Fiesta Patronales and a Close Call

Two weekends ago was the start of Fiesta Patronales in Diria.  It started off with Hipica which is basically a horse festival where people come and bring their horses and have them “dance” which is really just some trotting.  Fiesta Patronales honors the saint of my town who is San Pedro and for 2 plus weeks they have been carrying around his statue throughout the town during the strangest of times.  They parade around the pueblo with him in all hours of the night and morning and not only have a very obnoxiously loud band with them but they have bombas which are the equivalent of fireworks except 10 times louder.  To say I haven’t had much sleep in the last 2 weeks is an understatement.  But I guess like everything else here its an experience. 

Two Sundays ago after my host family’s family came over for a celebratory lunch my host mom was cleaning up.  I was in my room when I heard her scream “Diego, who is my host uncle and her brother”.  At first I didn’t think anything of it but she continued then I hear her scream I’m going to die.  That’s when I decided I should probably head to the kitchen to see what was going on.  When I got to the kitchen she was grasping at her throat and said she drank poison.  I thought to myself why would you do that?  Diego brought me a water bottle that had pink liquid in it and told me that’s what she drank.  Apparently the domestica had made a cleaning mixture and had put it in a water bottle and Melida thought it was her water and drank it.  As Melida sat in her rocking chair praying I asked Diego what to do…he said we will wait… Kind of strange to me but okay.  I asked Melida if she needed anything and she said milk.  When I opened the fridge there was no milk just my chocolate milk I had planned to have later, but the nice person I am I offered it to her.  She said she needed whit milk so I ran over to the neighbors asked them for some milk and then told them why I needed it.  Of course after that there were a ton of people in my house trying to diagnos melida and everyone was smelling the concoction of cleaner.  After about 20 minutes during which Melida kept asking for a doctor, Diego gave in got in a moto taxi and went for the doctor.  He returned with the doctor in less than 5 minutes.  The doctor was just as calm as Diego, I suspect this isn’t the first time he has been called over to the house for an “emergency” .  As the doctor took her vitals he was cracking jokes with the neighbors and told them she would be fine, even though at this point we still don’t know what she drank…As he smelled the liquid he concluded it was probably just soap and water but to call him later if the domestica told her there was something else in it…and like that he left.  As people began leaving I said goodnight to Melida and she hugged me and said if she dies tonight that I should stay in the house with Diego and that I am a good person.  The next day Melida was alive and kicking eating all sorts of Nacatamales for breakfast.  Turns out it was just soap and water.