Yesterday was a bit different though :)
First off, I have been teaching a young guy named Mike (friend of the family of the people who own the rental rooms Im staying at) to ride a motorbike. We spend an hour or so each morning at it.
So, at about 8am, we start the lesson. Yesterday it was day two and he was practicing starting the bike off from zero speed in first gear. This is easy for people who know how, but for someone who has only ever driven an automatic transmission car, it takes a bit to get used too....especially if you are trying to hill start where you have to have quite good coordination and subtle control between all four of your limbs.
So Mike is there in the middle of a relatively quiet street trying to get the subtle balance of clutch and throttle right. He is dealing with school children laughing at him when he stalls it as well as tooktook drivers tooting at him and roaring past.... and he is dealing with it quite well.
Anyway, while hes there in the street, a local police officer walks by at a brisk rate and Mike looks at him self consciously (probably thinking hell get a comment about getting out of the middle of the road or something) but the officer walks straight past.... Then another one walks past and she´s got her pistol drawn and pointed at the ground..... Then five more trot past also with guns drawn.... and Mike is there trying to get the bike moving and look "normal" :)
The police stop twenty meters ahead and split into two groups and half of them start running forward and the others run back the way they came.... Mike stalls it again! :)
It seems that the police are actively trying to catch some local brothers who were involved in shooting someone in the area a couple of weeks back (drug related)... They caught one of them but the other two got away...
There was no gunfire this time, so the motorbike lesson continued :)
It was however quit funny watching the scene play out from the sidelines where I was sitting :))
It was clearly a bit of an event for the police too... I watched a couple of them exchange big smiles at each other as they trotted past with guns drawn... like they were saying "Hey, Check me out , I´m a Bad Hombre with my gun out and all!"
The lesson finished and no one got shot, so we all went about our business.
The next thing for the day was that one of my friends has had a rather nasty skin complaint on the ends of some of his fingers for several months. He has been to a couple of doctors and been prescribed a few antibiotics, but nothing has solved the problem...and it has spread/developed from one to four fingers.
I dont blame him for being dissatisfied with the doctors given the results, but he has also been rather blaze about looking after the affected fingers and keeping them protected (though his work does make it hard). Anyway, through one thing and another (including internet research!) he had decided that what he had was "Anthrax of the skin" which sounds way over the top but that I agree it "could" be... But the diagnosis was anything but rigorous or professional.
So my friend goes ahead and prescribes himself a stiff dose of antibiotics ...that are available over the counter down here. Things go well after the morning dose and the day progresses normally.
Later that evening though, my friend apparently collapsed while using his laptop in the garden. I was not there when it happened but I did see him about 20 minutes after....He was having a really bad time!
There were other friends there and much discussion in Hebrew (they all speak Hebrew) and things were animated. I mostly stood aside but I did get in and take his pulse and check breathing, temperature, palour, pupil dilation and level of consciousness etc... He was definitely not good, but vitals looked OK to me. While I was with him, he sort of groaned out that I should take his computer and check some kind of "Plague"...he felt pretty sure that that was what he had! As requested, I checked the computer and found what he had been reading...again, a self diagnosis based on internet research of symptoms while in the grips of a strong physiological reaction....
Yeah, I know "plague" sounds nuts, and it did to me too, but I also know how hypochondria works and what anxiety can lead people too, so I definitely have sympathy for the poor guy. Needless to say, reassurances were made, and no more time was spent worrying about plague.
Anyway, the decision was made that he should be packed off to the hospital in Guatemala city (There they would have options if he got worse, here in SanPedro there were no doctors or facilities and no options). So a minivan and a driver were found and he was bundled up and got into the vehicle and sent off in the middle of the night ... Even though he was starting to look better at this stage and didnt have to be carried to the vehicle.
What had happened... I dont know for sure, and Im not a doctor, but I STRONGLY suspect that it probably had a lot to do with combinations of caffine, nicotine, ganga, large new doses of antibiotics and dehydration!!!.... Clearly, my friend didnt worry much about the recommended procedures when using antibiotics!
He is apparently more or less fine today and the doctors (Yes he went to the hospital even though he was feeling far better when he got there) have so far found no health issues or pathogens. That does not surprise me at all, but they may yet come up with something definitive, so we will wait and see...
I will also be very interested to see if my friend acknowledges that he had a significant role in causing the problems all by himself and that he probably should consider behaving differently in future....
It seems obvious to me, but people see the world through strangely tinted lenses sometimes (including me) and it may well not be "quite so obvious" to my friend... and thats just how it may be... But even if it is, he will still be my friend and Ill accept him as he is!
Like I said, we will just have to wait and see.
But all in all, it was "Not the same day as every other day" :))))
