The doctor wears big glasses and a cropped ponytail above the tattoo on the back of her neck. She’s working on a guy’s foot under a beer garden tent advertising Pacifico. The guy’s foot is propped on the edge of a green five-gallon bucket. The bucket stands right side up so the doctor can dispose of her trash—packaging for hemostats, hypodermic needles, cotton swabs and the like.
A half-dozen other people mill about in the shade. It’s unclear who might be assisting the doctor, who’s there to offer the patient support and who just showed up with nothing better to do. The latter’s easy to imagine in Chicharrón. Since I arrived the previous afternoon, looking for a place to launch Madrina, my double-ended, forward-and-aft-masted beach yawl, I’ve seen but a couple of dusty cars on the rough road entering town, a spill of thatched shacks and plywood houses spotting the chalky hillside above the estero…

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