You
try so very hard to be careful, but when everything seems to be stacked against
you (rain, incoming tide, slippery volcanic rocks…veloceraptors), things
happen. As part two of this joint blog post (the first being on The Horne Family
Mission blog), I have the distinct pleasure of telling you about our second day
in Limbe.
Having
survived the haunted research facility, we piled our bags and all the children
into the car for the adventure of finding a new hotel. Sounds like fun, right?
It gets better.
Limbe
is known for its black sand beaches, and as a California girl, the prospect of
the beach and some really good seafood was just too good to pass up. We left
the asylum not really knowing where we were going. We had a guidebook, but
guidebooks in Cameroon are interesting… they don’t always reflect the current
anything. So our search begins. We ended up sitting in the car in the parking
area of a hotel while Eric went in search of a cyber café to print off a list
of recommendations from Joy Newburn. By the time he returned with the list,
it’s lunch time and everyone is feeling the ‘Ugh’ of our search, so we venture
down toward the fish market for lunch. A series of rundown wooden buildings
line the back of Down beach, the women out front barbequing fresh fish and
shrimp. We find a place, park the car and head in. The seating area out back
has a lovely view of the boat builders, fishermen and trash pile…?
I
was really excited about the fresh fish cooking on the coals out front. The
children each took a ride up and down the beach on Malik the pony. Logan was
kind enough to cut the head off the fish so I didn’t have to look it in the
eye. There is something unsettling about food looking back at you… After lunch,
we begin our drive. We drive and drive and drive and drive. We found the hotel
maybe twenty minutes outside of downtown Limbe with a sign pointing up the hill
for the hotel and down the hill for the beach. Perfect. We get in, drop our
things, throw on swimsuits and we’re off. The beaches are rocky. Tide is coming
in, so the sand is now hidden from us, but we were determined to at least touch
the water and see how far down we could walk. I wouldn’t call the water warm,
per say, but it’s warmer than the Pacific I’m used to. Sparing you the details
of the rock hunting and “wave riding”, I’ll skip to the exciting stuff.
On
our way back to the stairs, the tide is higher, the rain is starting to fall,
and we have to cross slippery, volcanic rocks. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Well, unless you’re me, and your handhold gives out and the rock under you
shifts. I don’t really remember the falling, but I remember telling myself to
roll. The last thing I needed was to fall flat on my face. There were shouts as
I sat there doing a mental check. Head? Good. Neck? Good. Breathing and things
like that? Good. Arms? Good. Back? Good. Legs? Well, huh. Negative, but hey, I
can wiggle my toes and despite the blood gushing from my calf, I’m not in any
pain! Eric and a man from the hotel jump to help me. Every step I took brought
another pump of blood. It had more than filled my shoe and stained the black
rocks, but my only focus was to get off the rocks. Sitting on the rocks
bleeding profusely didn’t sound all that fun. Eric pulls off his shirt and ties
it around my leg. Then comes the baby blanket to reinforce the shirt, and
slowly, we make our way to the stairs and up to the hotel. Sitting on the tile
porch of my hotel room, I carefully peeled the blood soaked (and I am not
exaggerating) fabric from my leg and used my water bottle to clean off the
blood and debris.
The
poor guy from the hotel looked freaked out, and I think we made it even worse
with our joking. He did, however, fetch me the first aid kit. Having gotten the
area clean, I know I need stitches so I ask the guy “Is there a good doctor
close?” He nods almost hard enough to shake his head off. I have visions of the
sign we saw driving through the village that was no more than an old partial
piece of wood with “hospital—Doctors available 24/7” hand painted in white. “Is
there a really good doctor?” He assures me there is, and runs off to get the
manager, so he can drive me. Logan runs off to change, so she can go with me,
and I thought about changing, but why? I hobble my way to the car, Logan comes
out and we leave, visions of that sign still running through my mind. During
the ride, I’m running through all the things I have to do. I have to email
Janice. I should probably email Martha. I need to call my mom. Of course, that thought
has me giggling. Growing up we had three parameters in which we could call her:
not breathing, bleeding profusely, or already dead. I think I qualified.
We
pull up to the Ministry of Public Health in the village of Batoke. There are
people milling around, and I pull myself out of the back seat. Blood is once
again making its way down my leg, but other than that, I feel fine! I walk up
the ramp, careful of the moss. The LAST thing I need at the moment is to fall
again. There are people waiting, and every single one of them is staring at the
white woman bleeding in front of them. It was something out of a movie, I
swear, but the doctor chooses that moment to walk past. He looks down at my
leg, stops and points through the building. Triage? Bloody leg jumps to the
front. He ushers us into the maternity ward of all places and leaves. Logan and
I had to laugh. It was just too funny. She promises I won’t come out with a
baby, and we wait for the nurse to make the bed, and pull tools out of the
autoclave. She made the wrong bed though, so we waited for the doctor to get
the sheet where he wanted it on the taller of the two beds.
As
he pokes and prods, Logan and I are talking about taking pictures, but my
iPhone was back at the hotel…too bad. Then I watch as he sticks his tool into
the maybe centimeter long cut, and the metal just keeps going. What did I
impale myself on? I can’t remember even seeing anything. Logan is just as
confused. It was strange. He’s asking questions I don’t know the answer to
because I didn’t know I had been impaled! I thought I was just cut up. Let me
just say, Lidocaine burns, but the bizarre feeling of not being able to feel
the surface of your skin is a fair trade, and I was fine until he started
pressing on my leg. He had strong hands and was hitting the bone and nerves
just right to make my leg quiver and my toes curl, so I finally just lay down.
I had a room full of random people that I didn’t really want to look at anyway
(he had invited them in to see the depth of my wound). Logan watched for both
of us from the foot of the bed. A few tugs and some stinging as they cleaned
the rest of my abrasions later, and everyone dissipates, the doctor setting an
ice pack on my leg. Then Logan and I are left alone. I couldn’t feel the ice,
but whatever. She and I talk about friendships and crossing friendship
barriers. Considering that was the first time I spent any real time with them,
I think we crossed some major friendship lines.
After
twenty or thirty minutes, the nursing student comes back in to take me to the
consult room to fill in the book and take my vital signs. When she couldn’t get
my BP the first three times… Anyway, she says “It’s a little high.” I resisted
the urge to come back with some snarky response dripping with sarcasm, but instead
I just nod. It’s not like impaled my leg, bled into my shoe, and lost a bunch
of blood or anything. Then she’s filling in the big book with all of my info.
When she comes to next of kin, Logan and I both ask her if she wants the name
of someone in country. My French is rusty, so I didn’t even try. She was
already confused, so I just gave her my mom’s name thinking she could just copy
my last name (that’s she’s already written). Yeah, no, I spelled it out for
her. I met with the doctor, promising to come back so he could check the
sutures and headed down to the pharmacy to get my drugs.
One
of the nice things I have noticed is that people are genuinely with you when
they speak to you. Everyone asked me what happened and everyone offered a
heartfelt “Ashia” to me, and it felt wonderful. The hotel proprietor covered
the cost of the clinic visit and my prescriptions, which had me thanking him
profusely for two days. I left the clinic with my two boxes of antibiotics and
two boxes of anti-inflammatories. It had to happen the first day at the
beach…
