06 August 2005 15:56
Day Number TenFirst Class passage to Puerto Cabezas
24 March 2005, Thursday
Today we had a big event to look forward to: a four hour ride to pto cabezas in a "chicken bus". the "bus station" was one entire side of the city park. not that the city park was all that large. or even that it had four sides. the bus took its sweet time showing up, but finally did by six thirty. typical schoolbus conversion, wacked paint job, slogans, and a rack on top. not quite as decked out as the panamanian busses (ie, no streamers, no chrome stacks, no exquisite murals on the side or rear), but still more pimped than the big yellow bluebird i used to take to gradeschool.
there was a huge push to get on as it arrived. everybody was going, that wasn't an issue, but there did happen to be more people than there were seats (imagine that). actually, all four of us managed seats, though jerrel and i were standing within an hour. the direct transmission of road surface to my spine was agonizing, and i decided that standing was much better than having my spine coming out the top of my skull.
we progressed steadily after a very shaky start. barely outside of town, we stopped and numerous people got out to admire the engine under hood. i couldn't hear from where i was, but there appeared to be much discussion on how beautiful this engine was and how well it was running. after a five minute session of group admiration, we slowly started up and backed up a quarter of a mile to a small shack by the road where a five gallon bucked of water was procurred and poured into the radiator...presumably to keep it hydrated.
however, after that, it was east bound and down. gdd said the road was MUCH improved over last year. at one point in the trip last year, the bus came to the bottom of a gully in the middle of nowhere, stopped, and everybody got off! gdd, unsure what was going on, got up to get off, but the bus driver motioned him to sit down. meanwhile, the group of former bus riders crossed the gully and started trudging up the steep hill on the other side. the bus driver backed up a good distance, gunned 'er good and let off for the bottom. they roared through the bottom and started up hte other side themselves. spinning and bouncing, the bus slowed to a crawl, painfully lugging along before finally groaning its way to the crest--a feat it wouldn't have accomplished with a full load of passengers. at the top the bus driver waited paitently while his passengers made their way up to the bus and back to their positions. Granddad on the other hand, was already on board, an advantage he supposed, of having white hair (or perhaps, of being a gringo with white hair).
this year at one point in the trip, we crossed a yellow suspension bridge (an interesting feeling in a bus) in about twenty seconds. that was the same gully where granddad had had an entirely different experience before. from that point on actually, the road was in Very good shape relatively...we later found this to be the work of the southern baptist mission we were going to spend the night at.
i think within ninety seconds of arrival we had a taxi. not the cheapest taxi in the world (okay, the car was one of the cheapest (read: falling apart) that we were in, but the pricetag was up there (read: we were gringos)). he took us to the immigration office (closed of course, it's semana santa). needless to say, we weren't going to get immigrated that way. later jim (the missionary in charge of the baptist mission) had somebody run our passports into someone who knew someone, and we got our stamps that way. officially exited one country and entered another without stepping foot in an immigration office. not bad eh?
seeing the office closed, we redirected our taxi driver out to the mission compound. a couple of acres surrounded by a fairly high chain link fence and patrolled by two guards and four german shepherds at night, the misión bautista is one of the safest places in cabezas by the world's terms. i was pretty leery about some of the "non-mennonite" things he had going there, but its hard to argue with some of the results he getting. more on that later.
right after lunch we headed back into town to look at the house of one of the baptist pastors there. a modest square house divided into four rooms, it was to have an indoor bathroom--a feature his current house (unfortunately located right next to a night club...hence a very strong desire to move). he had a hand-dug well in his front yard (all twelve feet of it between his house and the road). it looked to be fairly well constructed, lined with cinderblocks.
back at the compound we got the grand tour with jim as we did the chores with him. they have an absolutely fascinating operation there--basically they have a self-sustaining agricultural program. the goal is to discover methods and techniques of value to the indigenous farmers. the local farmers have a number of issues. often they are simply ignorant about the best approach to any given situation. they are also prone to sticking to what they know, unwilling to risk something new, even if that new crop or animal would be easier to care for and maintain, not to mention bring a greater profit at harvest. in reality, they can ill afford to take a risk.. in the states we simply start over after a failed risk. here the consequences tend to lead more to starvation.
one of the objectives of the mission is to help educate the population on what they can do to better provide for themselves, helping them branch out into new areas. first though, jim's been growing everything on the compound, making sure it can be done without outside intervention (ie bringing in feed for you pigs), and discovering which methods work best to pass on to the farmers.
after chores we went into town to help put out a proverbial fire... some men were digging a well next to one of the baptist church buildings. they were sliding concrete retaining rings down as they dug, but got a little far ahead of them selves and had a ring get sideways underneath two others. (these are three to four inch thick by 20" tall by 5' in diameter concrete and rebar rings. not the lightest thing in the world). they wound up holding the top two up with a come-along strung from a beam across the well, digging out from under the bottom one, then pushing the bottom ring into place by hand. this is two guys working in very tight quarters, barefoot in the mud with quite a few hundred pounds of concrete ready to put a hurting on them. i think i would have been pulling the top two rings back out long before I pulled that stunt.
back at the compund after our hard day of bus riding and grand touring, we showered up and went out on the veranda to relax. El Capitan, (their parrot) turned out to be friendlier than he first let on; and their golden retriever spent the whole time begging for attention. k and i tried our hand at some ping pong. (i let kyle win). for supper after dark we went back into town to "eat out". we actually ate in, but somebody else was making the food...
included email (this was written by Granddad)
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Maundy Thursday evening,
March 24, 2005
Dear Family,
This is Willard writing. Jerrel Jr., Brendan and Kyle have been traveling with me through the Miskito Indian area of Honduras and Nicaragua since March 15. Today we traveled by public bus from the border area of Waspam to Puerta Cabezas, the regional government headquarters for the North Eastern zone of Nicaragua. Before memory fades too much, I thought I would jot down some details of our bus ride today.
The Bus: Most transportation in these two countries is by second hand school busses from the states. "Bluebird" bodies, most still yellow, but our bus was a multicolored with artistic designs within and without. Above each window (and seat) window were phrases colorfully painted saying in Spanish such things as “We desire a good trip,” “Power,” “God’s will be done,” etc.
About four miles down the dirt road the bus came to a halt. Someone opened the hood and soon thereafter we began to reverse, and that for about three-quarter mile. We stopped in front of a house and someone fetched a bucket of water from a plastic drum inside of the front door. Then a second and finally, emptying the drum, a third. Then down the road we went with no more water stops.
The People: The bus stop was alongside of the park with the bus due to leave at 6am. We were there at a quarter till six. The bus finally came roaring up after 6:30. We were fortunate that it stopped near to where we were standing. The crowd rushed for the front door and literally pushed me into the bus. But people ahead of me began claiming seats until I reached the one which was empty; it was directly over the back wheels. After 15 to 20 minutes all the cargo was loaded on the bus roof and the inside crammed full of people. The driver inserted a CD in the sound system so we had some distinctly Latin music for a while.
Most of the people were Indians, with the Spanish being in the minority. A young girl/woman sat diagonally across as the third person on a two person seat. She had a young child on her lap. When she changed its diaper, it was obviously a boy. She soon handed the child back the isle to another person. I wondered if it was her child or if she might be a big sister. She didn’t look a bit over 16. She was an Indian girl, and like many from the area, had gold trim on a front tooth. (They mine gold in the area, so it is traditional for local people to have gold on their teeth!) I soon got a clue to the mother of the baby when a wet spot began to appear on the girl’s left breast. That was remedied by having the baby passed back up the isle.
With my suitcase on one side and Kyle on the other and my one knee up in front of my face due to the elevated rear wheel cover, I could hardly squirm. After one and a half hours of driving on the corduroy road where we seemed to hit only the high spots, we had a “rest stop” where there were public toilets (wooden outhouses) and roadside food venders. I couldn’t do more than stand up, so gave another passenger a note worth about $1.25 and asked him to buy me a pastry. We had gotten up at 5am and left without breakfast. The fellow came back without a pastry and handed me a note. The saleslady didn’t have correct change.
Oh, I almost forgot. Soon after the water problem, once we got going lickety-split a man near the front lifted a bullhorn and began to preach. I couldn’t get the message, but understood many of the words, which were in Spanish. After his message and benediction, he “passed the hat” though the “hat” looked something like a butterfly catcher on a wire handle. It worked! Then came an attractive looking tract/pamphlet that was colorful, attractive, and written in Spanish. I could read the editor’s name “Nisly” and contributing editors “Shrock & Sandford Yoder”. It was put out by the Beachy Amish at Pital, Costa Rica. I thanked God again for their faithfulness.
The bus trip lasted three full hours and cost about $6 each. It was a lot faster than last year thanks to the Southern Baptists who brought in some road building equipment and upgraded much of the road. The atmosphere on the bus was very earthy and material. A young boy sat next to me across the isle for the last half of the trip. He tried to get a drink of water from a ladies pail with a bail. The bus hit a bump about the time it was to his mouth so he got more water down his neck than down his throat. Later after he had eaten fish and cassava with his fingers from a plastic bag, the lady poured the rest of the water over his hands which ended up on the bus floor.
We arrived in Puerto Cabezas one hour late and with red dust all over our bodies, in our hair, and up our noses. But we were safe and sound and thankful. A taxi soon had us to the Baptist mission headquarters, where we will be staying for the next two nights.
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