Sastun: My Apprenticeship with a Maya Healer

Crystal was sleeping on her bed under a window, and a ball of fire blew
in just above her head, scorching her pillow and nearly setting her hair
aflame. We quickly evacuated her, rushing her over to the Flemings’ house.
To make matters more dire, Mick was away that day and his water pump
broken.
The fire was out of control. We grew increasingly horrified, running to
each new flame and futilely trying to exert control over its fiery appetite.
The wild coconut palm fronds were transformed into twenty-foot flaming
projectiles. We were encircled, and for a moment Greg and I stood
paralyzed with fear and indecision. How could we quench the hungry
inferno with only fifty gallons of water on reserve in a drum and a useless
river pump too weak to lure the water up a hundred-foot hillside?
Orlando showed no interest in helping us put out the fire. As if nothing
was going on, he nonchalantly asked for a lift to town. Although Greg
spoke no Spanish at the time, Orlando had to have understood Greg’s angry
shouting. “You crazy son of a bitch! You started this fire and now you want
a ride to town while everything we own is going up in flames?” Greg
screamed over the sounds of crackling brush, his fists waving wildly in the
air. “Get out of my sight before I kill you with my bare hands!”
Orlando strolled off with his two days’ pay already stuffed in his
pockets. By this time I was totally panicked. Sparks were settling on the
delicate, flammable thatches, and if either roof caught fire, the battle was
over. I had seen a thatch house burn up in Mexico. Once the roof was in
flames, the family lost the house and everything inside within ten minutes,
including a sleeping baby.
I began losing hope and started yelling frantically at Greg. He was also
panicking but pulled himself together, calling on ten years’ experience as a
paramedic with the Chicago Fire Department.
He shoved a rake into my hands and told me to start raking out a fire
line just beyond the circle of flames. It seemed futile, since the circle was
eating up more inches of brush as the seconds ticked by. He started the
water pump and quickly began sucking the fifty gallons of water into a
hose, which he aimed at the thatch roofs.
“The flames are too big,” I screamed. “They’re passing right over the
fire line.”
“Don’t you think I learned something about fighting fires after ten years
of rescuing people? Just do as I say, Rose, or we’re going to lose