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My Mate
I had some lonely times up there. Mama would pop in to check on my quite often and stay for a coffee or something to eat, but my conversational Spanish was still underdeveloped, and he was the Shaman of the village and so had other obligations. I also had frequent visits from some of the children and adults of the village, though few of them could speak any Spanish at all. Besides, they generally came for medicine or to bring me some food or often content to watch me for a while do whatever I was doing. It was during a particularly lonely period that one of the friendlier villagers told me a few of the people were not happy with Mama for bringing civilisation people up there and they were jealous of the time he spent with me, Rodrigo and Maribel.
The whole situation began to wear on my spirit, and I began to feel very lethargic and sick. The insects had been biting me every morning when I went to the river, I was coming up in angry red blisters, which then turned into ulcers. At this stage I had over twenty tropical ulcers on my body. My feet were a mess from this insect that burrows into the toes and lays eggs as a part of its reproductive cycle. I was no longer able to keep up with removing all ticks on my body because my lungs were becoming extremely sore, and the rest of my body ached. The ticks left me with itchy painful infections. The larvae re-appeared and my head was throbbing and spinning.
I awoke one morning knowing Mama had a very important meeting down the mountain in Santa Marta with the Red Cross in four days time. As a result, we would have to walk back down the mountain the following day. I felt like death. I had gone to bed the night before with a headache and an aching body, but on this morning I could barely move. I had run out of water to drink, and I told myself that perhaps a wash in the river would help me feel better. I was quite determined to overcome the way I was feeling, because the thought of being left here in the village without Mamas protection suddenly brought home what a vulnerable situation I was in. The thought of being gravely ill in an unfamiliar village with hostile villagers forced me to make my way down to the river.
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