Where's My Pillow!!!!

December 9th

It rained most of the night last evening and sometime during that time the village lost its water supply. The water supply starts up at the rainforest with a reservoir. When there is a good rain, debris washes in and clogs the pipe. There would be no showers before church. The toilets would be flushed on a need be basis by utilizing water from the pila. The saying is ‘yellow let it mellow/brown flush it down’. Church would be out by 1:00 but we wouldn’t be able to enlist the help of the natives until close to 7 pm. That would mean hiking to the rainforest with flashlights, shovels, pvc pipe and glue in the black of night. It is a 1 ½ hour walk up steep slippery paths to get to the reservoir.

In the meantime Dylan has yelled for me from out in banana trees. There is something he is very excited about and wants me there quickly. It is an El Scorpio stuck in a huge spider web. The last and only time we had seen one of these was earlier this year in March; we had just got to the mountain and again it was Dylan who discovered him. On that occasion I had picked up what I thought to be a very large bright green lizard with a nasty disposition. I would toss it at the native kids and pretend to kiss it. The kids would scream and run and call me “Loco”. I did not realize that I had been playing with one of the most deadly reptiles in Guatemala. It spits poison in your eyes and its bite is deadly. This time I beat the El Scorpio with a bamboo stick and Dylan chopped in two with his machete.

We’ve finished supper and it is time to get ready to deal with the water issue.
Two of the natives, David and Julio, would accompany Koos, Scott (just in from Kentucky), Nathan, and myself up the mountain. While gathering the shovels a drizzle turned into a shower. “Just great, this was going to be one miserable night”, I chuckled to myself. We went back to gather our rain gear and met back at the church. David decided to recruit one more villager so we stopped at Goyo’s house. While David was trying to convince Goyo to come, someone was approaching holding a torch of pine lighter not. It was one of the young village women. She was sobbing and accompanied by several other villagers. Her husband, Alfonso, had been attacked with a machete by two men. . He was bleeding badly from his head, neck and arm. He had lost a lot of blood. The plan would be to have the men carry him to the clinic while the gringos prepared the clinic to stabilize him. Over and hour had gone by and the gringos look like expectant parents pacing in and out of the clinic, checking and rechecking what we’ve laid out for our patient. The gauze, the tape, homemade butterfly bandages, peroxide, pain relief patches, it seemed as if it was all there. The only thing missing was a blindfold for Alfonso. I’m sure it would have scared him to death to see Nathan, Scott, Dylan. Koss, and I suited up with surgical latex gloves waiting for his arrival. We finally see a group coming with two of the men carrying a body in a blood stained blanket lashed onto a pole. A pair of small boots protrudes from one end of the makeshift stretcher. As we lower him onto a dental chair, which will serve as our examination table, he’s moaning and his head and upper body are soaked in blood. A good chunk of his scalp, the size of a softball, is missing. He has a couple of machete wounds to his neck and a few more defensive chops to his arm. After bandaging him and applying a pain relief patch to his arm the blanket is reattached to the pole. The roads are much too slippery and dangerous to try to get him down by vehicle to the hospital He must be carried down. This trip will take 2 hours and the group of volunteers is diminishing. It is now 10pm which will make it close to 2pm before our return. The rain soaked clay with loose rock strewn here and there would make carrying a makeshift stretcher a challenge. The rainy season has now cut ruts in the road from 2 to 5 feet deep which run its length down the mountain. There are fallen trees across the road. The stream will have to be crossed twice. There are washouts that have left narrow paths with the mountain on one side and steep drop offs on the other. No one knows the hardship of this trip better than these villagers and some decide against making the hike. The group thins but we have 8 of us and that will have to do. We were left with 4 native men and Nathan, Scott, Koos, and me. Nathan and Scott will start the hike. They place the pole on their shoulders and start the hike with several of us lighting the way with our flashlights. Each man will carry as long as he can until he is winded and his shoulders, legs, and back are ready to collapse. All of us will trade on and off carrying Alfonso several times during the next two hours. It is a little after midnight before we’ve arrived at the rendezvous point with the ambulance. Nathan and I go another couple hundred yards so we’ll be able to open the gate for the bomberos. We can see headlights in a distance but with these roads it’ll be sometime before they get here. It feels great to sit down even if we are sitting in a cow pasture between mounds of fresh manure. The stars are out and it is an incredible sight. By 2pm I find myself back at the mission house sponging off with cold water. Exhausted I crawl into bed. I believe I'm asleep before my head ever hits the pillow.

Losing track of time

It is December 7th, I’ve just remembered today is my brother Randy’s birthday and my brother Rick’s birthday was on the 4th. Happy Birthday Bro’s!!! Without a calendar and having seldom contact with anyone off this mountain, time means little.

The last I had blogged the North Carolina team was being sent off. Another trip to the city would be forthcoming as the Emory’s from Gainesville, Florida would be arriving on the same day as both Patty from Tampa, Florida, and Sarah Ruzic’s brother and sister-in -law from Kentucky. Sarah loaded up her family and headed up the mountain while the rest of the families headed to the Rio Dulce River.

The rainy season is supposed to be behind us but Mother Nature seems to be confused. We’ve had to pull over to find large trash bags to put the suitcases in. They all seem to fit except for two oversized bags that Patty has brought. She had spent the last couple of weeks gathering warm clothes and shoes from her church and her boy’s school. She had already spent an extra $100 to have American Airlines transport them so we were determined to keep them dry. It was dark when we arrived at the river.

The next morning we loaded up the boat with the Beene family, the Emory family, the Moro family, Anthony (from New York), Nathan (from Alabama), and Patty (from Florida). We made a stop at an open air market along the river to pick up beans, chips, water, pineapples, tangerines, avocados and boots. Everyone settled in for the long scenic boat ride to the village. Upon arriving we were greeted by the villagers that helped carry the medical supplies and a hand cistern to the village. The medicines were lined up and sorted on benches by Cassidy and Kayla while Chelsea entertained the kids playing a game of duck-duck–goose. Rocky and Patty would spend the day assisting Dr. Michelle Emory tending to the medical needs The three ladies worked as a well oiled machine as Dr. Michelle diagnosed the patients ailments while Patty and Rocky then administered the medicines as per Michelle’s instructions. In the meantime we guys worked on installing a new hand cistern. The old cistern had not worked for close to 6 months and the women had to walk close to a mile crossing a muddy swamp to get to the river for water. We had just experienced first hand the treachery of that trek. Peter Emory had fallen twice on his face and his front showed the proof. Boots and flip flops had to be pried free from the sticky black mud as the occupants teetered on the brink of becoming casualties themselves. Those trying to cross on the logs appeared to be tight rope artist as they tried to shuffle across with each new log sinking underwater as they stepped upon it. The woman of the village earned a lot of respect from all the gringos that day. With the cistern fixed the ladies of the village had one other problem for us to look at, their corn mill had not worked for over 13 years. The last 13 years these ladies had ground the corn by hand to make their tortillas. The problem was a simple matter of installing a new set screw on a gear and replacing a worn belt. Life would now be so much easier for the ladies of the Rio Dulce.

The next morning, Paul, Mike, and I would survey the property purchased by FIA on the Rio Dulce. We would discuss the best layout of the property for use as a mission house for expansion of FIA’s ministry on the river. It’s close to mid-day and time to head back up the mountain to celebrate Thanksgiving. There will be over 40 missionaries giving thanks.

The next several day’s families line up outside our apartment as Patty ushers them in one at a time and sets them on the couch waiting their turn for clothing. Patty and Cassidy have separated the clothes, from the two large suitcases, into piles and are now bringing out specific items to fit the families. Shoes and warm clothes seem to be the items in most demand.

It’s time for Patty to return to Florida and we’ll be taking the Pastor, Domingo, his wife, Carolina and their dog, Daisy down the mountain with us. The back of the truck is loaded to the hilt so everyone will be riding inside. I’m concerned about leaving Dylan, after having been up early with him vomiting. I’ve left instructions with Sarah to call if he’s not better. The trip to Guatemala City is uneventful with the exception of unexplained bug bites suddenly appearing on Patty’s legs. The reason became obvious the next day as I jumped in the shower and noticed that I had over 100 red bites on myself. Fleas had made my truck their new home and I became their favorite meal since both Daisy and Patty were no longer aboard.

The flea bites from the pastor’s dog Daisy have served as a constant reminder of loosing another Pastor. It seems it is much easier for donations to be given to build a church, a school, homes, a mission house, or some sort of tangible project than it is to support a good pastor. For some reason it has been a struggle to find the support to do what missionary work is all about--“THE SPREADING OF THE GOOD NEWS OF JESUS CHRIST”. We seem capable of showing the people we care now the second part of the equation is to show them what we know in spreading the gospel. It takes money to support these pastors. Even if we raise up a pastor from within the village he still lives hand to mouth and needs support for him and his family. The recurring situation of loosing pastors certainly puts a damper on things.