Things went smoothly during that first year. Even though I didn’t speak Spanish, I could still run the clinic because Hondurans often used gestures along with words, which helped identify most medical issues. James was there to assist with the more difficult cases, and I observed that the village children learned English much faster than I was picking up Spanish. My experience as a psychiatric nurse, Navy hospital corpsman, and Marine field medical technician gave me the essential skills to manage the clinic. Plus, my combat background in Vietnam gave me the confidence to handle emergencies like amputations and serious injuries from machetes or gunfire. For unfamiliar medical conditions, I mainly used “Where There Is No Doctor” as my guide. Also, the local people’s faith—though not mine—significantly contributed to my convincing role as a doctor.
It is hard not to look down when people put you on a pedestal. The villagers had knowledge far greater than mine in many areas. They did things by hand that I didn’t think were possible. Things I would not even know how to begin. One of those times was when it was decided we should dig a water well at the new clinic, and a man with a wishbone-looking stick was called from a neighboring village. He walked around the property until the stick suddenly pointed down. “Aqui,” he said confidently, and the digging began.
The hole was just big enough for one man to stand in, and by the first day, he was in over his head. By the fourth day, he was so far down that we needed a flashlight to see him. On the fifth day, I heard him shout up, “Agua!” I looked down and saw the tiny man at the bottom of the well, with the sides of the hole caving in around him. I was relieved to see him finally pull up and out of the well, and to have that risky part of the project finished… but it was short-lived. Nothing could have prepared me for what would happen next.
While the man who dug the hole took a break, the other men began rolling several cement tubes closer to the well. “How are they going to get those heavy tubes in the hole?” I inquired of James.
“With a rope.” He responded.
“But who is strong enough to hold the rope?”
“Well, you are the biggest man here.” He said, jokingly, I assumed.
I watched as they tied a long rope around the tube and then fed the line through a pulley on top of a large bamboo pole. They wrapped the rope around the pole several times and handed me the end.
“Here, hold this while we get the tubes ready,” James instructed.
They completed moving the other tubes nearer to the hole and then lowered the worker back inside. I wondered if he had forgotten something, but once he reached the bottom, they pushed the first tube over the hole. I panicked, because I was the only one gripping the rope.
“WAIT, WAIT!” I shouted as I held the rope tightly, but to my surprise, there was very little tension on it. The tube swung gently in the breeze above the hole.
Everyone laughed at my panicked outburst, including James. “Just release the rope slowly,” he instructed.
I followed his advice, and the tube easily descended into the well. One by one, the other tubes were lowered, and I breathed a sigh of relief when the last tube was put in, and the worker finally exited the hole.
There were many more lessons to be learned, and at times I felt more like a dope than a teacher. That I survived at all had nothing to do with any intelligent decisions I made — in fact, it was most likely my ignorance that made people feel sorry for me and want to protect me.
Yocón was a dangerous place to live. Most of the men, some of the older boys, and even a few women wore holstered guns, and everyone had access to a machete — most kept sharp enough to shave with. I had never sutured anyone before arriving in Honduras, but I realized within my first week that I needed to learn fast, because machete wounds would become my specialty. I treated everything from amputated fingers on children cleaning sugar cane to amputated hands on men caught stealing. The most memorable — and painful — case was a man gored by a bull who required twenty-seven sutures in his scrotum.
Tropical infections were the second most common complaint. That part of the world is also home to the human botfly, which attaches its eggs to biting insects. When the larvae hatch, they burrow into the skin through the bite wound, eventually forming a large, maggot-filled boil.
I didn’t treat many gunshot wounds because most men carrying guns knew how to use them well and rarely missed. One exception was a man who asked me to remove three bullets from his body. He had been shot seven times through an open bedroom window while sleeping—an attack that happened before I arrived in the village. It was one reason everyone secured their wooden shutters at night. I managed to remove all three accessible bullets but hesitated on the last one, which was dangerously close to the coccyx. No other doctor was willing to touch it. I told him honestly that I was not a professional doctor and lacked experience with such cases, but he insisted—regardless of the outcome—because he couldn’t ride in the saddle with it still lodged in his buttocks.
I never understood the rule about closing the windows at night. Without electricity, the nights were often brutally hot, and shutting the shutters cut off what little airflow there was. No matter how much I complained, the others in the house held firm. When I pointed out that I had no enemies who might want to shoot me, they told me that wasn’t the only reason.
“What is another reason?” I asked.
“The headless horseman!” they said in unison.
“Headless horseman? There is no such thing.”
“Yes, there is,” one of the boys replied. “Sometimes he comes to the village at night and stands by the window. We have all heard him.”
“So, you heard a horse outside your window and assumed the rider had no head? Has anyone ever opened the window to check?”
“No! Because if we did, he would cut our heads off.”
“That’s a story for small children,” I said. “You’re grown-up people.”
I went back to fanning myself with a notebook and settled into living inside their reality.
Yocón was peaceful most of the time. With no electricity, the village quieted the moment darkness fell. The nights filled up with the sounds of nocturnal animals, and if you lay still and closed your eyes, you could sometimes hear water moving over rocks in the river where the women washed clothes during the day.
It was on one of those nights that the sound of a horse came galloping into the village. Late riding wasn’t common, but I didn’t give it much thought — until one of the boys whispered, “He’s here.”
“Who’s here?” I whispered back, not sure why I was keeping my voice down.
“The headless horseman. Be quiet so he doesn’t hear us.”
“Not this again,” I said. “I told you, there is no such thing.”
“Shh. Listen.”
Everyone sat up in their beds. I stayed quiet and watched with mild amusement as they stared at the window. We could hear the horse coming closer — clip-clop, clip-clop — and then silence, as it stood at the window of our neighbors. Eventually, it stopped just outside our window. Its breathing was heavy as it snorted and pushed its nose against the wooden shutters.
I almost laughed out loud when one of the younger boys screamed, but I managed to hold it in because for them, the demon outside was very real. “There’s no one out there, guys. It’s just a horse. There’s nothing to be afraid of. There are no headless horsemen.”
I got out of my bed and started for the window, intending to open it to prove my point; however, as I reached for the latch, the horse snorted again, as if knowing I was there, and I foolishly jumped back into my bed.
There was laughter in the room, and, as if knowing it had made a fool of me, the horse, and possibly its rider, moved on to the next window.