Yeah, I know its April fools day, this is not a joke though, its not a prank it actually happened to me yesterday and not today, I wasn’t going to write about it but I find I have no choice other than to get the whole nasty episode out of my head, So pardon my verbosity and the graphic nature of what follows, (if graphic scenarios aren’t your thing you might just stop reading this now.)
I have been spending a fair amount of time on the various highways of Mexico this winter, none more than Mexico 200 and when you drive down Mexico’s Highway 200 you slowly wind down the coast of Mainland Mexico, at every village there is a tope (or 3) topes are essentially giant speed-bumps meant to slow you down when you are driving through the small towns that dot the coastline here. These topes generally mark the main areas of each village or poblado.
Commerce springs up around these markers, in the form of fruit vendors, abbarotes (convenience stores) and vendors of all types dependent upon what may or may not be manufactured in the area, so things are slow here down south and we are driving stoned (which slows you down enough to see and really appreciate the beauty all around, as well as allowing you to more easily flow with some of the slower vehicles on the road) what we generally seek out when we see another town (drive over another tope) is food or drink, our usual fare includes fresh fruit, or fruit juices, Mango, Avocado, Peanuts con chili’s, Cold Beer, Coconuts you name it! Its a snackers paradise! On this particular day it is hot, and we need refreshment, a small watermelon goes for about 5 pesos (40 cents or so) a plastic cup filled with watermelon chunks is more than double that, so we go for a full one and spend the next hour devouring it in the car, at the next town the mangos are going off!, so we buy some mangos and eat them while driving (ripe mangos behind the wheel are just wrong, they get all over the steering wheel, radio buttons, hand controls, everywhere! a mango should be savored not devoured while dodging buses) anyhow we drive slowly, our faces sticky from the juice of watermelon and mango, in the next town they have an incredible juice from a fruit I have never seen its served over ice in a giant cup so we drink that too, then comes the little coconut candies (similar to crack cocaine if you like sweets) We bought a bottomless plastic jar of them, thinking they would be around a couple weeks (wrong) these little disks of pure coconut are definitely addictive (they should be labeled like cigarettes and controlled by Philip Morris...hmm maybe they are?!),
Anyways we drive and eat, eat and drive, we shove the slices of watermelon into our faces and feel our cheeks getting sticky like kids at 4th of July (it still feels really good) we belch and belch and chuck the rinds through the open windows (kinda like how the locals toss their trash and plastic bottles) It feels good since we dont litter, you almost fit in. Mi Gusta de Fruta! I am sweating, it is hot, my fingers, cheels, neck and shirt is sticky from the watermelon and mangos, it seems that I have a serious case of the munchies today, time to try something savory like Peanuts!, we devour the shelled peanuts laced with the dry chile de arbol, and soon we find a spot to camp, when I see the little beach front cabanas the first thing I always look for is a wide bathroom door, or at least a flat approach so I can bump into the bathroom easily using my shower chair, I think I am hallucinating when I see the 30” doors with a flat concrete pad leading up to them, they are actually deep enough to roll into and maneuver my wheelchair inside (sort of), so we decide to stay, for me the bathroom access alone is well worth the 50 peso price, especially since there is electricity to charge my power chair and computer yes, this is the place, as we settle in people are friendly and nice, they go out of there way to accommodate and all is well, its dark by the time we get all set up, we walk into town and have an overpriced Margarita and get the lay of the land head back to camp, I read for a bit, do a little writing and make my way to bed relatively early, looking forward to a simple shit and shower in the big bathrooms.
I sleep like a stone, and wake up covered in urine (one of the many joyss of Paraplegia) I wake and things are slow, but still there are people around the beach, cleaning up after the holiday, basically going on about the day, so I head to the shower hoping none gets a good whiff of me. I get there and the bathroom is full, so I hit the shower, its a concrete vault, really well built, its actually cool inside with one of those shower heads that is directly overhead and actually drops a little water out of it, I get clean, wrangle my hair into submission and spend several minutes mashing another perfect Mango into my pie hole (The shower is the Perfect place to smoosh a mango into your mouth, while the conditioner is doing its thing you can leisurely enjoy the flavor without having to worry about the mess its pure ecstasy and you should try it at least once,feed me mangos in the shower and I will love you forever) anyhow I thoroughly enjoy the mango and the shower, the mango is just a seed as I rinse my hair and get ready to greet the new day. I head out to my power chair, it is sunny, it is warm, I take full advantage and dry off leisurely, happy as can be, I do a little primping, shave, tie my hair back, trim my nails, just a little maintenance, get in some fresh clothes and I am ready for action I drop something, bend down to pick it up and I hear an ominous rumble from deep inside, I sit up (feeling kinda scared) and realize I haven’t been to the Bano for at least 4 mangos time (actually 4 mangos, half a watermelon, a giant Juice of unknown origin and about thirty coconut candies time, lets not forget the peanuts, it was a big bag! (I am not even counting the banana I had for breakfast on la dia de fruta). As the fruit count flys through my head Danger signs are flashing, my brain goes on full alert, and I do the only thing I can, I head for my other chair, and pray its a simple blotch, (I sense that its not) I get close, but that last mango must have been my bodies final straw, somebody I love once told me a fart was just a turd whistling for right of way, if thats true then the sound I heard was a trains whistle, not the Amtrak either, this was the sound of an overloaded freighter, overloaded with the no longer sweet fruit which was derailing under me at that very moment, flying past the waistline of my shorts, which were covering maybe half my butt at the time (imagine that) so the power chair has a slick, non porous seat (thank God) This acted as something akin to a slip and slide!
I had heard stories of things like this happening, I had experienced plenty of bad accidents in 28 years in a wheelchair, but this was different, as I tried to transfer into the manual chair I saw just how bad the damage was, shit was everywhere, you’ve heard of the proverbial shit storm, well this was Katrina! I look at the scene in horror, I honestly am at a loss, I am sitting in the manual chair, looking at the power chair and it is entirely covered with shit, I am covered with shit, I have one towel, the soiled shorts I am half wearing and a freshly laundered T shirt (not exactly the proper tools for the job) this is not the United States, there is no convenient hose waiting to just hose it down into a storm drain the nearest laundry is easily miles away, the seat is a slick mess, there is fecal matter on the brain box, covering the electrical connections, in the mechanism that lowers the seat back, on the ground. In the dirt there is literally a trail following me from the truck to the bathrooms, My first thought was do something quick, there are people everywhere, (wheres your dignity man? Wanna get away? No Southwest airlines in the vicinity) all I can think to do is just start grabbing handfuls of sand just to disguise the shit on the chair so I can go inside the shower and clean up, I turn on the faucet and the water slowly trickles out, (oh no, this cant be happening) living in small indigenous communities teaches you if nothing else that water is a precious resource that needs to be used wisely, if there is no water, there is no water period, The camp we are at has a plastic rotoplast cistern on the roof, it is fed by a well, if it runs out of water the pump needs to be switched on to refill it, (my mind is already forming the scene, I have to leave this shower smelling of shit and trailing brown water to the front porch to ask Francisco for mas agua, not pretty) at that moment the shower returns to full strength (insert the sound of angels singing here), I spend the next several minutes huddled under the water, using half a bar of soap to try and get the stench gone, (the pleasure of eating my mango in this shower 30 minutes before has left my memory entirely at this point) anyways I get the job done and slink outside to see how many people (and flies) have gathered around the shit and sand covered wheelchair thankfully the people are not as quick as the flies (which already number in the high double digits) so, armed with the shorts that got washed in the shower I begin the tedious task of cleanup, then I use the clean T-shirt, I am sitting nearly in the street of a tiny pueblo on the beach, naked except for a big pink towel, sweating profusely and trying to clean the contents of my bowels off of a chair on the sly, I am almost done when I spy two of my camp neighbors with their 18 month old (who loves my chair) headed my way with the daughter of the owner in tow, I maintain my com-poseur as they walk directly through the minefield of shit I trailed from the truck, missing every bit (as if guided by some sort of miraculous new navigation system) as they pass me the woman asks if I need Ayuda (help) I choke out a no, and thankfully there are no further questions, they are gone, seemingly unaware of the scene they narrowly avoided, I can now go to the truck, grab my laundry tub, and get some shorts on, now I have the pink towel at my disposal, and that and a couple three gallons of water seems to get the job done, I am thorough and the chair is good, I hit the Bano, and I am good, all thats left is the laundry, I only have a gallon water jug, it has to be filled at least 6 or 8 times before I can even think of headed to the washboard and the ground level cistern, luckily now I am just dealing with laundry, this place has a cistern on the ground as well, half the town seems to do their laundry here the father of the 18 month old (Olmos) is back and sees me struggling with gallon jugs and offers me a 5 gallon bucket from the cistern, this is a gift from god, It gives me several rinses before filling up, many many rinses are necessary when washing shit covered clothing by hand, so its pour the water in the tub, stir it around with a stick, drag the tub to the empty lot across the street, drag back, wash rinse repeat, after a solid hour of this sort of action I fill the tub one last time, I drag it to the cistern and there is barely three inches of water in it (the cistern) , I shove the tub under the truck to soak until more water gets here and try to find the feeling I had as I emerged into the sun clean and happy, thankfully its still there...
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