Not Saving a Child from a Well

I wish someone could have got me breaking my hand on film and I couldn’t help but laugh at myself after I did it. It was 6:30 a.m. I had three or four hours of sleep and was off heading to catch an eight-hour bus ride down to the country’s commercial capital, Cotonou. Still dark outside, I know I won’t be able to find a zemi (moto) to get me to the bus, and so I am walking hurriedly to get there on time. I have managed to fit all my stuff for a week in one bag, but the bag is rather large, as is my purse. I carry my helmet in my left hand, with the visor open I wrap my hand through there to hold it.

For being so early and having so little sleep, my mind was racing over whether I had everything and all the things I needed to do this week and just in general the trip ahead of me. As I am going over this I consider how I should maybe get my cell phone out to use the flashlight, since I can’t see. I start digging around in my purse and it is at this moment I trip and fall, landing on my left hand, holding the helmet and then lay out flat, scrapping my right knee and my big toe.

I just start swearing at myself, mostly because I am in a hurry and I am slowing myself down, and then because I realize how much the fall hurt. I stand up and I think, "Hey, I think I just jammed some fingers." As I am walking I realize my right hand is bleeding. I should go back to the work station and clean myself up, but I veto the idea, not wanting to miss the bus and because I have a travel first aid kit with me.

So I sit on the bus for eight hours. My hand is killing me. I look at it and think it is just jammed and well it will be fine. I don’t move it and four hours into the trip I finally dig out something from my purse to take for the pain. When I make it to the work station I ice it, and figure if it still hurts in the morning I will go see the doctors.

In 24 years I have done many a things that could have caused me to break a bone, but of course it is tripping and falling that does it. The next day an x-ray shows it is broken and I have to wear a cast for six weeks, which happens to coincide with the same time of the hot season.

Today I am getting my cast off and it has an awful, worse than pungent smell to it. I have resolved to sleeping with my arm as far away from my face as possible. I am embarassed to be too close to anyone else for fear they may think it is me that smells. The doctors think the smell might be because I exposed it to water, my response: "If by water you mean sweat than yes it has been exposed to a lot of moisture."