Anything for Irma
“Irma, we should take our parish clinic to your home.” Rita let her friend Irma know in a matter of fact way, that she was not a typical "Americana." Irma’s grandmother still lived in that mountain village, one the government entered to rescue her from poverty. Years ago they placed Irma in a type of orphanage in Mexico City and now she was completing her medical studies. It had been a year since she had seen grandmother, it was time to return.
“It’s a long trip across the mountains,” said Irma.
“No problem, my trip here was 55 hours by bus,” said Rita. The Red Cross in Tampico and the Parish Clinic in Ciudad Madero were a reprieve from the politics of medical care in the Midwest. This community reached out for help and Rita gave everything she had.
“That’s about right,” said Irma.
Easily half a foot taller than any other passenger, Rita, a tall white Finn, ducked to walk back to the only open seats in the back of a crowded mountain bus. She smiled when a big voice belted into the famous “Guadalajara Guadalajara.” It was their destination after all. The bus lurched forward as a little boy held out one hand, hung on with the other and continued to sing.
Two days later Rita followed Irma into the dusty village. The only gringa they had ever seen was greeted with the furtive glances of children that ran ahead to hide behind a few walled structures. She followed puffs of dirt stirred up by her friend’s steps towards an apparently deserted mountaintop.
“I need … to stop,” said Rita. Fatigued under a pack heavy with the microscope, donated medications, and various medical instruments, the thin mountain air made it difficult to breathe.
“It’s getting late,” said Irma.
Rita shifted the pack to move the straps that dug into her shoulders. The pack would’ve overpowered her friend.
“Are we there?”
“Yes, here’s the well for the village, only a half hour more.” Irma pointed to a circular stack of bricks three feet high, a rope hung over the side. Silhouettes of mountains blended into the greying afternoon as they meandered across the plateau.
They passed a grey tattered sheet tacked up to a wall. It moved with a breeze. “This is my cousins house, where I used to live,” said Irma. Inside a woman sat in the corner of the three sided mud brick shelter, a small child huddled, head turned against her shoulder.
Irma pointed to another three-sided structure, larger than any other Rita had yet seen. A large half empty water cistern occupied one waist high wall, the other walls were thatched mud. A roof spread past the three-sided wall onto a patio. “We’ll hold the clinic at my grandmother’s,” said Irma.
Irma pointed to a wizened figure, legs crossed, blinking her eyes occasionally if a fly got too close to them. She was suspended in a one person hammock, from the ceiling of the porch. Behind her, an opening led to a shelter wide enough for a small mattress. The full length of the roofed porch dwarfed her suspended body. She did not seem interested in her surroundings, perhaps oblivious to them. Irma approached her from behind and started to pick through her hair, looking for something she had searched for a thousand times. She parted the wiry gray mass to the side and looked closely with her enormous eyes. Eyes that seemed to pool at the base of her tall forehead. She pinched her fingers on something and tossed it to the ground.
“Piojos” she said as she tossed them to the ground, they blended into the dust, kind of wiggled away.
“Do they ever go away?” said Rita. She could feel a cold sweat when Irma looked at her. All she ever said to Irma was “yes” to any request. Her heart ached, with a desire to do anything for her friend.
“Never, we all help pick them out.” She continued with rapid movements tossing the practically invisible creatures onto the ground.
Rita felt the urge to itch her own scalp when she saw the lice. “Where should I put the equipment?”
“Sometimes they go away.” Rita saw a familiar smile creep across Irma’s face.
Irma’s wiry black hair touched her grandmother’s as she leaned in to listen to the soft mumbling that escaped from her grandmother’s lips.
“What did she say?” said Rita.
“You’re very strong,” said Irma.
“Gracias.” Rita felt her eyebrows scrunch together as she smiled with what she hoped looked like gratitude.
“Would you help her?”
“Anything,” said Rita.
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