Visit to a doctor

We had a very interesting day in school today - actually after school. One of the kids - actually Rita's favorite started crying at the end of the day. It happened at the end of the day and we though that some other kid had earlier harmed her in some way. This was not the case - she showed her big toe which looked terrible. Our teacher at once diagnosed that she has a pulga in her toe...went to the little store opposite our school, bought a needle, took our school first aid kid, placed on of the school benches in front of the school and proclaimed that she is going to clean her wound and take the pulga out. Upon hearing that I decided to occupy myself with the only other kid left in the school. Improvised operations of this kind are not my thing. A little later I heard our kid screaming like she would about to be killed and saw Rita holding her and crying. At that point fortunately everyone was of the opinion that we should take her to the doctor...We have a network of doctors who help us with the kids for free and the appointment we managed to schedule was in three hours so we took our girl to the center where she voluntarily went through a transformation. Rita took her to shower and washed her with all kinds of special soaps and shampoos . I in the meantime looked for knew clothing and shoes for her (instead of plastic sandals she had - we have now lots of donations we got during our culinary event). After all this she looked like a little princess. We fed her - there is no problem with her not wanting to eat as she seems to be able to eat more than me. I think she felt very happy though she has not spoken a word since she entered our center. She just complied with our proposals.

Then we went to the doctor - he tried to persuade her to voluntarily succumb to the anasthetics injection but she refused so together with Rita we ended up helping the doctor. I was leaning over her waist and holding her leg while the doctor was giving her an injection. She was screaming horribly and Rita was holding her head and crying with her...

The poor creature was in the end very brave. After the pain of the injection subsided she sat on the bed where the doctor operated her and looked at him cleaning her toe. In other words she screamed only when she really felt the pain. She also did not become cranky or angry with us that we took her through all this pain. We took herto her "home". She must have been very tired because she fell asleep already in the car. At her "place" we tried to be tough on her mother to make sure that our girl gets the antibiotics and painkillers as prescribed...we also demanded that she shows up in her new clothes in the school during the next days. Usually the parents sell the new clothes we give to the children so nowadays we try not to give new clothing but things a bit worn. It is still incomprehensible for me how could this lady have ten kids and be so inept in taking care of them that from a relatively little wound you end up in this terrible situation. Not to mention that she was not too eager to send her to the doctor at all at the first instance...

We are back in Cusco as one can see...we will still though post two stories from our trip across the South American continent...this is just a daily update :))