Dream angel goes to hospital, leaves ghost cash

About a month ago I heard from my friend Carlos, an employee of Defensores, that he'd broken his leg in a motorcycle accident. It's incredible to me that he didn't break his head because it was a pretty bad accident, but amazingly enough he was actually wearing a helmet, which I'd never seen him do before. But his leg was pretty bad and he had to go to Guatemala City to have it operated on. But then things took a turn for the worse, because he came down with hepatitis and was reported to not be doing so well. Of all the people at Defensores he's definitely been the nicest to me, and was a big help to me especially when I first arrived, so I wanted to visit him.

A big group of people from Defensores were planning on going down there together to visit him, but I got so tired if it being postponed from day to day that I decided to go by my own schedule and just get on a bus by myself. So with that, I made the 8 hour bus trip down on a Sunday and then on Monday went to visit him at the hospital. But it turns out that the visiting hour is just that, one hour, and it's from 11am to noon. My colleagues had said it started at noon, so when I got there I'd already missed it. I felt like a dip-shit for not having managed to double check the hour, despite some attempts. So on Tuesday, I did the whole thing again, but I got there at the right time and I was allowed in to see him. The lady giving out visiting passes almost didn't want to give me one because she said that his family from Petén were coming down. I think they were expecting the other people from Defensores, who must have said they were his family to get access to visiting him, since she said the passes are pretty much just for family. I was like, "I just came down from Petén as well!" The only difference between them and me is that it's not believable if I say I'm family. In the end the Defensores people didn't show up that day, nor did his mom who is staying in the area to be with him, so I deprived no one of an attempted visit. He was glad to see me, though pretty lethargic and not looking so well. He hadn't been allowed to eat or drink for 5 days, so he was looking forward to having a big Coca-Cola. I had a hard time understanding him because he was speaking quietly and not very clearly, so unfortunately I didn't get a lot of what he told me. But the surprising thing I did learn was that he doesn't think he got his hepatitis in the hospital, which was what I'd been told. He said he thinks he got it from cleaning up some rotten food rations that'd been left at one of the guard posts Defensores keeps in the park, one of the places that I stay as well. I never asked him what kind of hepatitis it is. If it came from the guard post hopefully I won't have the same problem because I'm vaccinated against A and B, though I will also steer clear of rotting vegetables. I'd brought him a bunch of money to help pay his hospital bills, but his mom wasn't there for me to hand it off to her so I didn't leave it out of fear that someone would steal it. I figured I'd find a way once I was back up here, I've deposited money in people's accounts before and thought I'd do that for Carlos' mom.

That same night I took the night bus home, and got back to Flores at 7am on Wednesday. It was nice to be back. Perla had stayed with the neighbors and I guess she'd been playing with their two dogs non-stop because when I brought her back home she crashed out and only woke up to wander to a new spot and collapse. She was somewhat revived by walk time, though. Today I had to go to the Defensores office to sign some papers, and I brought her with me because the women who live across the street are the ones who gave her to me and they always ask about her. I'd been somewhat fearful that they'd see her and want her back, but the lady who was there just said that she looked great and was happy to see her. I got more news about the other puppy that'd died. She said it'd eaten a fish bone and died from that, but I took Perla to the vet after this visit to be deparasitized (we went because it's to be done every month, not because I took her to the household where her short life almost ended early) and told the vet what the woman had said and she was doubtful that a fishbone would kill a dog. She said that since the other puppy hadn't been vaccinated against a common virus which kills the dog with bloody diarrhea (got to make sure I work dog diarrhea in here somewhere), that's probably what did the dog in and the fishbone was a coincidence.

Anyway, after the visit with the neighbors, but before the visit to the vet, I took Perla to the Defensores office where she was universally admired (so cute, so pretty, so well maintained! :) ), but then something interesting happened. It turns out that two Defensores people did visit Carlos the day after I did, although only one of them was allowed to see him, this guy named Julio. Carlos' mom was there too, and she said that Carlos had told her that he'd had a dream that this foreign angel had visited him, coming out of the sky and giving him a lot of money. Apparently she'd been like, "Well, where's the money?" and he didn't know. Although I'd realized during my visit that Carlos wasn't 100% with it, I hadn't realized he'd been so out of it that the whole thing would seem like a dream afterward.

Sixteen hours total on a bus, two nights in a hotel, and plenty of time and money on taxis seems like a lot of fuss to visit someone for half an hour, but it was good to see for myself what his situation is and how he's doing, especially since I turn out to be one of few from Defensores who has managed to see him. Not as many people went as I thought were going to go, but that's probably for the best since hospital rules wouldn't have allowed too many people to actually see him.