Overdue Post!

Hey Everyone,

This is Camrie's Mom, Cynthia. I just returned from a two week vacation and am now just getting around to posting this blog that Camrie sent me October 20 (while I was away with very little internet availability). Sorry it's so long in coming. I already have another blog that I'll add sometime this weekend. Enjoy reading!

One of Our Trips Home from Port - October 20


Usually about once a month we all head into Port to restock our groceries, pick up mail, and connect to the outside world via the internet. It usually takes at least four hours to drive one way and usually our road-trips are very bumpy, and very unorthodox. This is what happened on our last return trip from Port.

After buying all our last minute fresh vegetable purchases in the Port street market, we finally finished loading up the trailer and got ready to leave the Adventist school at 3:30 PM. We busted out of there pretty fast because suddenly a political propaganda parade started filling the streets and crowds of people flowed out from houses and buildings to see the excitement. The school staff started getting really nervous and told us that the same thing happened last week and the people road-blocked the street for three days! All these huge trucks overflowing with people started honking their way down the street. The Sandinistas were yelling, chanting, and waving flags and posters. Their enthusiasm energized the onlookers and the street suddenly felt really chaotic. We all rushed to the ambulance and loaded up - hoping to make it out fast just in case something took place. Thankfully the pandemonium followed the trucks and the street began to settle back into the normal pace. Praise God for safety.

About an hour out of town we noticed something funky about the trailer. It seemed like one tire was stuck in a rut and couldn't quite get out. It turns out we had a flat tire. Immediately we halted our voyage and we all piled out to assess the damage. Jared started to take out the spare and Tom started jacking up the trailer. We hunted around the area to find some makeshift block to set the trailer on. While some of us were working away, the rest of us entertained ourselves: Mgee inspected his many mysterious rashes, we girls chased chickens like they were pigeons, Eda and Mgee squabbled about which one of them was more "gresy," (or "crazy" in English), and Paula (the twins' mom) documented the whole experience with her camera.

The way we gauge how far away from Port we are is by the road conditions. When the road is fairly smooth gravel, we are near port; when we start hitting crater-sized potholes and mud lakes, we are definitely getting close to Francia Sirpi. Well, later on in our journey, the ruts seemed to be extra bad due to the fact that earlier it had rained quite a bit. We started ascending and descending into potholes like they were snow moguls. Unfortunately we misjudged the depth of the water and the extent of the mud in one 15 foot diameter pothole and suddenly we started spinning. Great! Once again, Jared and Mgee stuck on their rain boots and climbed out to assess the damage. Thankfully after a few readjustments and new strategies, we were able to gain some traction and power-out.

When we finally arrived back at the mission it was around 8:30 PM. We were pretty exhausted and we all pitched in to unload the trailer and unpack groceries. In the process we found a dead rat that had drowned in our filtered water drip-bucket, and two tarantulas scurrying across the kitchen floor. They no longer exist thanks to Mgee's machete, and they're now drying out in our tarantula graveyard. RIP tarantulas.

As soon as we thought our night was winding down, some villagers climbed up the hill, begging us to come examine their daughter who was nine months pregant. As soon as we grabbed our medical supplies a tropical downpour started, so we suited up in our rain gear and plodded out to find the woman's hut. We hiked off the road for about 10 minutes and finally found it. We took her vitals, did a short examination, talked/translated with the family, and determined that she would be able to last through the night in time to see the MINSA nurse, and if not, they were to come back and get us. We trekked back to the main road again and finally arrived back at the mission around 10:30 PM. We all decided that as a rule of thumb, we can always plan on our days going exactly how we DID NOT plan. I really don't think this is a good place for Type A personalities - or maybe it IS a good place for them to work on their character. Haha! Who knows? Although even though we have a very simple life here in Francia, it seems like everyday we always have some sort of adventure ~ it's not necessarily fun, but an adventure none the less.

I hope ya'll are doing great back in the USA. Hopefully I'll get to talk to you all soon whenever we have our NEXT road-trip to Port (whenever that will be...) Praying for you! God Bless - Dawan Bles Mayumbia