All In A Day´s Work

“Numero 67,” I called, and a woman hurried toward me with her two little ones in tow. As we sat just inside the billowing sheets of my triage cubicle, I asked what was wrong with the smallest child, 2 years old, who was sitting on her lap. “Él tiene diarrhea,” she said, “mira,” and before I could stop her, she was pulling down his pants to show me. Sure enough, there was a small cloth lining the boy’s pants (what the women here use in place of diapers) covered in green diarrhea. As I tried to recover, the boy proceeded to have more diarrhea as his mother tried desperately to contain it to the cloth and pants. Unfortunately, she was quite unsuccessful, and smiled hopelessly at me as she wiped her diarrhea covered hands on her pants and my bench and thanked me, careful to step over the lingering reminder of their presence that had dripped onto the wood floor and was now stinking, on her way out.