Today I decided to take action RE: the growing, pussing entity that has camped out just above my left heel. But before I could take care of that pretty little piece of business, I had to revisit the optometrist and his receptionist, Xiorhara. I had assured Xiohara I would be back at 10am, Calle 11 Ave Melendez, Colon, Panama. I had pre-paid.
The reason for my first visit to Optica Sunshine was directly related the swift removal of eyewear from my face and placement of it into the ocean. My glasses were knocked off by an indifferent Mr. Thirsty. I had been wielding our dinghy bailer with brilliant, but needless zeal. His long straw smacked me in the face and sent my glasses into the deep. After two attempts by both Aaron and myself, somebody suggested, “Let’s discontinue our efforts to free-dive 50 feet to look for glasses that have fallen in or around a 70-foot radius of the stern.”
So that had been Wednesday’s adventure – finding an optometrist in Panama. I held my fingers up to my face to look like glasses. I said things like, “lunettes, lenets, lenses, glasses, glass, can’t see, no see.” Ryan said things in Spanish to the cab driver. At some point, we were at a McDonald’s. Then we showed up at Sunshine Optica and I entrusted my vision to Dr. Humberto Schouwe. He looked at the unopened contact lens I had brought. He nodded. He sat me down. I read letters to him in English and he spoke to me in Spanish. He confirmed my prescription and sent me out to Xiohara.
I tried on all kinds of frames. The choices were limited. I could go artsy, or I could go 80s. Ryan suggested basketball goggles. I narrowed the field to two and made Ryan try them on so I could see what they looked like. Then I chose these black ones and paid the $70 it cost for the exam, lenses and frames. I did a little dance in my head and agreed to pick them up Saturday, today, at 10AM.
It was determined, after this remarkable upfront success with the optometrist, that I would be fine to healthcare-treasure hunt in Colon today without a bodyguard or translator. After a $1 cab ride, I showed up at Dr Schouwe’s door and waited to be buzzed in. Part of me wished I had asked the driver to wait until I was let in. There were questionable loiterers all over the place. In a moment, Xiohara buzzed. She rose from her desk to greet me when I walked in. She met me in the middle of the store and hugged me with a large smile on her face. She made a kissing sound by my cheek. She was glad I made it back. I was glad, too, though somewhat alarmed that she would take relief in knowing I had come to retrieve my pre-paid glasses.
After retrieving the glasses, I set off to find a taxi. Hearing “Mack the Knife” in my head, my eyes darted from shady character to shady character. I scuttled along, trying to make myself as invisible and uninteresting as possible, while also searching frantically for a taxi. I waved to two without passengers. Their drivers shook their heads at me and drove past. Confused, I waved down a third. Luckily, he pulled to a stop. “Hola. Central Medical Caribe, por favor,” I said.
I passed off another $1 bill to the cabbie and waited to be buzzed into the emergency room. The inside of the building was typical, as hospitals go, but had an odd sense of being less clean than U.S. ones, though I saw nothing to give me this impression. I presented myself at the desk. In my best charades and broken Spanish, and with a little help from my friend Latin American Spanish Phrasebook, I explained to the receptionist that I needed to see a doctor. Really though, I shouldn’t give myself too much credit for communication. I think the pussing, crusty red welt on my foot spoke the international language of Nasty quite fluently.
The girl walked me down the hall. People talked to one another, looked at me, pointed at me, pointed down hallways. I was sat down in a waiting area. Less than a minute later, Latin American Spanish Phrasebook, a doctor and I discussed my condition.
“Hongo,” said the doctor. “Blahbitty blah ba blah blah hongo,” she said.
I provided her with a blank look followed by a concerted effort to shuffle pages.
“Hongo.” She said again, deliberately. Obviously she was following the classic theory, We Don’t Speak the Same Language, Which Means You Understand My Language When I speak Slowly.
She took Latin American Spanish Phrasebook from my hands and flipped to the Food section. I gestured to the back of the book where the dictionary is, but she found what she was looking for. “Hongo.” She pointed to the English definition: Button mushroom. I immediately pictured a large white plate with one sautéed morel being placed in front of me by Sascha Cohen with a French accent. No, no, button mushroom. … pause… “FUNGUS!” I said. “Si! Si!” Never before had I expressed excitement at the discovery of a fungal infection on my body. Extraneously, never before have I had one.
The doctor wrote a prescription and instructed me to lie down so she could clean the affected area. “Gracias,” I said and looked over the prescription. I wondered if it could have any interactions with doxycycline, my anti-malaria drug of choice. I pulled out Latin American Spanish Phrasebook and went to town for about 5 minutes. Judging from the doctor’s varied, but eager interest in my explanations, I think her responses went something like this. “You are already on this medication?!” “YOU HAVE MALARIA?!?!” “Oh. Si! No, no problem.”
Moments later, I was back in the waiting room, laying down a MasterCard and signing my name to a receipt for $40. They called me a cab, buzzed me out and told the driver to take me to a pharmacy. It was an efficient little operation and aside from the credit card slip, the only paperwork required was printing my name on the prescription pad. The taxi after the pharmacy came quickly and I was soon in the safety of a moving vehicle. We drove through Colon en route to the final destination: home. I had successfully obtained my new glasses and been treated for a fungal infection. Thursday was coming up roses.
In Colon, all of the buildings are in ruins and the gutters carry a stench that smells like real excrement, not just that general bad smell you say is poo when you lack a better description. The street vendors sell what looks to be lottery tickets, in addition to rolls of plastic tablecloths that can be cut to a size of your choosing. The fruit and food stands look like armored trucks, but are buzzing with flies. On another day, I had bought a new bathing suit and handed my $8 to a man behind bulletproof glass. The people don’t seem poor or hungry, but there is desperation between the lines.
My taxi pulled into the yacht club drive. It was around 2pm and the adventure concluded. When I got back to Aldebaran, I climbed aboard, displaying my fungus cream, pills and glasses with triumphant, over-the-head gestures to a crowd of clapping crewmates. Just kidding.
1. When we spent the night in Gatun Lake, in the middle of the Panama Canal, we moored on this giant buoy. Brian took this excellent picture of me, looking like a dead elf, sleeping next to it. I don´t know why it´s so funny to me. Maybe because the buoy sort of looks like a boob.
