Welcome to La Mosquitia
Cocotá. The name delights the tongue. A coconut tree bends out over the waters of the lagoon. Cocoa-skinned boys race up its bark as if it were a broad sidewalk. As they near the part of the tree slanting heavenward, they drop to their knees and shimmy the rest of the way. When they’ve reached the branches, they grab the dead ones, swing out over the water and plunge some twenty feet into the warm waters below. In the midst of the brown bodies is a freckled-faced, all-American boy named Christian. Part monkey, part Tarzan, he swings out over the water with his legs pedaling an imaginary bicycle, arms flailing, he drops into the midst of screaming Miskito children. Drenched with the sweat of a long day, and fatigued by the oppressive heat, their fun-filled shrieks prove an irresistible magnet to us. Katrina plunges in fully clothed with Michaela right behind. Roger strips to his underwear and creates a mini-tidal wave as all 250lbs of him hit the water simultaneously. I follow his lead.
We’ve spent this glorious day in the company of four newly arrived Americans. Betty, an eighty-year old retired pathologist on her 20th trip to Honduras and the financier of many of the missionary projects out here, Dan, who just retired as a pharmacist, Beverly, a nurse with a non-stop smile and Vial, the Missions Director at the Baptist church in Alabama they all attend. A fifth person, Nephtali, is a bi-lingual doctor from Guatemala who befriended Betty twenty years ago while studying English in the U.S. All five have traveled throughout the world together on short-term medical missions. They work quickly and efficiently like a well-oiled machine. As the multitudes learn there are doctors in the village, they throng to the school where the clinic is held. Already filled with school children, and isolated in the middle of a field unprotected from the blazing sun, the place is soon converted into an oven. Gabrielle eventually succumbs to the heat nearly fainting before being rescued by her Mother and Beverly. I react angrily clearing everyone off the porch where they are pressed together in a rush to see a doctor. The odor of sweating bodies is anything but pleasant. The stench of illness lingers on the air. For a moment the illogical thought crosses my mind that I could get sick just standing here guarding the door to the clinic. Just when I too feel faint, Katrina tells me that Karen and the girls have returned to the waterfront to eat lunch. My left ear pops during the 15-minute walk. Normally this only happens when I’m mountain climbing. For the first time it occurs to me that perhaps the phenomenon is related to oxygen deprivation. I collapse next to the girls when I reach the beach, too hot to even think about eating.
We arrived at the missionary complex early this morning. A couple of years ago Tom Brian placed two construction site-type trailers side by side under a massive tin roof. One serves as his dental clinic when he visits once a month. The other serves as a dormitory. About 30 yards away is a two-story house. This was the home of Baptist missionary. He divorced his wife after running off with a Miskito girl. It turns out he was working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and was only fronting as a missionary. The upstairs of the house reminds Karen of a cottage at the St. Lawrence. It’s made entirely out of wood with a tall ceiling, one large open room off of which are a couple of bedrooms each with a full shower. In this land of voracious termites, it’s shocking. A couple of hundred yards away is a row of trees. Roger’s boat is “docked” in the shade of a massive mango tree on a creek about six feet wide. We follow this serpentine creek for about 10 minutes before reaching the lagoon. Along the way we pass young boys swimming naked in the rust-colored waters. We actually collide with a dugout canoe coming the other way after our engine stalls. The frightened girl in the dugout watches helplessly unable to steer clear since her canoe is filled to the waterline with sand. Parents send their children out to the entrance of the lagoon to fill their dugouts with sand to be sold at a profit. The kids are in no hurry. At the entrance to the lagoon, Roger turns off the motor, raises it and jumps into the water. He guides us over the sandbar.
With 14 people aboard, plus all their gear, the 65 hp Evinrude outboard struggles to reach 25 mph. The breeze fights to cool us from what is already a blazing sun. From the perspective of the water, the shoreline is gorgeous. We alternate between wide-open expanses of lagoon and narrow passageways that meander through the mangroves. We spot brilliant water lilies, white herons and high above us soaring on the thermals, vultures. At one point I pinch myself since the view is so reminiscent of the eastern end of Carleton Island on the St. Lawrence. The only item missing is the silo next to the abandoned farm. Instead of a silo, here we see a lone thatched roof hut—some Miskito’s idea of escaping the maddening crowd. A large splash on the water reminds us we’re traversing some world-class fishing holes. Although many have promised, so far no one has actually taken us fishing. Alas, we’ve been way too busy. At the end of the day Gabrielle, with her winning smile, says, “Dad why don’t we come back out here some day for a picnic?” Good idea!
After about an hour we arrive at Cocotá. The setting is idyllic. Women in brightly colored shirts wash clothes beneath the coconut palms on the shoreline. We beach our boat next to a recently finished dugout canoe. The wood is bright red. It’s at least 25’ long. The bow and stern are identical-squared off tips gently following a curve of about three feet in length. Wood chips litter the area. It looks like it weighs 2,000 pounds. When I attempt to lift one end it doesn’t even budge. From my high school physics class I recall the formula for momentum: p=mv (mass times velocity). Once you get this thing moving, it won’t take much effort to keep it going. It glides through the water like a freighter. I’ve never seen one rocking from side to side. As I study its shape I try to imagine a family of 6 plus all their belongings heading to town in this. It’s about 2.5 feet deep on the inside. Near both ends, three narrow vertical slits have been carved into each side of the boat directly opposite each other. Since I have yet to see these in use, I’m puzzled. Perhaps they house cross beams that can then be used to support an additional layer of goods resting on wooden shelves. Maybe they’re used when they’re out fishing. It crosses my mind that this design hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.
Katrina shouts hello in Miskito to the wash ladies. Her bubbly personality and winning smile endear her to all. She spent her first four years living as a nanny with an American missionary family in a village just like this. When she returned with her husband Roger and their two boys, they spent a couple of years living in the rainforest. In other words, she’s totally at ease here and the people sense it. She announces in Miskito that the doctors have arrived and will be holding a clinic up at the school. She adds that we’ll be sharing the gospel. We haul our goods 15 minutes up a footpath. At the rise of the hill, we look out across a narrow valley to see the two-room school across the way. I’m bringing up the rear along with the pharmacist and the Guatemalan. We stop at what appears to be a brand-new well. Its design is puzzling at first since there is no handle. I ask the owner to come show us how it works. He lifts the entire pipe up and down. It’s the Italian aid group GVC’s work. Nearby is a plastic latrine resting over a newly dug hole. The aluminum sided shed designed to go over the top sits on the ground beside it. Either the project isn’t finished or modesty is not a high priority here. When an elder lady passing by lifts up her shirt to scratch herself exposing her breasts, my question is answered.
Once the medical personnel begin to see patients, Katrina announces the start of the skit. She’s brought along a whole array of Bible figures and scenery that can be easily interchanged on a felt-board background. The felt figures cling to the felt blackboard. Katrina’s Miskito is excellent, aided by her contagious enthusiasm and animated gestures. She starts off by leading the children through well-known Christian songs. They join in enthusiastically. The student’s eyes are riveted on her as she explains the Gospel beginning with Adam and Eve. She spends a good deal of time on the crucifixion and heaven. She removes her wedding band explaining the streets in heaven will be paved with gold. The kids look incredulous. With bowed heads, she leads the students through the sinner’s prayer. Later we learn there are four active Christian churches in this large village. Perhaps some fruit will be borne of this day. Only God knows.
Katrina asks me to lead the afternoon classes through the same exercise. By the time I do, all of us are drained of energy. I ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit since I don’t have the physical strength to do anything. About halfway through I realize how important it is for an evangelist in these parts to speak fluent Miskito. The teacher understands me perfectly and appears to be moved. As I pack up to leave, he’s reviewing the lesson I shared but in Miskito. “Lord may your word not return to You void,” is my prayer.
Next door, the females break for lunch. I offer to return to the boat to fill their depleted water bottles. When I arrive at the boat, I find it unguarded. Roger had hired a man to guard it during our absence. More experienced missionaries have told us that anything and everything in this culture is considered fair game if left unattended. They figure if you’re not around and you leave things lying around, you don’t really want them. Things like ripe watermelons, tools, wash buckets, money and outboard motors. I scurry back to the school and inform Roger of the situation. He orders me back to the boat on the double. When I return, I quickly change into my swimsuit, walk into the water and sit down. It takes about 15 minutes for me to cool down. As I wait, a couple of hundred minnows surround me and begin to nibble on my skin. Cooling off is worth this distraction, believe me.
When everyone returns from the school, Katrina walks right into the water fully clothed. Michaela follows suit. Even my modest wife walks in up to her shorts! There’s quite a commotion just before we push off to leave. Apparently there’s a lady in the next village over who is in severe pain. A Miskito man jumps into the boat to lead us to her. There’s a big, boisterous crowd at the village beach. The infirm lady lies prostrate in a dugout canoe. We pull up alongside. The doctors examine her. They order her into our boat to be taken to the hospital back in Puerto Lempira. Two others want to join her for the ride back into town. Roger yells that only her son can come. Her daughter gets back into the dugout. In the ensuing commotion with the crowd disputing this decision, Roger once again gets distracted. I watch the daughter slip back into our boat. Just before Roger pulls out, I point her out to him. This time he inflates his massive chest, shouting, “Get out!” It works.
The easterly winds have whipped up the waves into whitecaps for the ride home. Within minutes everyone is totally drenched. Fortunately the water is warm and feels quite good except for the salty taste. It’s brackish water, remember. We arrive at the public pier with the sun low in the western sky. Thunderheads abound—heavenly cathedrals of orange light. One would think the rough waters would make unloading the sick old lady precarious. She’s jerked up onto the pier like some dead fish left to rot. He son slings her over his back and off they go. Roger tells me often the “sick” will instantly recover their strength once at the pier and walk briskly into town. Welcome to La Mosquitia where all is not what it appears.
Br. Ed
We’ve spent this glorious day in the company of four newly arrived Americans. Betty, an eighty-year old retired pathologist on her 20th trip to Honduras and the financier of many of the missionary projects out here, Dan, who just retired as a pharmacist, Beverly, a nurse with a non-stop smile and Vial, the Missions Director at the Baptist church in Alabama they all attend. A fifth person, Nephtali, is a bi-lingual doctor from Guatemala who befriended Betty twenty years ago while studying English in the U.S. All five have traveled throughout the world together on short-term medical missions. They work quickly and efficiently like a well-oiled machine. As the multitudes learn there are doctors in the village, they throng to the school where the clinic is held. Already filled with school children, and isolated in the middle of a field unprotected from the blazing sun, the place is soon converted into an oven. Gabrielle eventually succumbs to the heat nearly fainting before being rescued by her Mother and Beverly. I react angrily clearing everyone off the porch where they are pressed together in a rush to see a doctor. The odor of sweating bodies is anything but pleasant. The stench of illness lingers on the air. For a moment the illogical thought crosses my mind that I could get sick just standing here guarding the door to the clinic. Just when I too feel faint, Katrina tells me that Karen and the girls have returned to the waterfront to eat lunch. My left ear pops during the 15-minute walk. Normally this only happens when I’m mountain climbing. For the first time it occurs to me that perhaps the phenomenon is related to oxygen deprivation. I collapse next to the girls when I reach the beach, too hot to even think about eating.
We arrived at the missionary complex early this morning. A couple of years ago Tom Brian placed two construction site-type trailers side by side under a massive tin roof. One serves as his dental clinic when he visits once a month. The other serves as a dormitory. About 30 yards away is a two-story house. This was the home of Baptist missionary. He divorced his wife after running off with a Miskito girl. It turns out he was working for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and was only fronting as a missionary. The upstairs of the house reminds Karen of a cottage at the St. Lawrence. It’s made entirely out of wood with a tall ceiling, one large open room off of which are a couple of bedrooms each with a full shower. In this land of voracious termites, it’s shocking. A couple of hundred yards away is a row of trees. Roger’s boat is “docked” in the shade of a massive mango tree on a creek about six feet wide. We follow this serpentine creek for about 10 minutes before reaching the lagoon. Along the way we pass young boys swimming naked in the rust-colored waters. We actually collide with a dugout canoe coming the other way after our engine stalls. The frightened girl in the dugout watches helplessly unable to steer clear since her canoe is filled to the waterline with sand. Parents send their children out to the entrance of the lagoon to fill their dugouts with sand to be sold at a profit. The kids are in no hurry. At the entrance to the lagoon, Roger turns off the motor, raises it and jumps into the water. He guides us over the sandbar.
With 14 people aboard, plus all their gear, the 65 hp Evinrude outboard struggles to reach 25 mph. The breeze fights to cool us from what is already a blazing sun. From the perspective of the water, the shoreline is gorgeous. We alternate between wide-open expanses of lagoon and narrow passageways that meander through the mangroves. We spot brilliant water lilies, white herons and high above us soaring on the thermals, vultures. At one point I pinch myself since the view is so reminiscent of the eastern end of Carleton Island on the St. Lawrence. The only item missing is the silo next to the abandoned farm. Instead of a silo, here we see a lone thatched roof hut—some Miskito’s idea of escaping the maddening crowd. A large splash on the water reminds us we’re traversing some world-class fishing holes. Although many have promised, so far no one has actually taken us fishing. Alas, we’ve been way too busy. At the end of the day Gabrielle, with her winning smile, says, “Dad why don’t we come back out here some day for a picnic?” Good idea!
After about an hour we arrive at Cocotá. The setting is idyllic. Women in brightly colored shirts wash clothes beneath the coconut palms on the shoreline. We beach our boat next to a recently finished dugout canoe. The wood is bright red. It’s at least 25’ long. The bow and stern are identical-squared off tips gently following a curve of about three feet in length. Wood chips litter the area. It looks like it weighs 2,000 pounds. When I attempt to lift one end it doesn’t even budge. From my high school physics class I recall the formula for momentum: p=mv (mass times velocity). Once you get this thing moving, it won’t take much effort to keep it going. It glides through the water like a freighter. I’ve never seen one rocking from side to side. As I study its shape I try to imagine a family of 6 plus all their belongings heading to town in this. It’s about 2.5 feet deep on the inside. Near both ends, three narrow vertical slits have been carved into each side of the boat directly opposite each other. Since I have yet to see these in use, I’m puzzled. Perhaps they house cross beams that can then be used to support an additional layer of goods resting on wooden shelves. Maybe they’re used when they’re out fishing. It crosses my mind that this design hasn’t changed much in a thousand years.
Katrina shouts hello in Miskito to the wash ladies. Her bubbly personality and winning smile endear her to all. She spent her first four years living as a nanny with an American missionary family in a village just like this. When she returned with her husband Roger and their two boys, they spent a couple of years living in the rainforest. In other words, she’s totally at ease here and the people sense it. She announces in Miskito that the doctors have arrived and will be holding a clinic up at the school. She adds that we’ll be sharing the gospel. We haul our goods 15 minutes up a footpath. At the rise of the hill, we look out across a narrow valley to see the two-room school across the way. I’m bringing up the rear along with the pharmacist and the Guatemalan. We stop at what appears to be a brand-new well. Its design is puzzling at first since there is no handle. I ask the owner to come show us how it works. He lifts the entire pipe up and down. It’s the Italian aid group GVC’s work. Nearby is a plastic latrine resting over a newly dug hole. The aluminum sided shed designed to go over the top sits on the ground beside it. Either the project isn’t finished or modesty is not a high priority here. When an elder lady passing by lifts up her shirt to scratch herself exposing her breasts, my question is answered.
Once the medical personnel begin to see patients, Katrina announces the start of the skit. She’s brought along a whole array of Bible figures and scenery that can be easily interchanged on a felt-board background. The felt figures cling to the felt blackboard. Katrina’s Miskito is excellent, aided by her contagious enthusiasm and animated gestures. She starts off by leading the children through well-known Christian songs. They join in enthusiastically. The student’s eyes are riveted on her as she explains the Gospel beginning with Adam and Eve. She spends a good deal of time on the crucifixion and heaven. She removes her wedding band explaining the streets in heaven will be paved with gold. The kids look incredulous. With bowed heads, she leads the students through the sinner’s prayer. Later we learn there are four active Christian churches in this large village. Perhaps some fruit will be borne of this day. Only God knows.
Katrina asks me to lead the afternoon classes through the same exercise. By the time I do, all of us are drained of energy. I ask the Lord to pour out His Spirit since I don’t have the physical strength to do anything. About halfway through I realize how important it is for an evangelist in these parts to speak fluent Miskito. The teacher understands me perfectly and appears to be moved. As I pack up to leave, he’s reviewing the lesson I shared but in Miskito. “Lord may your word not return to You void,” is my prayer.
Next door, the females break for lunch. I offer to return to the boat to fill their depleted water bottles. When I arrive at the boat, I find it unguarded. Roger had hired a man to guard it during our absence. More experienced missionaries have told us that anything and everything in this culture is considered fair game if left unattended. They figure if you’re not around and you leave things lying around, you don’t really want them. Things like ripe watermelons, tools, wash buckets, money and outboard motors. I scurry back to the school and inform Roger of the situation. He orders me back to the boat on the double. When I return, I quickly change into my swimsuit, walk into the water and sit down. It takes about 15 minutes for me to cool down. As I wait, a couple of hundred minnows surround me and begin to nibble on my skin. Cooling off is worth this distraction, believe me.
When everyone returns from the school, Katrina walks right into the water fully clothed. Michaela follows suit. Even my modest wife walks in up to her shorts! There’s quite a commotion just before we push off to leave. Apparently there’s a lady in the next village over who is in severe pain. A Miskito man jumps into the boat to lead us to her. There’s a big, boisterous crowd at the village beach. The infirm lady lies prostrate in a dugout canoe. We pull up alongside. The doctors examine her. They order her into our boat to be taken to the hospital back in Puerto Lempira. Two others want to join her for the ride back into town. Roger yells that only her son can come. Her daughter gets back into the dugout. In the ensuing commotion with the crowd disputing this decision, Roger once again gets distracted. I watch the daughter slip back into our boat. Just before Roger pulls out, I point her out to him. This time he inflates his massive chest, shouting, “Get out!” It works.
The easterly winds have whipped up the waves into whitecaps for the ride home. Within minutes everyone is totally drenched. Fortunately the water is warm and feels quite good except for the salty taste. It’s brackish water, remember. We arrive at the public pier with the sun low in the western sky. Thunderheads abound—heavenly cathedrals of orange light. One would think the rough waters would make unloading the sick old lady precarious. She’s jerked up onto the pier like some dead fish left to rot. He son slings her over his back and off they go. Roger tells me often the “sick” will instantly recover their strength once at the pier and walk briskly into town. Welcome to La Mosquitia where all is not what it appears.
Br. Ed
posted by Eric Stephens at 21:49
<< Home