Ghosts, Ankles and Celine Dion

Here is an image for all of you. This is the story of how I sprained my ankle. It was not just a simple I fell and it got strained. Oh nonono that would be too simple for me. I went up to a meeting for the latrines project that I am doing in one of my annexes. Its about 12 km away and 800 meters higher than me. The hike is hard but beautiful. Although there is a point towards the end where you rise 300 meters in about 2kms and think you are going roughly into the sky and kind of want to kill yourself. I once made the mistake of sitting down during this moment and realized I was shockingly close to being on a slide made of loose rocks that could plummet me to my death.

Well that’s a bit mellow dramatic but either way it’s steep as hell. Steeper than anything a clumsy girl from Ohio should be climbing. Somehow on the walk down when I follow the trails I always manage to get myself lost and end up in the most difficult trails in existence. One time I ended up cornering myself with the water reservoir and had to precisely navigate around that and a muddy tumble down to the river hoping I didn’t fall into a reservoir that looked like it was cleaned the year I was born. Another time I was so distracted by Enrique Iglesias on my iPod, yes ill admit it, I ended up on the trail my nurse specifically banned me from ever using. The trail is only for the expertos because it is all slate rock at about a 60* angle. I then spent the next hour of my life slowly scooting down rocks on my ass hoping that my arm strength would overpower my lower half and slippery pants. It’s always fun trying to navigate through rocks and cactus. I highly recommend this to all of you.

Anyways the time I sprained my ankle I was going down with one of my nurses and there had been a car in my annex (Tambo) when we started walking out. I wanted to stay on the road in case the car left we could hitch a ride. Also I had clearly proven my expertise with the trails home. There was many a moment that we could have cut over to the trails but my nurse was pretty convinced I would fall down the trail and kill myself. Little did she know I could do that on the road too. We casually meandered and she serenaded me with Spanish songs. Every so often she would convince me to sing but unfortunately the only songs I could think of were “Call Your Girlfriend” and “We Are Young” and I couldn’t remember all the lyrics. I spent the most of the time making up lyrics. I’m pretty sure “Call Your Girlfriend” at one time turned into “We Found Love” with a dash of Ellie Goulding.

As dusk approached it began to get colder and there was still no sign of the car, which was the whole reason we had taken the longer route. We decided to put a little pep in our steps and as it got darker it became more and more apparent that my socio was in fact scared of the dark.

Fortunately we had forgotten our flashlights and had the lights of cheap cellphones to guide our paths. The darkness fell and my socio began to call roughly everyone in her phonebook from fear and talk to me about how to ghosts would pop out and scare us half to death. In a measure to try to keep her composed and to distract myself from the fact I now felt like I was walking with a 7 year old I started to sing such classics as “Colors of the Wind” and “My Heart Will Go On” Beautifully of course. Somewhere in between trotting down the mountain, talking about ghosts and destroying verses of classic songs I did a full on somersault. Now if you asked me how it happened I would have no response. All I know was I magically ended up on the road with a sprained ankle and my cellphone about 15 meters away.

After a brief examination of my ankle and helping me get up and recuperate my things my nurse decided my ankle was in fact hurt but all we could do was continue walking. I happened to land where there was no cellphone service for 2 km and no civilization besides a drunk for 3 kilometers. Had to soldier on. At this point my socia was basically shaking out of fear waiting for a ghost to pop out of nowhere. She is also about 5 feet tall 100lbs soaking wet so she told me I’m too small to really support you. Valid statement I’ll give her that. Not the most helpful at the moment however.

Let me tell you walking with a sprained ankle on a rocky dirt road with someone who is about to pee their pants in fear and is spending their time searching for cellphone service to call anyone is probably one of the highlights of my life. What made it even better was that to dissuade her fear my socia kept asking me to sing “My Heart Will Go On.” So I spent the next kilometer and a half limping while singing Celine Dion and attempting to see the road with a cellphone light. It was one of the moments I wish that the Peace Corps equipped volunteers with a hidden camera in their glasses, because really it should have been recorded.

Thankfully the car that had been selling fruits and vegetables in Tambo finally started to approach us. Of course until it was basically on top of us my socia was convinced it was something besides a car. I’m pretty convinced she thought it was 2 lanterns carried by the disembodied heads of murders. The owners of the car were shocked that we were not already back, the singing along the road and minor tumble had added a bit to our trip. Of course once we were safely inside the car my socia began to make fun of me for not being scared of the dark. Don’t get me wrong it is kind of freaky to be walking outside in complete darkness surrounded by mountains but I have found that not thinking that ghosts will come and attack your soul generally helps the situation.

I of course was proved dreadfully wrong. As we passed a large pile of dirt where there had been a landslide a few years ago the owners of the car told my socia a ghost story. Apparently about 3 years ago a regiadora (councilman) had been walking past the pile of dirt at night when a white shining woman approached him. The ghost came painfully close to his face and followed him for a bit as he ran off and he didn’t talk for the next 3 days. To that my socia replied “see I’m right, if we had gotten to this point we would have seen the ghost and lost our voices.” By this point I merely accepted defeat and that there are in fact ghosts in the sierras but really more than anything I was just glad to be in a car. When there is no light here people’s imaginations go wild. Or who know maybe there are incestuous deformed monsters and white ghastly women that walk around in the dark. All I know is I’m always bringing a flashlight.