Careening down the sideline, I neared the metallic bed frame that has been reengineered to be a goal, standing slightly cockeyed on the slanted street.
Left foot placed centimeters further out from under my body than is the normal running stride, to support the pendulum swing of the right foot down upon the ball.
CLANG. Pelota meets meta.
Left foot on ground. Right foot in gutter. Shin scraping stone. Arms out in front to catch a body that will not be received with such great hospitality by the Honduran ground.
OHHHHHHH. Silencio from my family members. I get up because I don't want to be the guy that always gets hurt falling into the cuneta. I run after the ball down the street. Pick it up, bring it back, ask the question that makes all other consequences unimportant.
Fue un gol?
Si, fue un gol. ¿Está bien?
Claro.
Look down at the wound, and begin to wonder what to do. It was a goal (Priority number one completed). Now there is a gash in my leg and my blood is taking strategic advantage of this new breach in the epidermis. What is my next course of action?
Give me five minutes. I need to clean this up.
That night: water, coffee, salt, hydrogen peroxide, bandaids, bandaids, bandaids.
The next day: a struggle to decide what to do. It isn´t really bleeding anymore, and the members of my poorer Honduran community are telling me that it´s fine. They would call it good and keep working. I decide to go to the clinic. My North American friends kindly express their solidarity and accompany me.
Voy a darle dos puntos y un antibiótic que peleará contra cualquier infección, says the nurse.
Ok. I say.
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October 2010, Wheaton, IL, USA: Six stitches under left eye due to cut suffered during soccer game. $957. Pray that insurance covers it.
September 2011, Tegucigalpa, Honduras: Two stitches on shin due to cut on suffered during soccer game. $50. Pray to thank God for Louis Pasteur .
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At this point, I could publish a picture showing the wound now, several weeks later. But who wants to see an archipelago of dried blood on a hairy, white leg?
I could also begin to make a short comparative study on health care costs between the US and Honduras. $957 vs. $50. Hmmmm....
Or, I could talk about access to health care among vulnerable urban Hondurans, and the cultural and economic decisíons that made me decide to go to the clinic when my Honduran family would not (could not) have done so if the same happened to them.
But I enjoy knowing that the ball went in the goal. Tie game 3-3.
