightness and hollowness, smiled through gritted teeth at the 4 and 5-year-old chatterboxes off for a Saturday outing with Grandma, and shifted in my seat multiple times before I realized I was sitting on my toothbrush. Finally, about two hours into the trip, my foot couldn’t stand the ice any longer, and having turned into a full-body cramp from the awkward raised leg position, I decided to ditch the ice and see how it felt to put a bit of weight on my foot. I knew by then it wasn’t a sprain- I’ve gone through that nastiness before (falling on a sidewalk, of course. How the hell do I manage to hurt myself doing such run-of-the mill things and not on adventures where it would at least be a good story?!), and though the ache didn’t go away I no longer felt the twisting hot poker in the depths of my ankle. I paid the runner the standard fare (20 cordobas, or about $1.10) and tried to give him some money for the ice, which he politely refused. As the bus slowed to let me off at my corner (between the cemetery and the Catholic church) I slowly made my way down the stairs and the driver ever-so-kindly reminded me “not to fall” again. I’ll try to keep that in mind.

I shuffled my way to my house, using the ridiculous umbrella for a cane substitute, wrapped my ankle, took a good dose of Ibuprofen, and stopped to ponder the morning for a moment. In that moment where I lay so vulnerable on the side of the road I felt even more desperate than during the scorpion sting episode (then I had resigned my life to the fates and let venom run its course) and I wonder how long I would have sat there dimly bemoaning my minor injury if the bus had just passed right by… if not for the faceless gruff-voiced man who grabbed me under the armpit and a crinkly eyed driver who slapped me back to reality and the mustachioed runner who grinned with the first-prize trophy of an ice block… I might have sat alone curbside in a small pueblo in Nicaragua and peered from behind a curtain of self-pity at a desperate world.

Instead I sit here, awestruck once again at the grace of humanity and laughing to myself about the unbelievable spectacle I must have been this morning when I hobbled sobbing onto “el Pizote”, the bespectacled gringa with a bright-pink toothbrush and umbrella- prepared to face the world one torrential downpour, cavity, or twisted ankle at a time.