After the scene calmed down, my host mom and host sister were still in story mode.
I fell and twisted my ankle, actually that’s backwards. I stepped on a stone in a way that just sent my ankle the wrong direction and I was immediately in a mountain of pain and lying on the cement adoquín. My host sister came to get me and in minutes I was in the middle of a huddle of three generations of women in our kitchen. It was about a month before I could walk almost-normally and, three months later, my right ankle is still swollen.
My host Abuelita began praying over me in K’iche’ when she saw my ankle. A few hours later, I was already bored with sitting instead of feeling the initial shock, being overwhelmed and scared. My host sister and host mom told me a story.
“When my mom just had that operation” Clara said “I came home from work because remember I was still working in the capital.” “Sí” I said, my host mom Rosario got up to get more tortillas from the basket. She set them on the plancha, the hot iron stovetop, and sat back into her short wooden seat. She took over the narration: “I felt so sick Natalia. I was dizzy, skinny and pale” (if you’re skinny it’s a bad thing).
Clara tagged back in: “Yes so I came home and I saw my mom and she was in bed…”
Host Mom: “You see I had just gone to the hospital for surgery. And the doctor told me that I was sick. And he said ‘You’re going to have to have this surgery.’ ‘Vaya’ le dije yo.’ So my niece took me to the hospital. I changed into the hospital gown. The doctor walked in and he told me ‘I’m going to give you a medicine to make you go to sleep.'” (You see, when my host mom tells stories, she starts from the beginning and includes all the details…). “‘Vaya’ le dije yo. ‘After I woke up, I felt so strange. I came home from the hospital. Chaper was taking care of me. Chaper and my sister, Rosario, before she died, remember my sister who used to live here?” I nod. “Va. After three days I called the doctor and I told him. “I feel so strange.” He said it was normal and that I needed to wait. ‘Vaya’ le dije yo.”
And Clara jumped back in: “Wheeeeen I got home, Natalia, my mom was so. pale.”
Rosario: “I was so. white.”
Clara: “And I looked at where the surgery scar was and I said: ‘MAMÁ! I can see your STOMACH!’ And en verdad Natalia, the place where the doctor had closed up her stomach was still open and I could see inside.’
My eyes widened. Abuelita quietly ate her food, too hard-of-hearing to participate.
Clara: ‘I said: “Mamá!” Your stomach is hanging out!'”
I looked at my host mom: “And what did you do?!”
Rosario: “I said: “sabeeeeerrrrrrr!'”
And that response, “sabeeeeer” or “Who Knows??” caught me so off-guard that it gave me the biggest laugh. I had fallen on my face in public just hours before but my host mom’s story about her stomach hanging out after surgery shouldn’t have surprised me at all. My wildest health scare doesn’t hold a candle to healthcare stories in developing countries.
And I realize that my cultural perspective tells me that there has to be an answer to everything or someone responsible for fixing it. But, and especially in developing countries, people don’t expect answers or fixes for everything. Maybe this is because answers cost money or take access to information to clear up hazy doubts or right all the wrongs. Sometimes a sunset is the natural answer and sunrise will be the next question.
All four of us sat in their sweet, little kitchen, eating tortillas and carrying on like usual. Who knows why things happen or what to do after our stomachs hang open after surgeries? Sabeeeer. Saber means ‘to know’ and when you pronounce it like a declaration, saber, you’re saying Who The Heck Knows. But we’re in it together and someday we’ll recount the tales of falling on our faces and how ridiculous it was.