Thoughts on Death - By Motorcycle, Drowning, or Swine-Flu

I sit here before the computer, contemplating the fleeting nature of man’s fragile life, as I cough and wheeze, hoping that my life will not be cut short. I slowly shake my head, thinking what a pity it would be if I really do have that much-maligned pig flu.


I cough again.

“Put a cough drop in your mouth!” comes the call from my dear beautiful wife. It’s apparent that my coughs are irritating her sensibilities. I hack up another lung in her general direction, for good measure.

“Sorry,” I rasp in my sick-voice. Then I begin to write.


SEEING THE SIGHTS AND GETTING LEFT AT THE CURB

When I last left you, my friends, we had just gotten home from our wonderful trip to Chicago. Ah, what a fine vacation that was! We still talk about the wonderful food and friends to everyone here.

When we returned, as you will most likely remember, the power went out. This time it was nothing too major; it has gone out sporadically ever since, never more than 6 hours at a time and never after 9pm, which is good. We really would rather not go through the whole sweaty-mosquito-filled nights any more. We’re not sure what the causes are. It seems to us that in order to conserve power, the city is cutting off electricity to different sectors of the city on certain days between certain times. We hope that it doesn’t continue to be regular, but we will really never know. They don’t actually tell you. They just assume that you will figure it out sooner or later.

Anyway, the weekend after we got back we went down to a place called Nagarote near Leon for a visit. It started out as a nice day, the bus ride down was easy enough. We got hold of a taxi driver that actually pedals people around, like a rickshaw driver, and he took us out to this lake overlooking Momotombo Volcano.



It was very nice. On the way back to the main town, however, it began raining and then the rickshaw driver pulled over and told us to get out because he had damaged a rim. After we got out, he waited for a few minutes in the rain and then basically abandoned us on the side of the road. We aren’t really sure what happened there. He didn’t flat-out leave us there without a word, but he told us that a bus would be coming along very soon and he had to get back to town so he didn’t want to wait, and he couldn’t carry us in his pedal-mobile because of the busted rim.

After a few failed attempts at flagging down a bus, however, Marlene and I realized that the buses don’t stop there, and so we started walking towards town. We eventually made it back on a bus and were in Granada right on time for the Spanish meeting that evening. It really was just a very strange day. We attended the meeting in severely wrinkled clothes and were all sweaty, and we were very, very embarrassed, but the bus stop is literally a block away from the hall and it dropped us off like 10 minutes before the meeting. Besides, the friends were happy to see us anyway and didn’t ask why we looked so disheveled. But I’m sure they wondered.


(ALMOST) DYING FOR A RETURN TO THE ISLETAS

The weekend after that, I was invited to give a talk at the Isletas group, the group that meets on the little islands off of Granada. Marlene and I were excited about it, because we were hoping we’d get to be on the floating Kingdom Hall.

The Friday night before, however, I called the brother over there to confirm, and he said that there had been a slight problem. The boat that normally would pick us up at the dock in Granada was not working well, there was something wrong with the motor and would start acting up on long distance trips. So the boat could only pick me up at Dock #2, the closest one to the Kingdom Hall, so that we wouldn’t overwork the engine. The other problem was that Dock #2 was accessible only by a 30 minute motorcycle trip, and there were only 2 motorcycles available. One brother would be taking me to the dock, and another would be taking the Watchtower conductor. So there was no room for Marlene. Oh, and instead of it being on Sunday, it would have to be on Saturday afternoon at 2pm.

I had to break it to Marlene that she couldn’t go, but I know she doesn’t like riding on the back of a motorcycle anyway, and she was fine with it.

Little did I know that I was about to embark on two harrowing trips that would almost cost me my life. Well, maybe not so much, but it really was rather frightening.

I took a taxi to the place I was supposed to meet the brother the next day, at a little junction called the Three Crossings, because of a 3-pronged fork in the road. The motorcycles were already there with the brothers waiting. I could see that the three roads were all dirt roads. Well, two of them were dirt roads and the third one, the middle one, looked like someone had tried to recreate the Grand Canyon using bulldozers and bulls dragging steel implements behind them.

“So, which road are we taking?” I asked, already fearing the worst.

One of the brothers, Danny, smiled and said, “The middle one. But don’t worry. If we make it there before it starts raining, we won’t die.”

“Ah,” I said. I see.

After hopping on the back, I held on to the support bar behind the seat (I wasn’t going to hold on to the brother’s waist, obviously) and we were soon on our way. For the first 3 seconds I thought it wasn’t going to be so bad, until we hit the first of about 2,000 ruts. At least the first part was hard ground.

After bouncing around for a few minutes, I asked him, “How long is it til we get there?”

“About 30 more minutes,” he yelled back.

Wonderful.

Soon we started on a long, winding patch of road that was made up of loose gravel and dirt. We really almost went down about 5 times. And the brother was driving pretty fast, since we were going to be late for the boat. At one point I began to pray that I wouldn’t die, not like this, not in the middle of the jungle on a gravel road. At that moment the brother’s cell phone rang and he slowed down to about 40 miles per hour to answer it and stick it in his helmet, talking and laughing at whatever the person was saying. During the phone conversation we wobbled a bit and almost went off a bridge into a river, when he realized he probably shouldn’t be talking on the phone and put it away.

Finally, after what seemed to be about 45 minutes through dense jungle, we made it to a tiny little dock. My brain told me to quickly jump off the death machine, but I had been holding on so tight that my hands wouldn’t let go of the bars and I basically fell off. My butt didn’t stop buzzing for a good 5 minutes.

“Thanks for not killing us,” I said to the brother, who laughed and said that the guy who had tested him for his motorcycle license had said the same thing.

“But I’ve only fallen a few times, and only twice with someone else on it,” he said.

Anyway, we were soon on the boat and headed out to the Kingdom Hall. About halfway there, we met up with a few other boats full of brothers and they tied onto a small island and hopped on with us, since we had a motor and they had rowed there from their homes on the other islands.

We were soon at the meeting site and we did get to have the meeting on the floating Hall after all. It was a pity that Marlene couldn’t be there, but there was no way she would have made the motorcycle trip.

The meeting was well attended, about 30 people. About 25 of them were under 18 (it’s a very young group), so it was extremely appropriate that the Watchtower study was about young ones serving Jehovah.

Immediately after the meeting ended, the wind really started to pick up. I looked out over the lake and was amazed at how high and choppy the waves were.

“Are we going out in that?” I asked the boat driver.

“Yes. Either we go now or we catch the rain and it gets rougher,” he said.

So we quickly locked up the chairs and equipment and the Kingdom Hall and set off.

I don’t think I have ever been as terrified in water as I was that afternoon. Not even when I saw a giant R.O.U.S. in the shower with me a couple of months ago.

The waves were incredibly rough and we were all hanging on for dear life to the rails. At some point we were practically nosing straight up and coming down with loud, wet crashes. It seemed to go on forever.

At one point, in between the splashes of water on my face, I yelled out to the brother, “Have you guys ever flipped the boat over?”

“Yes,” was all he said. And he wasn’t smiling. I decided not to ask any more questions.

Eventually we made it to land and tied up the boat. We waited a bit for the winds to die down and for us to dry off. We had some refreshments at one of the local Witnesses’ house. Finally after our short break Danny said, “Are you ready to go, brother?” and motioned over to the waiting motorcycle.

I stared at it and said, “Perhaps after another drink,” and dragged it out a little bit more.

Finally it was no use putting it off so I hopped on the bike once more and we were off. The ride back was basically the same as the ride in, except that the brother took me straight to our house. I very slowly unclenched by hands and gingerly stepped off, checking to see if all my body parts were intact.

So, all in all, it was a very terrifying ordeal, but in retrospect it was a good experience.

In retrospect.


FRIENDS AND PESTILENCE

The same afternoon I returned from the Isletas we received a visit from some friends in our old assignment, Luis and his wife, Jesse. We knew they were coming and they planned on staying the night so they could attend the meeting with us in English the next morning. It was a very pleasant visit, and we went out to eat a couple of times, which is always my favorite thing to do. They enjoyed the meeting in English, for which we had a nice attendance of 30, and we went out to eat again afterwards. That evening, however, we found out that they had missed the bus ride back to Santa Teresa, so they stayed another night and left early the next morning.

It was a nice visit, but near the end of it I began coming down with something. I don’t know where I could have gotten it from. Luis, Jesse and Marlene weren’t sick, and I couldn’t recall anyone at the Isletas being sick, either. Perhaps it was from some lake water that had splashed into my mouth when it was gaping open at the shock and terror of that harrowing boat ride. I don’t know.

But I felt terrible pretty soon and on Tuesday I even slept through Marlene going out and coming back from service.

My beard grew out and everything. I looked like a disheveled homeless person. For a moment I thought that I might perhaps have the pig-flu thing, until Marlene suggested that we go to the Hospital and have them take samples. Yeah right. I’m sorry, but I’m still majorly paranoid about Nicaraguan hospitals.

“Maybe it’s not the pig-flu,” I told her. She agreed.

Normally I get tempted into milking my sickness a bit, because Marlene tends to feel sorry for me and gives me extra attention. But along with that loving care she is very, very strict on what I can or can’t eat. No candy, no Coke, no ice cream, no pizza. Only chicken soup, chicken broth, disgusting Vitamin C drinks, and orange juice.

And medicine after medicine. Sometimes she’ll wake me in the middle of the night and give me a small pill with a glass of water. I tend to be quite paranoid when I wake up in the middle of the night. “What is this?” I ask.

“Just take it,” she says.

“Why don’t you want to tell me what it is?”

“Just take it and go to sleep.”

“All right.”

And I swallow it, hoping she is not poisoning me. But I always wake up just fine in the morning.


A VISIT FROM A HIDEOUS MOTHER AND HER DISGUSTING CHILDREN

Don’t worry, I’m not talking negatively of anyone in our congregation. This mother was a truly hideous creature. Literally.

A few nights ago Marlene and I were reading or something when I got the urge to get a snack. On my way out of the back area of the house, I unfortunately happened upon a gecko that had recently died (I didn’t measure its body temperature, but the lack of a swarm of ants eating it indicated that it had been a recent demise).

I switched on the light to look for a plastic bag to pick it up with, when my eyes were immediately riveted to a large shadowy insect-like creature crouching near the wall trying to avoid detection. Upon a closer look, I could see it was a scorpion about 4 to 5 inches long. But in the gloomy darkness, it looked like it was lying upside down. I squinted at it, thinking that perhaps it had died, and noticed probably 30 legs on it. I frowned, trying to remember if I had ever heard of a weird centipede/scorpion creature. I decided that although I didn’t remember hearing of any such thing, one encounters many strange never-before-contemplated creatures in Nicaragua, so I yelled for Marlene to come take a look.

She arrived and promptly freaked out. Fortunately the dogs were asleep somewhere in the nice air-conditioned bedroom. I could tell that the creature knew we were talking about it, but it didn’t move. I asked Marlene to get me some sort of heavy, blunt object to kill it with, preferably a cement block or something.

“We don’t have any cement blocks,” she said. “But I can get you the machete.”

I shook my head and told her that I didn’t want to risk getting it angry but chopping off one of its pincer-claws and then making it attack us. (Some of the scorpions in Nicaragua are very aggressive, although I didn’t know if we were looking at one of those species or not.)

I finally just took the broom in my hand and raised and lowered it towards the creature, practicing my swing. I knew I would have to get it with the hard wooden edge above the bristles if I was to kill it. If I missed, it would probably scurry away from me and towards Marlene.

“One, two, three!” I exclaimed, and gave it a good shot. Unfortunately, the creature didn’t die instantly, but scurried away towards Marlene. And if that wasn’t horrible enough, I now realized that all of the multiple “legs” that I thought I saw were actually about 100 baby scorpions that had been resting on their disgusting, hideous excuse for a mother.

Upon the first glancing blow, they scurried in all directions. I stepped on as many as I could, at the same time as I repeatedly beat the mother to death. It was really rather disgusting. After I killed her, I started killing as many of her children as possible. (It sounds terrible, but it was in self defense! Their poison could easily make our dogs very sick or even kill them.)

After I was sure that I had gotten most of them, I poured bleach on the whole cement area and also in the dirt that some of the children had run into. We then thoroughly washed the whole area and went to sleep. Marlene had nightmares. I, for some reason, dreamed about being at Giordano’s pizza in Chicago.


OUR TRIP TO CHONTALES

Last Saturday we took a long anticipated trip to Santo Tomás, Chontales, to visit the Lau family. We ended up renting a car in Granada and drove a good 3 hours around the lake into the interior of the country. It is a breathtaking drive, going through rolling green hills and past picturesque lakes.



We finally arrived and ate a nice lunch that they had prepared for us, and then went to the meeting at the group. It was a very nice sized group, and it was actually the Congregation Bible Study, Theocratic Ministry School and Service Meeting (they have that on Saturday, and the other meeting on Sunday).



We got a kick out of a very young publisher doing the reading. He was very enthusiastic.



There was close to 30 present, and they all seemed to be very cheerful and zealous.

Afterwards we spent some time at the Lau’s new house up there, which is actually quite comfortable, and then we went to dinner where I had a pretty good steak.

We had thought about staying the night and going to the meeting the next day, but we didn’t want to leave the doggies by themselves so we headed back later that evening. It was night time on the way back, through a winding mountainous road with about a hundred semi trucks blowing past us at ridiculous speeds. Combine that with some gory details Silvia told us about some recent accidents on that same road, and it made for a very stressful drive back. I don’t think I want to drive in Nicaragua at night anymore. There are no lights on the roads, the stripes on the road are not reflective (they’re just painted on with regular white paint), everyone drives with their high-beams on regardless of whether you flash the “hey-man-turn-down-your-lights” signal at them, and they drive like they’re being chased by someone. It was amazing that we made it home alive.

And now, for the last subheading:

NOW WHO’S THE SICK, DISGUSTING ONE?

Well, not disgusting. Just sick. I speak of my beautiful, wonderful wife.

As of this writing, about a week after I started this post, I am no longer sick, you will be happy to know. However, Marlene is currently battling a serious cold. She sticks it out, but unfortunately the other day we were in service when she started to get sick, and a rain broke over us. She has since gotten worse, although she denies that the rain did anything.

She’s getting plenty of rest, though, and it’s not a serious thing. But now it’s my turn to cram cough drops down her throat, ha ha!

And restrict her from all sugary drinks and snacks.

Isn’t life beautiful?