Scorpion story as promised
Trip Start
Jun 02, 2003
1
11
41
Trip End
Dec 31, 2006
Parakou,
Benin
Friday, October 17, 2003
I saw a really scary thing last night. I was almost asleep in bed when I heard Victoire banging on my door and calling, "Suzanne! Suzanne!" I answered the door, and she asked me for insect repellant. She told me Evelyn had been bitten by a scorpion. She said I could come over, and I did.
I walked into the scary movie scene of Evelyn's house - people crowded around a screaming, spasming woman, her face of horror and pain lit by the flickering light of an oil lantern. She was writhing on the edge of the cot, alternating between waving her arms about and clutching at her leg and ankle. She was praying to God, asking why He's decided to punish her.
Victoire sprayed her ankle with the insect repellant. I don't understand why. The scorpion - large and dark gray with treacherous claws sticking up - was already dead in a little box nearby, a scorpion coffin. I went over to Evelyn and tried to comfort her.
Then I remembered my health book. I ran back to my house to see what it said. I wondered if she could die. Warm compresses. Two Tylenol. Can pregnant women take tylenol, I wondered? With permission from a doctor. I boiled some water and grabbed my bandana for a compress. I took two tylenol and decided to let Evelyn make the decision.
Back in the movie scene, I held the compresses to Evelyn's foot while Victoire fanned her. We waited for the doctor. He came and gave her a shot of morphine into a vein in her hand. I saw the blood come into the syringe and turned away as he pushed it, mixed with the medecine, back into her body. He took a razor and made a small cut near the swollen bump on her foot where the scorpion stung her. He put a black rock there. It was supposed to absorb the poison.
Earlier, Mama Isbath, a devout muslim, had prayed and prostrated over her foot and then had asked me to pray. I held my hands over the sting and felt the Reiki energy being pulled through me. I wanted to stay longer, but the doctor arrived with his black rock.
Nothing seemed to the working - the warm compresses, the pomades, the morphine, the rock, the prayers. In spite of it all, Evelyn rocked and shook and sobbed, and we all stood around helplessly watching. Her husband arrived with the traditional healer, who spread a strong-smelling black paste around the sting on her foot. Someone gave her a sleeping pill. We moved her outside, where it was cooler. NOTHING worked.
The papa in my concession who speaks English and I said we wished we could each just take a bit of her pain and divide it between us so that none of us would suffer too much or for too long. We talked about scorpions, examined the large gray one that had stung Evelyn. They had cut it open and found egg sacks. They think that is why the sting is so much more painful. A mother protecting its offspring. Apparently, I'm going to have to be more careful when the chalheur (the hot season) comes. Shake your towels, Mama Isbath says.
The wind began to blow with fury, and people told us we should go back inside our houses before the rain came. Papa said God is great. And just after I closed the windows and doors of my house, the Great God let loose a nonstop bucket of rain that thundered on my tin roof.
This morning Mama Isbath said that Evelyn would have a boy because people always say that the woman who has a boy or wants to have a boy suffers much more during the pregnancy. Later, Mama Moufti said that the Baribas would say she was going to have twins because pregnant women stung by scorpions always have twins.
I worried for the baby all last night. Did the baby suffer from the poison of the scorpion? And the morphine? Evelyn said the baby had been quiet, and I wondered, "Is this a good thing?"
Evelyn was awake all night long till, finally, Mama Moufti's husband, the nurse, was able to give her something that helped her sleep this morning. The worst is over, but she still hurst and has spasms. And hopefully, it will end before too long. Too long has already come.
End of Excerpt
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This might seem a bit dramatic to you. I remember seeing scorpions in Texas (I also remember when my sister Katie was stung by one) and not being too afraid. They were always small, clear things, less scary than a centipede or a spider, something you would easily crush under your shoe. Let me tell you that the scorpions here are a bit different. Hopefully, my little cat, Ella, will chase any future stingers out of my house, but I've heard that even cats are afraid of the scorpions here. At least my house will be toad-free. I found a little cadeau (gift) of one from Ella (i had seen her playing with it earlier) squashed under my shoe yesterday morning. Yuck! Smelly!
School began this week! YAY! I arrived on Monday morning and saw students busy hoeing away at the long grass, ripping it out, putting it in neat little piles, and carrying it over to throw into the bush (bush like fields, not bush like shrub). Before the classes can begin, the students must clean the school - clear the grounds of grass (it could hide snakes), sweep the walkways of goat poop, and sweep the classrooms free of other animal excrement (bats? mice?) and cobwebs. This ends up taking the first few days. I held my first classes on Wednesday, before most of the other professors. I have 72 students in each of my two 6eme class, about 40 students in my 2nde class, and about 25 students in my 1ere class. I enter the classroom, and one of the students slaps the desk, indicating to the students that I am coming in. They all stand up and say in unison, "Good Morning, Teacher." Yes, a good morning, it is.
