Sucre park

Am back in Santa Cruz, staying at Alberto's house and have some free time to write some of the things that I haven't had time to write previously. I also managed to upload some photos last night. Sadly, I don't seem to be able to load photos into my Blog on Firefox which is all I have on the laptop. So, if you want to see photos and haven't received an email invite, let me know and I'll send you one. And if anyone knows of a decent online album that generates a weblink let me know!

So, last Sunday I went to Sucre park. It was warm and sunny and I was chilling out on a park bench, writing some notes on the CBN website etc, when my first 'visitor' came along. He was a clown, who spoke reasonable English and seemed determined to entertain me. I wasn't madly up for it, and eventually he toned it down a little and just asked normal questions, like where are you from, why are you here etc. He wandered off to harrass others like me, reading and being tranquila, and got fairly similar reactions ie get out of my space you overpainted, multicoloured lunatic!

Next along was Enrique, a bloke dressed up very badly as a woman. He had huge painted lips, hearts painted on his cheeks, a red flowery dress, and balloons stuck down his front and his rear. He was selling chewing gum for a living. I'd seen him in the market the previous day so he recognised me and came over. He wanted to know what I ahd the night before (not a great deal), whether I liked Sucre, and a host of other questions that were in such atrocious English I couldn't begin to fathom what he was on about! Eventually, to my relief, he left me alone too!

Peace again, but not for long. An old man in very grubby clothes came and sat at the other end of the bench. Most of the campesinos here have fairly dirty clothes, tied together with string, and that don't fit properly, and it is just a symbol of the absolute poverty here. After about 20 minutes, when I had been able to get on with my work undisturbed apart from a constant gaggle of shoe shine boys who won't take no for an answer, even when you tell them, "I like my boots dirty", the old man turned to me and asked if I was at the University.

Sucre is a university town and has about 12,000 students (I think) and more than one university. "No, I am here working." It turned out that in his mind anyone who could write must be at the University. He told me he was from a village beyond Potosi, which is where the lead mines are. I guess one day it would be nice to go to Potosi as I have learned several odds and sods about it and there seem to be arrows pointing that way, but it won't be this trip. Anyway, he had a coat over one arm, hiding his hand, and it fell off. I saw his hand and nearly threw up. If you haven't got a strong stomach, read another post!

It turned out he had spent almost a week in Sucre trying to get medical attention. He had been in a lorry transporting goods to market and it had overturned. Not a rare occurrence considering the way they drive and the state of the roads. His arm had got trapped under the lorry. Anyway, he had come down to Sucre, and had seen several doctors in the free clinics, but without money they wouldn't treat him. Yes, yes, it could have been a scam but you didn't see his hand and arm. His hand had got infected and was a fairly revolting bluey, greeny, purple colour and several of his fingers were desperately swollen. His arm was a prime example of blood poisoning. He showed me the prescriptions and I debated going back to the hotel and grabbing the antibiotics I have left, after all penicillin is penicillin innit? And this was someone who had probably never had antibiotics in his life so they should work. Hmm, but I'm not a doctor and if it was possible to make things worse, I guess I'm capable of that.

The other prescription was for anaesthesia. At that point, he told me that he had to go back up to the clinic at 3.30 with the medicines so they could chop his hand off. Looking at it, I don't see that they had much choice. However, if he didn't have the
medications, they wouldn't do it. Dunno why, as he was hardly like to sue them if anything went wrong. The young doctor had already said he would do his part for free, so all he needed was the money for the prescriptions. I couldn't really face looking at his arm for much longer, nor did I know whether this was a scam or not, but whatever this guy was in desperate pain and to either alleviate my guilt at never having had to worry about any such thing as losing my arm for the sake of less than a tenner, or his pain, I gave him 10 dollars which would cover the medicines and all but 15 Bs of the treatment and told him I hoped everything worked out. I don't actually know if he was telling me because he wanted money, because at that point his eyes filled up and he seemed quite overwhelmed that I had given him money and thanked me until I couldn't really cope with much more. I left the park and its inhabitants and went back to the hotel for a cup of tea and a slightly less overwhelming environment.


The park before the 'storm'