Well I’ve just returned from my most recent brush with death. I’d received a phone call early in the morning asking if I’d be so kind as to get out to a rural community where we’d built a school and take photos of it. The donors for the school like to have a nice picture in their office to prove that they are good people. Well as I’m also a very good person I jumped at the opportunity. I hired a truck to take me out there which cost the equivalent of $60 for the entire day. To a Nicaraguan this is a small fortune, but I was in a time crunch so I did what needed to be done.
Things got off to a great start. I had to borrow a camera from a friend of mine, but he decided to join me on my quest. The mission was to drive to the school, take happy smiling pictures of the students in front of their new school, then drive home and send these pictures back to the states. It seemed, at first, like a fairly straight forward task, something even I could accomplish. We ran into some early luck. I did not know exactly how to get to the school since I’d only been there once. I stopped by the mayor’s office, interrupting his meeting to get directions. As luck would have it there was a member of the destination community at the meeting. I was able to take him with me, therefore avoiding the whole “getting lost” problem.
Well more or less that was the last of our good luck and the beginning of our “find the good fortune in this” luck. It began to rain. Never mind the fact that we are currently in “dry season”. Since I was in the back of a pickup truck I was exposed to the elements. Fortunately it was cold too, so I was cold and wet as the wind pelted me. We passed by the teacher of the school as he was leaving the community on his bike. Needing help gathering the students, since school is currently out of session, we picked him up to, promising that we would drive him to where he needed to go afterwards.
We got to the final stretch of our trip there, rain still going strong. To our astonishment we came upon a truck that was stuck in the mud on the one lane bridge. The owner was nowhere to be found. From this point on me and a few others had to walk the rest of the way, about 3 miles to the school. Uphill, 3 miles in the rain sucks! I convinced my driver to wait for me to return, which was to be about 5 hours later from our guess. At this point I was glad that I never pay anyone the full amount until I reach my destination. He also sent one of his two helpers with us, from what I can gather for confidence purposes. I am just glad that he did not send the chatty one with us.
Being confident that we were not going to be stranded 35 miles from the nearest town with a phone line, we began our hike. It was not all that bad, but just a bit slippery and wet. Once in town we had lunch at the teacher’s house while the other person we had picked up in the community let the students know there was to be picture time. Now I would like to spend a moment on this. I am at a loss how they are able to get information around in these towns. People live in a radius of about 10 kilometers, but somehow everyone gets the message within an hour. Since Nicaraguans do not move too fast and having “runners” is out of the question, I will just assume that it is mental telepathy.
We sat around waiting out the rains and found our 10 minute window for happy, smiley, picture time. Nicaraguans in general do not smile in photos. They take it as a very serious occasion. A donor does not want a picture of 20 kids who look like they are pissed. People who live in rural communities are the hardest to get to smile. They are self-conscious, timid and nervous. I had to act like a moron for 10 minutes to get any reaction out of these kids. I know that me acting like a moron is a stretch for the imagination, but seriously I can pull it off.
Mission accomplished we wrapped up and headed back. The rain began again, this time harder than before. It was an easier trip back being that it was down hill, but more slippery. Back at the truck that had fortunately waited for us, the guys, whom had not eaten all day, were stealing unripe plantains from a farm. We piled in back, with shoes squishing and underwear dripping. We were given a plastic sheet to put over our heads to help us dry out.
I have to say that I had a bad feeling about the ride back, but I was thrilled to have pulled off this feat. We were going fine for most of the way until we got to a hill where we could not quite make it. This is not a rare occurrence, usually you just back up, get everyone out of the truck and then they give it another shot, if successful then everyone just walks up the hill and continue on. Well this was not the usual case. We stalled and then began backing up. Something did not feel right since we were coasting backwards at an uncontrolled pace. In fact it felt as if the driver did not have any control. In fact the driver did not have any control. We were going backwards, without breaks on a mountain road. Since we were in the back of the truck we could see what was coming. Right in our line was a tree on the side of the road. Narrowly missing the tree we began rolling backwards off the side of the road. We began taking out a barbed wire fence until we came to a crashing stop in a ditch on the side of the road.
I would like to touch on when I said earlier about how the “find the good fortune in this” luck began. Well this was truly the case. Had we gone off the other side of the road, I would have found myself careening down a 50 foot cliff. As it was we were half in this ditch and teetering, had we gone any father a good couple of rolls would have been on the menu. If I were to be asked what I do in an emergency situation the answer is nothing. I just sat there frozen, hoping to hit the tree so it would stop us.
Here we were about 20 miles from the nearest town with electricity. Our truck stuck in a ditch. At this point it was about 4:30pm, the sun sets at about 5:30pm. Fortunately we had cell phones, but we were so far from town that to find a signal we had to walk around finding higher ground with the phones over our heads. I was the only one with signal, but low on minutes. Once minutes run out the phone is useless other then to receive calls. We were able to get in touch with the mayor, but they were sketchy about the details of coming to help us. I called Peace Corps as a backup. I was hoping to have them dispatch the helicopter, but no such luck. At around 8pm, with the help of the mayor we had gotten the truck out of the ditch and they drove us back into town. We left the old truck on the side of the road, it not being reliable to trust. The driver and one of his helpers spent the night inside of it so that it was not stolen. We all spent the night in a hostel in town.
Well I feel fortunate that things did not end up worse as they could have. I have now developed a terror of being in a truck as it is climbing a hill. I am waiting for this to happen again. I think I will have to place myself in a spot where I can make a jump for it if need be. All I know is that I had better be racking up some major “get into heaven” points.
Things got off to a great start. I had to borrow a camera from a friend of mine, but he decided to join me on my quest. The mission was to drive to the school, take happy smiling pictures of the students in front of their new school, then drive home and send these pictures back to the states. It seemed, at first, like a fairly straight forward task, something even I could accomplish. We ran into some early luck. I did not know exactly how to get to the school since I’d only been there once. I stopped by the mayor’s office, interrupting his meeting to get directions. As luck would have it there was a member of the destination community at the meeting. I was able to take him with me, therefore avoiding the whole “getting lost” problem.
Well more or less that was the last of our good luck and the beginning of our “find the good fortune in this” luck. It began to rain. Never mind the fact that we are currently in “dry season”. Since I was in the back of a pickup truck I was exposed to the elements. Fortunately it was cold too, so I was cold and wet as the wind pelted me. We passed by the teacher of the school as he was leaving the community on his bike. Needing help gathering the students, since school is currently out of session, we picked him up to, promising that we would drive him to where he needed to go afterwards.
We got to the final stretch of our trip there, rain still going strong. To our astonishment we came upon a truck that was stuck in the mud on the one lane bridge. The owner was nowhere to be found. From this point on me and a few others had to walk the rest of the way, about 3 miles to the school. Uphill, 3 miles in the rain sucks! I convinced my driver to wait for me to return, which was to be about 5 hours later from our guess. At this point I was glad that I never pay anyone the full amount until I reach my destination. He also sent one of his two helpers with us, from what I can gather for confidence purposes. I am just glad that he did not send the chatty one with us.
Being confident that we were not going to be stranded 35 miles from the nearest town with a phone line, we began our hike. It was not all that bad, but just a bit slippery and wet. Once in town we had lunch at the teacher’s house while the other person we had picked up in the community let the students know there was to be picture time. Now I would like to spend a moment on this. I am at a loss how they are able to get information around in these towns. People live in a radius of about 10 kilometers, but somehow everyone gets the message within an hour. Since Nicaraguans do not move too fast and having “runners” is out of the question, I will just assume that it is mental telepathy.
We sat around waiting out the rains and found our 10 minute window for happy, smiley, picture time. Nicaraguans in general do not smile in photos. They take it as a very serious occasion. A donor does not want a picture of 20 kids who look like they are pissed. People who live in rural communities are the hardest to get to smile. They are self-conscious, timid and nervous. I had to act like a moron for 10 minutes to get any reaction out of these kids. I know that me acting like a moron is a stretch for the imagination, but seriously I can pull it off.
Mission accomplished we wrapped up and headed back. The rain began again, this time harder than before. It was an easier trip back being that it was down hill, but more slippery. Back at the truck that had fortunately waited for us, the guys, whom had not eaten all day, were stealing unripe plantains from a farm. We piled in back, with shoes squishing and underwear dripping. We were given a plastic sheet to put over our heads to help us dry out.
I have to say that I had a bad feeling about the ride back, but I was thrilled to have pulled off this feat. We were going fine for most of the way until we got to a hill where we could not quite make it. This is not a rare occurrence, usually you just back up, get everyone out of the truck and then they give it another shot, if successful then everyone just walks up the hill and continue on. Well this was not the usual case. We stalled and then began backing up. Something did not feel right since we were coasting backwards at an uncontrolled pace. In fact it felt as if the driver did not have any control. In fact the driver did not have any control. We were going backwards, without breaks on a mountain road. Since we were in the back of the truck we could see what was coming. Right in our line was a tree on the side of the road. Narrowly missing the tree we began rolling backwards off the side of the road. We began taking out a barbed wire fence until we came to a crashing stop in a ditch on the side of the road.
I would like to touch on when I said earlier about how the “find the good fortune in this” luck began. Well this was truly the case. Had we gone off the other side of the road, I would have found myself careening down a 50 foot cliff. As it was we were half in this ditch and teetering, had we gone any father a good couple of rolls would have been on the menu. If I were to be asked what I do in an emergency situation the answer is nothing. I just sat there frozen, hoping to hit the tree so it would stop us.
Here we were about 20 miles from the nearest town with electricity. Our truck stuck in a ditch. At this point it was about 4:30pm, the sun sets at about 5:30pm. Fortunately we had cell phones, but we were so far from town that to find a signal we had to walk around finding higher ground with the phones over our heads. I was the only one with signal, but low on minutes. Once minutes run out the phone is useless other then to receive calls. We were able to get in touch with the mayor, but they were sketchy about the details of coming to help us. I called Peace Corps as a backup. I was hoping to have them dispatch the helicopter, but no such luck. At around 8pm, with the help of the mayor we had gotten the truck out of the ditch and they drove us back into town. We left the old truck on the side of the road, it not being reliable to trust. The driver and one of his helpers spent the night inside of it so that it was not stolen. We all spent the night in a hostel in town.
Well I feel fortunate that things did not end up worse as they could have. I have now developed a terror of being in a truck as it is climbing a hill. I am waiting for this to happen again. I think I will have to place myself in a spot where I can make a jump for it if need be. All I know is that I had better be racking up some major “get into heaven” points.
