How Not To Sharpen A Machete

Wednesday Mateo came over to work in the yard. He is a 15 yr old Kekchi teen and one of our last remaining friends from New Horizon. Starting last week I asked him to start helping around the yard by chopping the grass, pulling weeds, checking on the bananas and other various things. He needs/wants the money and it is really nice to have some help with work and twins taking up all of our time.

That day he was supposed to chop the weeds outside the fence and then spray the yard for ticks. Apparently we brought home an infestation in the mud on our vehicles from Santa Rita.

After about an hour he came to the back door holding his finger. He asked me if I knew anything about wounds. Having a well supplied medical kit thanks to my mom I told him to come in. The hand was so bloody that I couldn't see the wound so we turned our deep freezer into an impromptu operating table. After cleaning the area I saw that he had sliced his left index finger from one half of the nail to the other half of the opposite side. A nice clean cut because this boy really knows how to sharpen a machete (when he's paying attention.)

After cleaning him up and dressing the finger I began a long discussion about taking him to the Mennonite clinic (Good Samaritan) to see what the nurse there thought about it. There was much argument and he claimed everything would be fine if I would just let him finish chopping the yard and go home so he could put some weeds on it.

He argued with me all the way to the gate where he got in my pickup for the drive down the street where he protested all through the check-in process. His curiosity had him complying more than anything else because he'd never been to a "hospital" as he called it. It was really just a house with 4 rooms. After a 5 minute wait the nurse called us back. She complimented my fine wound dressing abilities (she's apparently seen too many Guatemalan weed varieties) and then argued with Mateo about stitches. She told him that if he promised to eat six eggs a day for the next week then she would let him go, but if he was going to just eat tortillas and salt the wound would take 3 weeks to heal and she was going to stitch him. He promised to eat the eggs.

Then she gave him instructions about bathing. He is supposed to keep the area dry for 5 days, so she told him to put a bag over his hand when bathing. She asked to make sure he had plastic bags in the house, and then followed up asking if the bags had holes in them. Again, this lady knows a lot about Guatemalans. He promised.

She asked him to wait in the hall and walking out of the room he asked me where the machine was that would tell him how much he weighed. He's seen too many movies. The nurse laughed and said he might as well get something fun for his trouble so she weighed him at 104 lbs which he thought was way too low. I can tell you this because I live in Guatemala where privacy laws do not exist...

After another 5 minutes they called us into the front room where they gave him tylenol and amoxicillin along with a booklet about God. Grand total was Q24 ($3). I left a bigger offering because I had benefited from their services before at no charge.

On the way home we stopped at the store where I bought him 30 eggs and some plastic bags. She didn't know that his family is so poor that Mateo doesn't know how to eat an egg, but he thought maybe his mom would know how to fix them. What I bought may last until tomorrow because the whole family will be eating them. He also didn't have any plastic bags. We argued some more about the medicine and when to take it as well as not removing the dressing. Then he finished the yard and sprayed for ticks. His biggest problem now is that he is left handed and wanted me to teach him how to write with his right hand before school tomorrow...Sorry bud.

Our next adventure will be when I take him to get a tetanus shot. He can't remember ever getting a shot and claims he doesn't need them.