Memorable Visit

From file written April 23, 1994

After Alex and María’s wedding reception, I had two days to relax and enjoy the rest of Carli and Tom’s visit. A few days after they left, my sister Mary and her husband Ellis arrived for their first visits in 12 and 21 years, respectively. They both were absolutely ecstatic about the trip, about the house, about being in Belize, and about all our planned activities. They could not understand why it had taken them so long to come back.

One reason was the dogs. Ellis is seriously allergic to animal hair. I had commercial cleaners in the morning of the day they arrived. Rugs, floors, walls, furniture, curtains were cleaned with heavy-duty vacuums. I had to pray that the strong wind coming through the house would keep the air uncontaminated for Ellis. Fortunately, he was perfectly comfortable.

The dogs, of course, were banished. To our amazement they seemed to understand that they could not come in. None of the loud vocal protests I had feared. Thank heavens we didn’t have a thunder storm. Simba would have eaten the siding off the back porch trying to get in.

 

Mary and Ellis arrived late afternoon Monday the 14th after visiting friends in Florida since early March.

Tuesday I went in to the office for an hour then returned to pick Mary and Ellis up to go to the Guatemalan Embassy. Visas now are required, even just to cross the border to shop in Melchor de Menchos. The little shops there have a full line of Guatemalan fabrics, table linens, jackets, belts, bags, etc. They are a tourist’s dream.

We had a choice of getting free visas in Belize City or paying us$10 each for tourist cards at the border. I needed to get a visa for my upcoming trip to Guatemala after the Air France conference, anyway, and thought Mary and Ellis would enjoy having visas in their new passports. The Consul was a handsome, meticulously gracious young man who made us all feel like cherished guests as he filled out forms, stamped, and signed, and stamped, and signed, and stamped, and…

 

At 7:30 Wednesday morning, we were off on our way to the West. We drove straight on through to Melchor. Slight delays but no problems at either Belize or Guatemalan borders. Mary had a glorious time shopping. Before we had been there twenty minutes, Ellis showed signs of being about to explode, so I gave him some Quetzales (Guatemalan currency) I had bought at the border and sent him to the cantina next door for a cerveza (beer).

There is only one shop now, on the hill on the right as you cross the little bridge; the large shop half a block farther on the left-hand side is now shuttered.

The young girls who ran the near shop were absolutely darling: patient, helpful, pretty. There is a new shop on up the hill, perhaps 100 yards farther along, which I understood the muchachas (girls) to say was the new location of the closed shop. It was obvious that the two open stores were operated by the same family.

I quickly realized that prices had risen dramatically. However, I saw no reason to tell Mary about it. Things still were good value. She picked out several items and asked the girls to hold them for her while she shopped. By this time “Mama” had arrived from the shop farther up the hill. Mama had no intention of letting Mary out of her sight. It was obvious that Mary was about to be trapped in a different selection at the same price. She knew it, but because there were no other shops in sight, she acceded.

I ran next door to rout out my lonely brother-in-law. He had enjoyed his Gallo (Guatemalan beer) in solitary splendor in the bar, listening to a series of plaintive Spanish songs and wishing he could understand the words.

My Spanish was a big help. It becomes fairly fluent in shopping situations. Further, it “happies” shopkeepers inordinately when one tries to converse in their language. The darling girls at the first shop were like ecstatic puppies frolicking around me when they realized I could speak Spanish (to whatever degree). Mama was equally elated.

Mary ended up with a nice assortment of table cloths, place mats, a gorgeous embroidered throw for Nancy’s blanket box, and equally handsome embroidered vest for Peggy.

 

We went through the nuisance of sequential border crossings again, then headed for the San Ignacio Hotel for lunch. It continues to be expanded. We ate on a charming open veranda overlooking the pool. The white iron furniture is airy and effective. I noticed a plywood walkway extending from where we were seated out to the edge of the veranda and back into the main dining room. It obviously was the base for red carpet laid for Her Majesty’s recent visit.

We did not reach the hotel until after 1:00 pm. There still was quite a crowd. Service was agonizingly slow. It was nearly 3:00 before we left for Chaa Creek, which calls itself a jungle resort.

Alex had assured me that I could drive to the resort easily over an all-weather road. For no reason, I assumed I would face perhaps 100 yards of dirt road. Wrong. It was about three long, rough, rocky, rutted, bumpy miles. Furthermore, there were unmarked turnoffs, so I was not sure we were on the right road. By the time we reached Chaa Creek, I was physically and psychically shredded.

 

Chaa Creek is a beautiful collection of thatched-roofed cottages on the bank of a river, far larger than I expected. No electricity. Kerosene lamps light the dining room as well as the snug cabins. Jungle looms beyond the lush lawns and flowering shrubs of the resort. It is a bit more “manicured” than Chan Chich, but has its own charm.

My cottage gave me the feeling of being inside a tent. The thatched roof came down windowless almost to the floor on both long sides. The front was closed by unscreened varnished lattice-work. The Dutch door was charming, especially when I realized that, although the bottom half had a simple bolt on the inside, the top half of the door could be fastened only from the outside. So much for Paranoid Kate. The cottage was dark and a bit stuffy during the heat of the afternoon, but charmingly cozy at night with its kerosene lamps.

Mary and Ellis’s larger cottage next door had windows and a more finished type of framing and thatching. I rather preferred mine.

The dining room was open under a large thatched roof, warm with planters of greenery, and pleasant in the lamplight. After a good dinner, Ellis suggested a liqueur. The bar tender pointed sadly to the empty space on the shelf where the Baileys should have been. We made out quite nicely with other sustenance.

 

My abode was on the side of a hill, so I had to go up two steps to the bathroom. The shower had no curtain, just a large square recessed area in the floor beyond the toilet. I was terrified that I would trip and fall into it in the semi-dark. Earlier, as I was freshening after a brief rest, I walked out of the bathroom buttoning my blouse to find a man in my bedroom. My immediate shock was alleviated when I realized it was a diffident Salvadoranean lighting lamps.

The bathroom was lit by a small oil lamp, which the brochure said could be left on all night. (Fearful of flammable thatch, I didn’t.) I bathed in the dim light before going to bed. Water from the shower sprayed every direction except straight down, soaking the end of the colorful Guatemalan rug that ran in front of the basin/counter. Rinsing soap suds from my resanitized torso involved a contorting dance under errant wisps of spray.

 

As usual, I awoke as dawn broke. I lighted lamps (successfully, to my own amazement) and dressed quickly. By the time it was light, I was on my way to the dining room for coffee. The kitchen maids seemed amazed to see me, but cheerfully supplied a tepid cup of what obviously was coffee left from the night before. I drank it without complaint, but was able diplomatically to get freshly brewed coffee to take back to the cottages for the three of us.

We had a pleasant breakfast and decided to forego the Panti Medicinal Herb Trail next door and just follow the walk along the Macal River, which runs past the resort. Our cottages faced a broad, mown terrace and bank of lawn that reached down to the trees and bushes lining the river. A path ran from one of the swimming holes diagonally up across the grassy slope.

Mary started down the path. Suddenly her foot slipped, and in slow motion, she went down, her right foot doubling back under her. Ellis and I reached her almost simultaneously. Mary was moaning with pain and pointed out that her foot was not straight.

I ran up to the office and told the young man on duty that my sister needed help. He absolutely flew out, barking orders to a Latin helper as he went. I followed back down the steps behind the second young man. The poor thing was rushing so that he tripped between steps and driveway and somersaulted on the gravel. I rushed to help him as he picked himself up, muttering in Spanish, rubbing a scraped arm, and looking embarrassed.

By the time we arrived, Ellis and the office manager had Mary back sitting on the steps of their cottage. The owner of the resort appeared by magic. I suggested ice to reduce the swelling. We had a chilled pack in place by the time the resident medic arrived. He did not think the ankle was broken. Since that was exactly what we all hoped, we were happy to accept the verdict.

Ellis and I packed quickly. Within moments, Mary was settled in the back seat of the car among pillows, her ankle cushioned and chilled. I drove so that Ellis could be free to help Mary shift position as necessary.

Soon after leaving Santa Elena, we ran into a police blockade checking drivers’ licenses. When they young officer came up to me he said something routine like, “I hope you’re having a nice day.” I replied that we most certainly weren’t because my sister had fallen and broken her ankle. He looked startled, both at my bothering to reply to his rote greeting and at my reply. To our delight, he answered, “Ahhh, I’m very sorry. Now drive carefully.” We thought it highly appropriate and rather sweet of him.

 

The trip was trouble-free. Back in Belize City, I drove directly to the X-Ray facilities. The assistant took a wheelchair out for Mary. I know the X-Ray technician, Mr. O’Brien, well, both from personal experience and from sending our cruise-ship crew members to him annually for routine health certificate X-Rays. I asked him if, after seeing the plates, he could give us an idea whether or not there were a fracture so we would know how to proceed. He said that he wasn’t supposed to do it, but under the circumstances might be able to bend the rules. A few minutes later he was back with an unhappy expression and a report that Mary had breaks in both the tibia and fibula. Her patella was dislocated and I think he said shattered.

Mr. O’Brien called orthopedic surgeon John Waight. John also is the head of the hospital and reported that he is not doing that type work right now. He said that this obviously would have to be an open retraction, and that there was a Cuban surgeon who could do it. When Mr. O’Brien reported the conversation, I didn’t even consult with Ellis, but said that there was no way Mary was going to have surgery here. At my query, Mr. O’Brien told us that the easiest thing to avoid moving Mary again would be to call Dr. Lopez, owner of the clinic, to immobilize the ankle so Mary could travel. He sent me across the street to the drug store to pick up plaster tape because they didn’t have it on hand.

Dr. Lopez arrived quickly, a pleasant young man, probably around forty. When he asked Mary if she would object to his cutting off the leg of her attractive aqua pants suit, she looked more horrified than she had been about her fall. I suggested her removing the slacks and my going back to the house to get a pair of shorts for her. By the time I returned, the plaster splint was well in process. Mary said that Dr. Lopez worked with a feather touch in molding the plaster to the shape of her damaged, painful limb. To our great relief, he even had one of those great braces with Velcro straps. He said he is the only doctor in Belize who keeps them.

 

We drove up to the house literally moments after Alex drove off the other direction on his way to the airport for a Laser Line conference. Mr. Myles, the yard man, and Ellis somehow got Mary from the car, up the stairs, and onto her bed.

The rest of the day was dizzying for Ellis and me. He was on the telephone to their doctor in Colorado and to various medical institutions. I had a complicated afternoon of trying to make plane reservations. Endless problems. I finally was able to book them to Houston and back to New Orleans for surgery at Ochsner Clinic. It was dark before I finished getting a signed release from Dr. Lopez so that the airline would accept Mary as a passenger. Mary was absolutely superb through it all. Despite her pain, she kept her sense of humor.

I helped Ellis with a whirlwind job of packing. It wasn’t organized, but everything fitted into their suitcases. One reason may have been that the downstairs clothesline was full of their clothes. It didn’t cross my mind.

 

I had asked Mr. Myles to come in early to help Mary back to the car Friday morning. Early in the evening he sent a message via María’s mother that he couldn’t come because he had to pick up his Social Security check and take it to the bank. That was nonsense. He could have come here then been back at Social Security before the office even opened. Actually, it worked out much better. I called my neighbor across the street and explained the situation. Sean didn’t wait for me to finish but declared, “I’ll be right there.” I had to yell at him to slow him down enough to explain that I needed him the next morning.

Medication kept Mary reasonably comfortable, and she slept fairly well. As she was eating breakfast she complained that Ellis had been told by the hospital that she must not eat anything after breakfast in case they wanted to operate immediately after her arrival. She said that she was dreading the airplane ride, and the one bright thought had been that she could kill some of the time enjoying lunch aloft.

At my call, Sean appeared with another equally tall, strong, young man to help him. They loaded the luggage into the car then carried Mary from the bedroom, carefully negotiating doorways, down the stairs, and out into the car. I will be forever grateful, not only for their help but for the eager way they offered it. (P.S. I baked a loaf of Anadama bread the next day, tied it with a red ribbon, and took it over to Sean while it was still hot from the bread machine. He was touchingly pleased.)

 

We arrived at the airport before the crush of passengers. There was a boggle when the wheelchairs did not have elevated leg rests. Ellis solved the problem by balancing his carry-on case on the foot rest so that Mary could prop her leg up on it. He was at the counter for over an hour. The seats so carefully booked the day before had been erased from the computer, probably by the Salvador office. He tried to buy a third seat. Full plane. I ricocheted between visiting with Mary, safely off to one side, and answering Ellis’s summons when necessary for purposes of negotiation. When he finally joined us, he said that he had their two seats, that they would be boarded first, and that once they were aboard, it was up to the airline to cope with the situation.

TACA did. Ellis told me later that, once they understood the situation, they made sure that Mary was seated in the “denied” seats with a spare seat between them. Ellis had the feeling from the whispered staff conferences that they may have had to bump someone to do it.

Mary and Ellis got through the Houston airport easily and received equally attentive care from Continental.

 

Mary said that she broke down completely when they finally reached the Ochsner Emergency in New Orleans. Completely understandable. She had been incredibly cheerful and uncomplaining throughout the painful, traumatic time.

At Ochsner, although they wanted to operate as quickly as possible, they waited until they could get Mary’s medical records. She has had a minor circulation problem involving shortness of breath, which worried them. She finally was admitted to the hospital around eight that night. Meanwhile, María and her sister Dulce kept Belize family informed. Dulce (who lives in New Orleans) kept checking with the hospital and reporting the status, gave us telephone numbers, and sent flowers for us.

I finally was able to talk to Mary. That is, we were connected by Mr. Bell, and I was able to listen to her babble with drug-induced vivacity. I understood about one word in ten. It was a wonderful relief just to hear her voice and realize that she was under care.

Mary was scheduled for surgery at 8:00 am Saturday morning. I finally got through by telephone around 7:30 that night, with no idea that she just had returned to her room. A major accident had tied up the surgical staff all morning. Her surgery didn’t start until around 3:30. The nurse insisted that Mary could talk to me. The doctors had decided against general anesthetic and had given her a spinal, Ellis told me later. Mary was far more coherent than she had been the night before.

 

It was Sunday morning before I finally reached Ellis and learned full details. Her ankle is full of plates and pins and screws, but the doctors were highly pleased at her prospects for full recovery.

Mary was released from Ochsner Tuesday (the 22nd) and they flew home to Durango. Mary has to wear her cast till June. Ellis is learning to cook, and loving it.

 

You didn’t need to read all this, but I needed to write it. As you probably can tell, it has been in process since last unhappy weekend. With each phone call, I have upgraded it. This whole thing threw me far more than I expected. It was one of those stupid missteps where no fault is involved for anyone. I just grieve for Mary’s pain and the interruption of a holiday that was making her so happy.