We've searched for shade in communities of one-room thatch homes sheltering parents, pigs, chickens, and children with eyes like dark pools. We've walked on the monstrous cement-hard grave cover of more than 2,000 hapless souls who were unable to outrun the relentless avalanche as hurricane floods spilled out of Volcano Casitas, dragging down a wide swath of rocks, trees, and mud, obliterating three villages and recontouring the landscape.
Someone brings a worn handcrafted plank table and a chair or two.
We lay out our meager tools, and we pull teeth, dig out roots, suture. Our patients are stoic, cooperative, quietly friendly. A local doctor or a person trained in first-aid diagnoses simple problems and dispenses medicine. One night we sleep on the patio of a government health building. Three surprised frogs splash into our bucket as we pump water to pour over our steamy bodies, prickly with dust and sweat.