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... all I can say is this - at least it wasn't ME today that needed the morning after pill on a Sunday in a teensy beach town in a wee Catholic country in Central America.
On my bumpy bus ride today back from Sta Teresa (my hands down new favorite place of all time - if you never see me again, I'll be at Casa Zen, send my regards to Broadway) I sat near a girl from Switzerland who, 3 minutes into the ride, revealed that she'd had sex last night and that the condom had broken - uh, huh. She was on her way to the "big town" of Cobano (the only bank and the only farmacia for miles and miles) with high hopes of one tiny but powerful pill, just in case. Ahhhhhh - the Swiss, they're so flexible, so open minded, so unassuming. She was trying her best not to freak out and needed to confess to someone, anyone really. Lucky me. I believe she said something like "I have to tell someone so I guess it is you...".
Turns out, she also doesn't speak a single word of Spanish so - for those that are tracking this, my latest Spanish immersion attempt - let me know if this counts as passing The Bar.
Not being morally or Karmically able to leave her to her own devices, and with at least 45 minutes to spare before my connecting bus home, I went with her to the clinico medico and explained, to a shortly thereafter mortified doctor, todo sin ingles mind you, that my new friend had "been with a man last night and that the condom broke". Aye yay yay. Amid the snickers from the old men hanging out in the cool of the clinic, he shusshed me and ushered us into his office for further botched Spanglish and much gesticulating.
No such thing as the morning after pill in Costa Rica (Catholics, they're so stubborn!) and no other great options. Here's where the language gets really fun - she ended up with a prescription for birth control pills, a highly accelerated & regimented schedule for taking them by the handful over the next couple of days, and some sort of pelvic exam in which I actually played nurse by scrubbing in and assisting with things like petroleum jelly and handing over the speculum - WHAT???
God bless her, she was a trooper and only broke one of my fingers as he "cleaned her insides" - Double What??? I'm pretty sure she'll survive, baby-less for now. I'm also convinced that she'll take the doctor's only words in English to heart "No more sex". His only other instructions for us -- 1) that we were never there, 2) that he absolutely NEVER told her to take more than 1 birth control pill a day, and 3) that we both be more careful in the future.
You're an angel I told him.
He told her to buy me a beer...
And off we went to the corner bar, for many beers and much forgetting as we each waited for our buses; mine "home" to Cabuya for school tomorrow and hers back to Sta Teresa for some surfing and bouts of highly hormone induced nausea.
Bueno Suerte with that, Lilly from Switzerland. My other hope, besides no baby, is that she can one day tell the story with a laugh. Seriously, how much adventure had she counted on during her month-long surfing stint in Costa Rica? Sweet Lilly.
Like I said... at least it wasn't me that needed the morning after pill today. Whew. My new Costa Rican husband will be very sad to hear that he's not getting any :-)
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