99. Chikungunya & Other Trials
- L Rshaw
- Feb 20, 2020
- 8 min read
Updated: Jan 20, 2022
"If you think you're too small to have an impact, try going to bed with a mosquito"
--- Anita Roddick (British businesswoman, human rights activist & environmental campaigner;
1942 - 2007)
Even though I tried to put on a happy face, I wasn't very happy to be sent back to Buena Vista again, after having spent already five months or so there (See "2nd Area: Buena Vista 1, Matamoros"). I wanted something new. The familiar hardships included the unsavory weather patterns of the late-year season, and finding new people to teach, but there were some new experiences too including my still new responsibilities as one of the two District Leaders for our District. We were living in a new house and I was living with new faces. And to top it off, we had to deal with a recent outbreak of Chikungunya going around. It wasn't easy, but I did my best to push through it and to love the people.
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CHIKUNGUNYA
Being close to the ground had another downside besides flooding, something we didn't have to put up with in the first house I lived in the last time I was in Buena Vista. We had a “backyard” now but no tools to tend it so it just grew into the perfect habitat for undesirable critters and mosquitoes. I remember mosquitoes being my worst enemy when I first arrived in Mexico back in Rio Bravo. But my skin seemed less sensitive or desirable by the mosquitoes after having weathered constant sun or rain, sweat, and dirt over the last year and a half. Or maybe it was the salsa running through my veins? In comparison, I got far fewer mosquito bites than I did back then and even then, the mosquito bites became less bothersome, like the pain had become an old friend of mine. They typically seemed to heal within a day or so. As soon as they came, it seemed like they were gone. I felt like Wolverine! My name isn't Logan for nothing you know. Or maybe it was the daily bug spray I always applied before leaving the house?
I prepared by applying bug spray every morning. It took me a few days to realize that it acted like nail polish remover causing the white paint on my name tag to smear off like icing. Once I realized what it was doing, I started applying the spray before putting on my nametag. Problem solved.
I had a new reason to be extra careful. There was an outbreak of what was called “Chikungunya” (Chee-coon-goon-jah), a non-lethal mosquito-borne virus causing fever, severe joint and muscle pain, headache, nausea, fatigue, and rash. It's sometimes confused with the Zika Virus. There's currently no treatment for Chikungunya except letting time run its course. Cases of people with Chikungunya in the United States started in 2006 in Florida but it was only in early to mid-2014 that the outbreaks became widespread (which is when I started my Mission). Being where we were on the Texas border so near the Gulf of Mexico, it's no wonder that it made its way to us.
On the other hand, the Zika virus was first discovered in the western hemisphere in April 2015 in Brazil. The symptoms of both diseases are similar but can't be treated the same. The common denominator between the two viruses is infected Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes, also known as the yellow fever mosquito. So long as I was smart to avoid them altogether, the specifics didn't matter.
Fortunately, we never contracted the disease. With the recent storms, tall grasses, and cooler weather, it only made sense to cover up and use bug spray. Khaki pants made even more sense, not just to deter heat (although now it was cold) but also to attract fewer mosquitoes. Fun fact: the two benefits are related. Mosquitoes are attracted to darker colors because dark colors absorb more heat and mosquitoes have sensitive heat sensors that draw them towards warm things. The last time I was in the Buena Vista area, I had learned all too well how attracted clouds of mosquitos were to my black pants, black coat, and a black backpack. Words of advice: wear light colors and wear bug spray! Just don’t spray your name tag.
NOVICE DISTRICT LEADERS
My new companion, companion number 14, was Elder Montán (Mohn-tahn). I was now fifteen months into my Mission and Elder Montán wasn’t quite at his one-year mark yet. By this point, that meant I had an average of over 1 companion for every 6 weeks of my Mission!
Elder Montán was an interesting fellow. He had a distinct accent because he was from the Dominican Republic (one of two in the Reynosa, Mexico Mission I am aware of). I would try to explain the accent but I lack the words; it’s best if you look up a Dominican accent to get a taste of what I mean. I still tried to practice my Spanish since I had felt like something went amiss after Reynosa (See "4th Area: Las Torres, Matamoros") but Elder Montán had a passionate interest in practicing English. I learned to solve a Rubik’s cube; Elder Montán was bent on mastering English. Almost naturally, I would speak in Spanish because I had become accustomed to it but he would talk in English whenever it was just the two of us, whether at home or walking down the street. I think sometimes both languages became so natural that we didn’t have to think about what language we were speaking in; the brain switched between both as if they were one and the same. Even now, years later, understanding Spanish is so natural to me that it doesn't register people are speaking in Spanish instead of English. And sometimes I forget that not everyone around me understands Spanish and I have to translate for them.
Elder Montán was a good leader. When he needed to be, he was direct and firm. When he wanted to be, he was fun and playful, especially around children. I knew he had less "seniority" than me but I felt a need to learn from him. He didn’t know that I'd only been a District Leader for a week before we were put together until I told him. It was an interesting ongoing discussion of who "knew" more; I insisted he did (as a District Leader) but he claimed my Seniority meant that I did. In the end, I can’t say either of us knew much.
We had our work cut out for us and it wasn’t going to be any easier than the last time I was in Buena Vista. We lived with Elder Angulo (Ahn-goo-loh; from Campeche, Mexico) who was training Elder Segundo (Seh-goon-doh; from Michoacán, Mexico). Just as I had been when I left Buena Vista, I was again the oldest missionary in Buena Vista. They both struggled to find and teach people on a regular basis but I knew that that happens to all of us from time to time; it certainly had happened a lot to me by that time. Elder Montán had been living with them for a while and learned from experience that being passive with the two of them didn’t help the cause. I on the other hand had just finished being with Elder Q. not too long ago and felt sympathetic for those under pressure from their leaders (See "Choices" and "Listen"). Certainly, Elder Montán’s aggressive leadership didn’t inspire hope or happiness from our District. Our whole co-leadership became something like a good cop bad cop act. That’s not to say that Elder Montán was bad, because he wasn’t, but his methods were to crack the whip a little harder.
It was November 2015 and it gradually got wetter before it got colder. There were a few bitterly cold wet days but for one reason or another, it never felt as cold as my first winter. After a couple of weeks, it warmed up again and the sun stuck around. But until then, it was overcast and dismal just the same. It was challenging keeping the overall house warm. We had a "clima"/heater to keep our bedroom warm at night, but the rest of the house was freezing. Our main front room which doubled as our bedroom was divided from the back half of the house by a folding wall that didn't always close all the way. The rooms in the back had no method of heating and the windows let the cold air pass through them fairly effortlessly. To counter this, we covered some of the windows with newspaper and that worked surprisingly effectively. The guys spent so much of their money on food that they often didn't have any for the gas bill (although it would be reimbursed) so there were times that we didn't have gas for our water heater. For a long time, we had to heat up paint buckets of water with a resistencia (which would take a while to do depending on the volume). We'd then fill it up the rest of the way with extra water to make it mildly warm. Then we'd use a plastic cereal bowl to scoop out the water and pour it over our body and that's how we showered when we wanted a warm shower. Otherwise, we could take an icy cold shower if we didn't have the time.
Even though I was far from it, I felt like I had already talked to everybody. I felt like a veteran of the area, something of an expert navigating the streets and knowing places to avoid. It was the exact opposite of what I had gone through with Elder Scott in a new area together (See "On the Third Day"). Now I was the one who had that crooked mentality of “Oh, don’t knock here. They don’t like us” or “We already knocked here before, no one ever opens”. My disappointed attitude was not very productive or helpful when it came to going out on a limb. It was a trying time. I felt like Elder Q. I didn’t know where to start but we tried starting wherever we were. We’d walk up to someone on the street. Elder Montán would introduce us as missionaries of the church and ask them if they had ever talked to missionaries like us before. Most of them would answer, “Yeah. We’ve talked to him before” and point to me. On the one hand, I was frustrated because we couldn’t find anyone new to teach but on the other hand, I was honored that I had, to some degree, been a busy missionary when I was last in Buena Vista.
In my weekly email report to President Morales, I tried to focus on the positive and tell him how “grateful” I was to be back and so forth “despite having already served here before for a previous total of five long months”. Hint, hint.
I discovered why I of all missionaries had been sent to Buena Vista. Elder Montán said it was his fault. His previous companion hadn’t been working well with him after becoming depressed by the monotony of the area. After things didn’t improve, he was transferred. I guess transfer assignments had already been made so they decided to transfer me last minute out of convenience, who was just a few blocks away to switch places with him. I pitied Elder Montán. He was like me— had some hard companions but wanted to work with someone who wanted to work hard. Although I struggled to be excited to be back, I gave it my best to not drag him down with negativity like his last companion had.
I tried my best to work in that familiar area but I felt sluggish. At times, I’d wonder if that area was cursed with a gloomy spirit in the air because it was so hard to find happy people, even in the streets. It wasn’t easy but I went forward because I was still on the Lord’s errand and on the Lord's time.
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