Every two or three days our medical missionary daughter calls from Honduras. She always calls in early evening as she sits on her north-facing front porch. She is enjoying a breeze which releases the heat of a humid tropical day without air conditioning. Initially she appears to be alone but as we talk the shouts of playing children are captured by the cell phone. Before her stretches a green swath of meadow shared with two other widely spaced homes. The site overlooks a steep slope down to the Caribbean Ocean. On clear days you can see the islands of Cayos Cichinos dim on the horizon. They are mystical, and reputed to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. They wink and beckon, just as Bali Hi beckoned in the Rogers & Hammerstein musical “South Pacific.” In the middle of the foreground, partially obstructing the view of the ocean, is a low growing spread-out knurled tropical fruit tree. A perfect climbing tree, it frequently sports several children in it branches. My daughter tells me that there have been times when the tree had a dozen children concealed in its twisted canopy. The children’s chatter is akin to that of a flock of birds gathered in preparation for migration. Occasionally one will drop out or hang head down momentarily visible, with legs hidden, wound around a low branch.

On three sides the site is flanked by steep tropical jungle ravines. Most often these steep narrow ravines with their dense vegetation appear as protective barriers of tree and undergrowth. Colorful tropical birds hop and squark among the leaves. If you stand on the edge and look down the ravine the bottom is dark; it is shaded into almost nocturnal gloom by the dense overhead canopy. Above this abyss Howler monkeys often visit as they rustle and leap from tree top to tree top. They eat the flowers, fruits and foliage. Sometimes this jungle threatens, epitomized when a male monkey begins to howl. He utters a noise reputed to be the loudest animal call on earth. It resounds over five miles. At other times a giant eight-foot-long Boa may slither into the sunlight. It comes to nab a free-range chicken kept, not so much for its egg laying capabilities, but rather to control the scorpion population. The ensuing battle is noisy and proves the end for both assailant and victim. After swallowing the chicken, the snake moves slowly and is target for a Honduran gardener who captures it with a noose around its head. The snake is proudly displayed and dragged off. The Honduran says that it goes home with him to become a rodent control guardian. I wonder if an alternative is that it will become someone’s dinner.

Our face time is periodically punctuated as my daughter hurls instructions to her children.

 “Josiah, don’t pick the watermelon. Leave it alone. It’s not ready!”

“Gideon, don’t’ do what I just told your brother not to do.”

“Madi, rescue the rabbit don’t let it get into the drainage conduit.”

I observe that my daughter looks tired. She confirms that she spent most of the night in the hospital, located on the other side of the ravine to her right. She was working to save a very sick baby which was born in a make-shift Honduran “taxi’ on the way to the hospital.  I can’t imagine how this was accomplished for the Honduran taxi is a glorified three-wheel motorcycle. My daughter goes on to add that during the first half of the night Isaac, her husband, joined a team administering to a lady who had been shot protecting her children and home. Apparently when her assailant arrived, she managed to lock the children in a backroom and then refused to give the thief money. She received four gun-shots.  The one to her head bounced off her skull, the one to her abdomen went through fat and missed organs, the one to her chest entered to the high right and went clean through diagonally to emerge without hitting an organ, the one to her arm also went right through. The medical team sewed her up and gave her blood from a matching donor on site.

My daughter sighs and goes on to tell me that the Corona virus has found them and that another Covid-19 patient managed to bypass their screening and arrive in the unprotected part of the hospital. By the time that this person was diagnosed much of the hospital staff had had contact. The horror continues as she tells me that their family has parasites which she is treating. I comment,

“Head lice – again?”

“No, not head lice, worms.”

“Yes, all children get pin worms from time to time.”

“No, not pinworms,” she sighs, “worms as big as this.” She holds up her pinkie. She goes on to mention a drug that she is administering to combat the worms.

“How does it work?” I ask innocently.

“They exit. When the intestinal environment is alien to them, they exit the anus. We found lots of them in the children’s shower.”

We end the call when my daughter hears the distant roar of Isaac’s motorcycle as he returns from the hospital. It is time for their dinner. Once I might have envied her for the beautiful place where she lives; a place where children play outside. But then I wince as I reorganize that this place is laced with many silent horrors. It is good that she and Isaac are dedicated to a healing higher cause.