05 May 2005 23:54
dia cinco19 March 2005, a somewhat varied Saturday:
"Jesus loves you and I have a wonderful plan for your life." -good christian greeting that us guys were fond of using on each other through the trip.
Jerrel knows the official origin, i think it was some missions leader who was fond of saying it.
up bright and early at 0613. already daylight. (imagine that. the last time i got up bright and early at 1042am it was already daylight then as well. nothing special). we drug our belongings over to the hangars and loaded jorge's 206. (this is the same plane that jorge had just gotten airborne again the previous monday after a landing strut broke on takeoff and grounded him for a goodly number of weeks, but i digress). our destination was kraquira (or krakira, or kauquira), which is out on the coastline.
with kraquira, like palacio, jerusalem, and bethleham, things have a one diminsional nature to them, despite being on a two dimensional surface. think in east west lines (actually more like 310/130ยบ in this particular case). you have ocean, strip of beach, strip of coastal scrub, airstrip, strip of houses, strip of sand (main street), strip of houses, lagoon. so we landed on the airstrip, passed between some houses, over mainstreet, between some more houses, out onto a dock in the lagoon, and onto a boat. in the boat we proceded southeast for 10? minutes, docked, passed between some houses (or a house and the church), across mainstreet, and to our final destination: the local moravian clinic, which was part of the inland strip of houses.
after a bit we walked up mainstreet with dra norvella in search of some groceries to kept us fed with. we walked back in the direction we came, and covered about half the distance, though it of course took much longer. despite the frequent mini-rain showers throughout the morning (we landed in one), shopkeepers were outside watering down the street to kill dust. we watched a group of men unloading rice and beans from a boat at the main dock. called the Painkira, it was probably about the largest boat that could enter kraquira's little lagoon (which opened across from the main dock into the main lagoon, across which is located pto lempira). about 100 to 120 feet long, it had six shipping containers stacked across its deck in one row, four wide and two high. not to mention a medium sized tractor, a couple stacks of bicycles (lying flat, stacked eight or nine high) on the top deck. and it was either the painkira or Mr. Jim, the ship next to it that had a load of mattress stacked high on one of the decks. two days later we saw both ships at the dock in pto lempira. kraquira to lempira was a 45 minute ride in our launch, these ships probably made it in well under two hours, which produced prices in kraquira that were much more "normal" than the prices in ahuas.
after delivering the groceries back to the nurse's house above the clinic, we headed diagonally across the street in the midst of a sudden rain shower to meet edgar watson, a third generation jamaican-honduran that granddad had met by chance in jamaica in the early/mid nineties. he had met him again last year, but hadn't had much time to chat. this time granddad was able to talk to him several times over the course of two days. i'll talk more about him in a couple days, when we stay at his brother's hotel in waspan, nicaragua.
back in the nurse's house, we helped clean the rice--a somewhat painstaking task. one that lends itself to the mentality "we're goign to boil it for twenty minutes anyway, what's a few stones and bug parts going to hurt?". the day was quickly devoting itself to lethargy. finished, k and i argued (albeit very slowly and without heat) over who should go get the pop tarts. i eventually got up and went after them,
between trying to find a cool shady spot and dodging marauding ants, k and i managed to journal a bit. meanwhile gdd had procured "oficial", "reliable", and "fool-proof" directions to the beach. well, maybe the sarcasm was uncalled for. while we were indeed recieving directions in a foreign country, all one had to do was set off in generally the right direction and you'd hit the beach. ...Through the line of houses, across the old airstrip (inline with the new airstrip, but now containing cows, powerlines, and a little kid giving rides on a moped), across the graveyard, then through a strong quarter mile of sand and scrub: viola! the beach. okay.
there were some structures of scrap wood laced together to the one side, to be used as part of the semana santa activities. the local customs seem to be to congregate on the beech for the week. there were indeed a dozen people or so scattered here and there. after ten minutes or so we turned around and went back, seeing as it was the heat of hte afternoon with no shade.
that evening after supper, k and i tagged along with norvella and ramone back up to the center of town to use the village phone. a small shack (8x10') contained some chairs and a desk. the operator sat behind the desk with a cordless phone. when you're turn came, you'd tell her who you wanted to call, she'd dial, hand you the phone and you'd step outside to chat. back in witht he phone, pay the operator, and you went on your way. i literally just got off the phone before this paragraph. i talked to both Mom and Steph, each at different numbers, both 1600 miles away. and i'm still sitting on my bed in front of my laptop. i'm not without grievences against the concept of the telephone, but it's pros are very nice indeed.
returning to our room, we took turns at sponge baths in the "bathroom", then hit the hay.
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