Potosí and the wily virus

At 5am, with a stuffy nose, achy muscles and a deep cough, I boarded the bus we hired to drive us to Potosí.  I'd had a cold for several days and figured it was on its way out.  We were headed to remote villages in Potosí (Southern Bolivia) to bring medical supplies, clothing and toys, and the hope of the gospel.  It was my third trip, and the previous two had been powerful and made a big impact in my life.  I was determined not to let a cold get in my way.

 By the time we arrived at our first destination at 8:30pm, I felt feverish and miserable.  Traveling on a bus all day and arriving at a high-altitude, cold town didn't help.  The next morning wasn't any better.  I heard the telltale rumblings of my intestines and sulfur air kept forcing its way up my throat, and felt a little desperate knowing the only bathroom was an exposed clearing in the middle of houses and people.  We'd stored our donations, medical supplies and food in the back of the church we were working in, so I lay down on borrowed blankets, trying unsuccessfully to sleep while the rest of the group left to eat lunch in a nearby house where we were staying.

My fitful efforts were interrupted by a tapping on the door, followed by a Quechua woman poking her head in the door.  She came over to me, jabbering away in Quechua.  Through my feverish haze, I grasped for phrases from my Quechua classes.  "Onqosqa kasani," I said, "I'm sick."  The woman continued to insist, asking where our leader was, where the group was, what I was doing.  She informed me that I was sick either because of bile in my kidneys or my gall bladder.  Then she left, following my directions to find the rest of the group.

Not more than 10 minutes later, I heard the same tapping, but a different Quechua woman came in yelling in Quechua, asking if I was sleeping and what I was doing in the church.  By this time I was really feeling nauseous, trying to hold down my food.  I said forcefully, "Onqosqa kasani!" trying to look as sick as I could.  She didn't get the hint and moved closer, fingering items we'd brought, saying "Give me this" or "Give me that" followed by a serious of questions I didn't know the answers to.  I repeated over and over "Mana yachanichu.  Doctor Jorge yachan!", telling her I didn't know and to ask our leader.  Then I turned over and tried to look like I was asleep.  I heard her poking around in boxes and opening things, and almost as soon as she left, I promptly emptied the contents of my stomach on the church floor.

We went to Tomaycuri the next day, going up in altitude what felt like another 1,000 ft. to my sinuses. This time we were sleeping in the small, adobe church, and there was nowhere private for me to lie down and rest.  I tried to brave the activities with the kids, staying for an hour with the group, but faded quickly and headed back to the church to take a quiet, peaceful nap.  No sooner did I reach the church door, when I saw the entire kid population of Tomaycuri marching behind the clown that traveled with our group, headed straight for my napping spot.  The service for kids spilled into the church service that night, which was still going strong at 10pm.

I lay down on top of the luggage, pulled my thin square of a blanket over me, and was lulled to sleep by hymns in Quechua, voices blending and hands clapping.  It was a picturesque, peaceful scene... An adobe church, indigenous believers wrapped in brightly covered weavings.  It was beautiful!

 Except it wasn't.  My head was pounding from pressure in my sinuses and the high altitude of over 13,000 ft.  My deep coughs wracked my body, compounded by the dust and dry air.  Every few minutes, I tried to stem the stream of thick snot running out of my nose with little squares of toilet paper.  A fever was burning me up, making me shiver and sweat at the same time.  Around midnight, things finally settled down enough for me to crawl into my sleeping bag, coughing the whole night until I decided in the wee hours to go home early, unable to last another day without rest and at high altitude.

Tomaycuri

The trip home was almost as miserable, gaining and losing over 5,000ft during the course of a 12 hour period.  One of the roads was under construction, so we were stopped on a dusty mountain pass for almost two hours before they opened the precarious road again.  An hour van ride, a 6 hour bus ride, another van ride for 2 hours, and a 4 hour car ride later, I finally arrived in Cochabamba.  I stood on the edge of a honking, angry traffic jam, looking for a taxi home, trying to remember that God uses all things for His purposes.

Once in bed, I still hadn't come up with an answer for why I'd gone all the way to Potosí to serve, only to be thwarted by an intense sinus infection, fever and food poisoning.  The whole experience seemed like a perfect set-up for a "moral-of-the-story" lesson, but I sure never found one!  Unless I went all the way to Potosí just to learn to listen to my mom when she tells me to stay home and take care of myself...