Hidden Water

Top Ten Moments from High Sierra Ski Tour 2008

Escape From Bishop: Ski Mountaineering into the Kearsarge Basin

The trip sounded great: we are getting the gang back together, going in with packs and alpine touring skis to  High Sierra backcountry over 11,000' Kearsarge Pass, and spending a week skiing and skinning along the Sierra Crest, in some of the most remote and spectacular mountain basins in North America.

Of course, I underestimated the damage which rental ski boots could do to my feet in less than 2 days, and overestimated the joy of carrying heavy packs and skis over mountain passes, and overall, learned a lesson about ski mountainering: it is a lot of hard work and pain,  which is why those backcountry winter basins are so empty and gorgeous. We ended up escaping back to Bishop with me limping in borrowed tennis shoes, and Dwight skiing out with a broken upper arm. But, like they say in the Grand Canyon, if it was easy, anyone could do it. The days in the upper Kearsarge Basin, living in alpine beauty with good companions, and solving the series of small challenges that winter camping consists of, were the payoff.

Top Ten Moments from Kearsarge Basin :

1) Singing Amazing Grace and playing guitar with Richard Fartswell, Truckee street musician, and a dozen enthusiastic Russian tourists, the night before Rendezvous with friends in Reno airport. Waking and meeting the gang at Reno, making the trip finally real, filling up Tim's truck, and  sharing the sense of excitement of the coming outing.

2) Packing food, gear, and  weighting equipment on the lawn at Darla's house , Bishop, California the night before. You have to love good gear to enjoy winter camping, as it makes all the difference. How heavy is that bivvy sack? Which fleece jacket should I bring? Room for a little whiskey? Sleep on the lawn after closing the packs, with our snowy mountain destinations in sight.

3) Drive south down the Owens Valley on 395, the loveliest highway in America, again. Remember living in that hot summer valley as a 20-something geologist, teaching and learning at UC Summer Field Geology camp.

4) I cannot say that the climb up to Kearsarge Pass was a top moment, so I won't. Gasp. It hurt. But, arriving at Kearsarge Pass, and looking west, down and into the High Sierra backcountry, the promised land of snowy solitude and stony beauty, was.

 

5)  Taking off my ski boots of torture at night and having the foot pain stop.

6) Awaking in Kearsarge Basin, disoriented from a nap on the snow, exhausted from carrying pack and skis up, and feeling the momentary utter surprise at finding myself in such a thrilling setting, high amid lovely peaks.

7) Talking politics, world events, ski gear and old stories with old friends, while sprawled in camp melting snow and boiling water for hot meals.

8) Hiking out in borrowed sneakers on Day 5, worried about my feet, starting early to move on the still-frozen crust, and getting safely up to pass before snow got soft.

9)Skiing the scary long snowfield ski run down from the pass, with potential consequences for a long fall, heart thumping, and legs quivering, pack on my back and snow flying by as I chanted, 'Keep it together, keep it together, ..." and made it to the flats.

10) Careful technical descent over remaining snow fields to trailhead, using ski poles and sneakers in deep snow, mixing sliding, heelplants, unexpected post-holing, and careful walking to arrive back at cars intact. Every step out was tricky and it took a couple thousand.

Thanks to all my Supporters on this trip:

Robin Hayes, enabler extraordinaire

Mike Hayes, John Bowman: winter camping gear supply

Brian in Truckee: comfortable lodging and altitude

Darla in Bishop: staging area, gear prep and home invasion

David Loewen, Pilates on Main, Gardiner, NY: body core training and prep

Richard Fartswell, Truckee musician: surreal humor, singing Russians, and good music.

Tim, Al, Gillian, Jan and Dwight: about as good companions as you could find for a ski trip or a high altitude prison break.

Thoughts on Leaving

My dogs know what it means when the suitcases come out, and they whine and slouch around the door. I am going again, and they can't stop me,  and yet I must wait a bit. Every traveler knows the feeling, just before leaving home (again) for a big outing in the world. The accelerating rush of preparation mixed with work tasks, the must-do-before-I'm-gone list, the gradual shift in perspective from " I can get it all done before I go", to  "I can get all the vital stuff done", to "ah, this stuff will be here when I come back". The excitement of the coming trip, mixed with leave taking and a suddenly enhanced appreciation of family, home and the beauty of the every day. But, Joe gotta go.

Now I am on the brink again, bound for Reno, and a long ski trip into the Range of Light, Sierra Nevada backcountry. The high elevation lake basins there are among the most scenic and pleasing locations on this planet, and I have not been among them for way too long. My window to see them ever again is closing, as my knees are going.  This trip is also a reunion with my running mates, old geology grad school and hard-core kayak trip buddies. Winter camping and randonee ski gear to climb and descend long empty basins are part of the program. It seems like a lot of work to get solitude and some inner calm, but If You Don't Go, You'll Never Know.

Only the traveler feels the keenness of joy at a return to home, and only the traveler finds new family and second homes everywhere they go. SO, go we must, and may we return to be embraced and healed and rested and launched again.

Top Ten Moments from Pavones, Costa Rica March 2008

From Hayes Family Trip, Pavones, Costa Rica

"A Family Vacation is a Contradiction in Terms"

1) A Scarlet Macaw, the most outrageous of wild birds, settles into Almond Tree outside the Cantina, as Ben and I watch. Two-foot long ridiculous tail flutters above us as we creep forward across the parking lot and watch it crack nuts. The locals leave their bar stools to come gaze with us, and smile with satisfaction.

2) Goofy children grinning and splashing in the hotel pool, well, like children, playing with underwater camera and self timer to get the definitive underwater grin shot. They act like they like each other.

3) The Jungle Vine Swing,  a native vine twisted into artisan's work by locals for perfect sketchy rock climb, swing and big splash into Rio Claro jungle river swimming hole. Sudden rain downpour to soak us as we swim just feels that much more more jungly. Sam test-pilots it, then Ben directs Vine Video of himself dropping,(YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xDAnftEVUo )

4) Horseback ride with family becomes full-on horseback gallop with Eva, as our pair of spirited, willing horses, running hard,side-by-side along mountain roads, leave other horses way behind. I am barely within my ability (but trust the horses and hold on). Squeezing my  Gunpowder quarter horse hard with my legs to hold on is like pressing the accelerator, and our paired horses sprinted in mutual competition,well matched. Eva passing me with a determined grin on the inside at full speed, Gunpowder surging to retake the lead, thru shadow and clouds of sudden flower fragrance, with purple sunset over distant ocean, when .. a toucan bursts out of bushes and escorts us down an avenue of jungle trees at eye level. Yow! I am still walking funny.

5) Dawn hike and skinny dipping in Rio Claro with my Jewish Jungle Goddess, no one there but us and the Blue Morpho butterflies.

6) Cool flights in and out , as our single engine plane flies down the Pacific Coast from San Jose, across the wild Osa Peninsula, and then cranks a turn over water and drops into Golfito, the fishing village with jungle airstrip that accesses Pavones. That nice young guy who took our tickets is also the pilot, and I can watch final approach from seat just behind him.   

7) Playing guitars and telling stories with the Canadians from the cabina next door, as Sam buys his first legal beer (in Spanish), and  Mark from BC tells us about (aboot) his scorpion bite.

8) Ben returns to the (powerful, demanding ) surf 3 days after a bad wave/rock smash, and paddles out calmly, facing his fear.

9) Hot lazy afternoons with the full team on the porch, hiding from sun in hammock and playing chess and Boggle marathons. Music jams with Sam on harmonica and guitar, playing blues and ska.

10) Big Swell arrives on Day 3, and Dad finally gets to surf alone on Day 4, when family goes on Jungle Hike. After excitedly paddling over-the-falls, I calm down, find my takeoff spot, and drop cleanly into  half a dozen fast, steep, challenging waves, thru a bottom turn, and burst into a moment of speed, balance, light and magic. Racing down a wall of green water, overhead wave power unfolding in front of me and exploding foam behind, all in motion, all frozen, a breathless heartbeat, until the hanging green lip drops on my head, in an engulfing liquid crush. I surface after the hold-down to capture my board,  battle my way back outside, and try again.  My dream wave arrived, and found me. I finally stagger ashore grinning.

 

Santa Cruz: No Rest for the Cool Crowd

Santa Cruz, California, March 2008

Returning again to Santa Cruz for a week of work, I realize how much work it is to stick there. It may be the coolest town on the planet, but being part of it is not as easy as it looks.

Now, I am no tourist here. Santa Cruz is a skein of memories for me: I lived there 20 years, got a grad degree at Slug U., had my children, bought and sold houses, raised a family and a business. My name is on the wall list of notable beer-drinkers in a downtown tavern, I got the secret local knowledge you can only acquire over years, and I paid for it with my youth. I know where to park downtown for free without getting a ticket, I know the best topless beaches versus the best surfing beaches on the North Coast, what combination of tide, wind  and swell creates perfect left barrels at Davenport Landing, how to get from downtown Santa Cruz to Capitola when the freeway is clogged (almost always now), and where to get great carnitas burritos in any neighborhood (OK, that one is easy in California).

But now I have jumped ship, moved my family back to the Old Country, the full four seasons and white winters of the Hudson Valley. We keep our footprint in Santa Cruz, though, with a condo for summer living, and with my monthly returns to work at groundwater consulting. Now I see more clearly how not mellow it is: everyone is stuck on the freeway, talking to their partner about childcare, trying to make the frickin' mortgage payment and still get in a little longboard session (or Ultimate team practice, or climbing gym, Wilder State Park mountain bike outing or running in Pogonip with doggie friends, or whatever).   

In Santa Cruz, the pulse never stops. There is always new surfers in your lineup, new restaurants to try, another batch of good-looking young people and sketchy panhandlers on Pacific Garden, no parking to be found in Capitola since 1979, fog in the morning, and blue skies after lunch, pretty girls on cruiser bikes, pretty Moms in mini-vans, too many cars on the freeway, hummingbirds in the garden, good music coming to town and Realtors setting up and taking down Open House signs. There is no rest for the cool.

My Blockeo: Health Care in Bolivia and Why I Heart El Anti-spasmodico

Bad Night in ViIla Rivera

On my ninth or tenth night in Bolivia, sleeping back in our cozy Villa Rivera  hotel after a weekend of partying in big-city Cochabamba, I awoke with bad stomach pain. Not really my stomach, I realized with a gasp, as another  surge of scary intense pain cut through my guts. Deep in my guts pain, from below the belt line, and quickly radiating into my lower back panels, like the worst slipped-disc pain I ever had. I had been dreaming about being attacked by tigers, and now was covered in sweat. Slipping down the hall to the bathroom, my brain reeled: what the hell? Some medical condition? Burst Appendix? Kidney Stone? Sciatic nerve? I tried to imagine the long complicated road to a medical evacuation, as I hunched over the toilet.

My trip to Bolivia so far had caused me only a few minor digestive bumps and grinds, a day of travelers diarrhea, quickly passing (so to speak). I had settled down, and the solid diet of potatoes, potatoes, rice, a little chicken, rare guinea pig,  and plenty beer suited me just fine. Of course, I had eaten the largest steak in Bolivia the day before,  with a pitcher of Sangria, at a  fancy "meat palace" restaurant in Cochabamba, to start our roving party night. Now I was scared. Another wave of pain hit me and sent me to the tile floor. This was different and something bad.

What is that Barfing Noise you are Making, Roomie?

No poop, and I could not barf,  though the nausea from pain made me want to and try to, let it out. My roomie, Tim, a solid cowboy from Big Sky country, heard the horrid retching noises (all tile bathrooms echo so) and found me rolling in pain on the floor with my head in wastebasket trying to barf.

"This should be a recruiting poster for Water For People Volunteers", he said dryly, before going straight to wake up a driver and take me to the local hospital. He stayed with me from then on.

Lucky for me, ViIla Rivera had a small hospital, a Puesto de Salud, and we were at the gate at dawn. I was led right into the trauma room by a nurse, who went for the doctor. I paged through my Spanish Dictionary, preparing for the language challenge of describing my symptoms accurately. Another important situation not covered in my language classes, and I was feeling less than prime. The pain was coming in serious waves, and in between I just felt very weak and scared. There were posters for Rabies treatment and Dysentery on the walls, and big old stains on the floor, and I look around the room and wondered how many people had died in there. Not if they had, but how many.

The Doctor, nurse, and desk attendant all came in. I had the full attention of the entire medical staff of the Villa Rivera hospital. The doctor was a slim, intense, pretty woman of 30 with simple gold earrings. Not from around there, I'm guessing.  She got right to the diagnosis, asking me direct questions about urinating and Diarrhea (that is not my problem, but the opposite is), about what I had eaten and drank in the last 24 hours. The nurse helped her explain or extend some questions I did not understand, (how do you conjugate the verb for urinate?) all in clear Spanish, and I could feel their group medical intelligence focused on my situation like a calm relentless beam of light. It felt good, reassuring,  healing in fact.

I told them in the last 24 hours, in the course of a big party night in Cochabamba, I ate a really big steak, Sangria (with fruit? they quickly asked, and yes, damn, I ate all the fruit in the pitcher, I said), couple of empanadas with meat, rolls, couple glasses of red wine, sweet pie for dessert, and 5 or 6 beers later on that night once we were rolling. And meat-on-a-stick from a street vendor after midnight at the music concert, and a bowl of cheap soup and roll at a market stall before, and, uh, I had been chewing coca leaves, lots of coca leaves, with that black tar stuff they give you with the leaves. They looked at each other and then back at me.

What a pig, their faces said. The Doctor said to me gently, "Hombre, no wonder. In Bolivia, You can not do this.. I cannot eat and drink like this without problems in Bolivia."

Que es Blockeo?

"Did you spit or swallow the coca juice" asked the nurse. Some of both, I said. They looked at each other again.

"Blockeo" said the doctor significantly. The Nurse and assistant nodded. I nodded. "Si, si, un blockeo, sin duda". The doctor left the room. "Uh, what is Blockeo?" I asked the nurse timidly.

The doctor came right back in with a giant Dr. Frankenstein needle in hand, like a 1950's needle, the kind with a round metal thumb hole at the top and a permanent long steel spike like you would use for a very sick horse.  She looked at me, serious and grave. "You have intestinal blockage and colon spasm, very serious, and we will give you injection of anti-spasmodico. If the pain stops, and you eat very calm diet for two days, you will be fine. If pain continues, come back fast. And never swallow the coca juice."  Strangely, the needle (and the confident answer from this competent young woman) gave me a feeling of  relief, a sense of hearing a sound diagnosis and a clear treatment. Give me the needle, Doc. This is big pain, it needs a big needle.

She injected the anti-spasmodico into the meat of  my thigh, plunking the needle in as calmly as a frat guy tapping a keg, and leaning forward to plunge down the shaft with her thumb. My brain screamed, but I only twitched a little.  I swear, I could feel the pain reducing immediately, just melting away. It was great. I wanted to cheer then, to hug them for them for getting it so right the first try. It was like a giant fist was unclenching from my guts. I suddenly felt weak and sleepy, and so grateful. They charged me 27 Bolivianos, something less than 5 bucks. May God Bless and Keep them Safe Always.  I ventured a joke in Spanish as I left, wobbly, "Me amo el anti-spasmotico", (I love the Anti-spasmotico) and my medical team smiled and walked us to the door.

That day I slept, then rose at noon and then entered data into the laptop while the other mapping teams were still out. I felt mostly recovered by dinner, but  Dona Maria of our hotel made me special bland meals of rice and white chicken breast for days. She made me promise to never eat street vendor food again, shaking a finger at me when she learned I had eaten a bowl of soup in the Cochabamba market that cost 12 cents.  We all stopped swallowing the Coca juice, and some stopped chewing altogether for a while. I returned the iron-clad food rule of "boil it, cook it, peel it or avoid it" , removing lettuce and raw fruit slices from my diet. For the rest of the trip, I used the phrase "Me amo el anti-spasmotico" whenever someone asked how I was feeling. And it was the truth.  

Bolivia Water For People; Mapping and Assessment, September 2007

From 30,000 feet, the Amazon Rain forest fills my window, stretching unbroken in all directions to the horizon, a level sea of green treetops, with towering clouds and several great rivers visible  meandering through it. An image of vast unknowable wildness: an lifetime stock of weird bugs and unvisited riverbanks!  I know there has been lots of rain forest lost, but on my flight to La Paz, Bolivia, I finally grasped how large the Amazon still is. And now, here come the Andes.

My first trip to South America in a decade has begun, as Water For People volunteers from US gather in LA Paz to conduct a 2-week program of mapping water and sanitation systems in the Altiplano of Bolivia. My pre-trip reading included background on the new socialist president Evo Morales, friend of the coca growing region, and depressing statistics on Bolivia, the poorest country in South America (now that is saying something). I saw Altiplano views of bare, stony ground and women in bowler hats, and read a fascinating history of recent Water Wars (2002), with real fighting, riots and deaths over water price hikes, and  burnt buses and "victory" for the little guys in the regional capital city we are going to: Cochabamba, Bolivia.

"Los Golondrinas Nunca Migran de Cochabamba"

The swallows never leave Cochabamba, the saying goes, because the weather there is perfect, always spring-like. There are 600,000 people here in a city I never heard of, and there are over 50 different overlapping, half-functional water systems. The Cochabamba Water Wars started when the government gave the city contract to Bechtel, who jacked up the rates and tried to build a big pipeline, pissing off the entire city. Luckily we will not be working there.Our group of US volunteers meet with each other, and with the folks from Bolivia-based Agua Para El Pueblo, and we are off, traveling in cars to the the high valley towns beyond Cochabamba, where our mapping work will be done. Spray-painted graffiti on the way says "Coca No Es Cocaina" and "Viva EVO!".

Our mission is for Water for People, a Denver-based US water group supported by North American water professionals.  Mapping and Assessment, Year One of a Five Year plan, is intended to identify, prioritize, and improve water and sanitation systems in this part of Bolivia. Lessons from decades of failed international water projects have contributed to the WFP approach of identifying capable communities, requiring their participation and partial funding, and partnering with local organizations and local government to try to have some follow-through. Agua Para el Pueblo is a well-run local NGO, with a core group of Bolivian engineers and planners, a track record of building water systems, running education programs, and sticking around to see how things work.  Our goal this trip is to visit, photograph, locate (with GPS waypoints) and collect information on the systems at 120+ communities, including the schools and hospitals. And for the US volunteers, you know, maybe also meet the people, learn and teach each other a little about the water system stuff we love,  and make some human connections on vacation that goes beyond ordering another beer at a resort pool. Of course, we will still be drinking beer at night, because we are geologists and engineers doing field work. Beer to us is like...the wind that moves the willows. 

"Hay Muchas Fiestas en Bolivia"

"There are many festivals in Bolivia". Our driver states this as we pass an impromtu street dance party, and proudly repeats this phrase so often on the 3-hour trip from Cochabamba to Villa Rivera, (the village where will will start mapping), we start giggling each time, and so he says it more. We hit a local chicken pretty hard, but the driver checks the mirror and keeps going: he shrugs, "Solo esta golpeado" . Chicken got up, so its not dinner yet. We arrive at the sparkling Hotel Carmelita, an island of organization and cleanliness created by Dona Maria, and meet the rest of the competent Agua Para El Pueblo staff and drivers. They are all about five foot tall, making us gringo 6-footers look like NBA players.

A whirlwind of energy this first morning, as we are all introduced, the workgroups are listed, teams form up and grab maps, lunches and water bottles, and everyone goes off to start mapping. We never did our group practice to standardize mapping procedures, (which will come back to haunt us), but the energy to do field work is not to be denied.

Over the next two weeks, images and moments accumulate as we move through our list of communities, and gain experience in the daily work of collecting information. This is a good group: friendly, competent, work-minded but fun, rolling with the changes, getting the data in. Field work requires discipline, to be correct and complete the first time, in the midst of the dust and confusion, and opportunities to recapture data are rare. I learn this when my crew drives three hours to redo a site from Day One where tmy GPS and camera was not working.

My Spanish phrases come easier after long field days driving, mapping and chatting with Freddi, Elvis and Abraham. They teach me a few Quechua phrases to make the bowler-hatted ladies crack a smile. Long vistas of dry stony hills, of ladies in a variety of formal hats driving herds of sheep from no place to nowhere, of gasping hikes at 12,000 foot elevation up to hidden concrete spring boxes, with an ancient local dude in shower slippers who is hiking twice as fast as me, with a giant ball of coca leaves in his mouth. I gotta get me some Coca, my tired oxygen-starved brain says. We move the cracked lid at one for a photo, and find a pair of dead doves floating inside the spring box, decomposed to a state near jelly. I climb in to remove them, and ask the local guy if people noticed the taste." Well, all the children have been sick" he says thoughtfully, looking at the gooey birds. My recommendation as an international water expert: Fix the lid, fella. We stand looking over the shimmering valley to the adobe houses far below. Water in a dry land is the single vital thing, the point where all concerns converge.

We are fed multiple lunches at the communities, sometimes 3 a day, of salty country cheese and boiled potatoes, water-swollen corn kernels eaten with fingers. Communities that are lobbying us for a good system break out the Guinea Pig and Chicha. At the dry-well village of Ichocollo, a crowd of 30 gathers to describe their need for a water system, then watch us eat roast guinea pig (a delicious rich meat taste, but the little feet w/claws take some getting used to in your hand). Each place and time guinea pig is served, one of the hosts takes me aside and tells me how great it is for sexual vitality. I have to take their word for it. but  I recognize the honor they do us by serving us their limited protein.

Old gap-grinned ladies in colorful shawls and leathery guys keep arriving in the courtyard compound as word spread of the visit. They bring forth the plastic bucket of Chicha, a sweet corn homebrew, and all praise it mightily ("this is the good stuff, the old-school homebrew, my Grandma's recipe, not the modern crap that you read about with grain alcohol added"). I can sense the moment calls for my participation, and after spilling a little for Pachamama, the earth goddess as Freddi taught me, I down the Chicha, glass after  glass, as the comunity nods in solemn, silent approval. The hostess,  Dona Isabella, a sprite of indeterminate age in black pigtails, grins each time and refills my glass from the plastic bucket. The Chicha has a pleasant corn malt taste, and is slightly electric, like fresh salsa that has been in the back of the fridge a little too long. Soon, my bladder is bursting, and my teeth and nose are numb. I think of the Mooseturd Pie story, and I do not complain. "It's good, though", I say, and no one gets my joke, just like at home.. Dona Isabella has clearly staked her community honor and chance of a future water supply on getting me blasted at this lunch. Finally, to prevent her from refilling my glass again, I place it high up in the rafters, where no one else can reach it, to much general laughter, and we make our escape. Ichocollo, you got my vote for a new well and water tank, and I told everyone at Water For People that.

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Top Ten Moments from 2008 Nicaragua Water for People mission

1) Getting used to daily Rooster Alarm Clocks before dawn, including in downtown Managua hotel.

2) Official small town Nica greeting and group dinner in Wiwili, with local Mayor and Flag escort thru town, as we all get acquainted and feed.

3) Freddy tells me on day hike how Cuban doctors fixed his cleft palate, and gave him the power of speech as a child.

4) Rio Coco Boys do wild nighttime shopping trip and free-for-all guys negotiation session, to provision for our dawn river trip departure.

5)  First crocodile sighting (una largata) on the Rio Coco river bank, and first wild parrots along Rio Coco shore.

6) Running rapids downstream in 45-foot canoe with outboard motor.

7) Meeting Ramon Gutierez of Plis Abajo, the Indigenous Community Field Agent, and visiting his rancho home office to obtain GPS coordinates and water/sanitation system info for 14 mountain Indian communities we never would have found.

8) River border crossing (sin papeles) to visit time-machine frontier trading post,  for our first cold beer in days, at Boca De Espanol, Honduras.

9) Collapse on my bed  back in Hotel Central, Wiwili, after long day entering all GPS coordinates, photos and questionnaire data into laptop, listening to the soulful Staples sing "I'll Take You There". My Nicaragua field stations were bagged and tagged, and it felt good.

10) Leaping onto a 4th bus transfer with my El Porvenir buddy Wilbert, on our epic 10-hour bus journey back to Managua, abandoning our broke-down bus on the shoulder to dash for an over-packed local bus for final leg to capital, with Wilbert throwing our luggage and guitar up to me as bus begins to rolls away, then him leaping for the rack on the back and in by the exit door. Watch our stranded bus disappear behind us. We will make it to Managua today after all. Yes, we were traveling men.

And finally,

Moving through traffic to my departure at the Managua Airport, my driver asked my impressions from my visit: I said, I realized now the reason why there are so many poets in Nicaragua, is the ever-present  mix of beauty and sadness.

I could not have found the Spanish to say that when I arrived, but now it comes out clean and elegant. The taxi driver agreed with me solemnly,

" Si, hombre, asi es la verdad" and we nodded wisely together, street poets stuck in traffic. 

Nicaragua Water for People; Day 2, Training Day in Wiwili

Welcome to Wiwili, Nicaragua I awake early in the Hotel Central, Wiwili, Nicaragua, to the rooster alarm clock. Multiple roosters, including one on the tin roof right above my head, in fact, for maximum effect. Foggy morning and soft dawn light as the small town gradually surfaces, doors open, local ladies broom the street in front of their shops and a horseman clops past on the cobblestone empty street. No cars. Warm but not yet hot. Looks like Maconudo from  One Hundred Years of Solitude, Year 50 or so. Our Four Mapping and Assessment groups, which each include a gringo volunteer (Water For People), a local rep (from the Alcalde's office and/ or from El Porvenir), a driver, and a translator,  are off to practice the GPS mapping and interview process today together. Our group of American volunteers, with Nica/ El Porvenir Fundacion  staff, hired drivers and translators, all gather on the sidewalk out front, an interesting collection of rumpled hairstyles and clothing. Today is training day. I am the veteran of previous WFP Bolivia mapping mission, using the same equipment and goals, and today is my official reason for being here. Alone in my room, I have spent an hour with my checklists and cheat sheet,  and have my training rap ready.  My favorite old metal clipboard, scarred from years of consulting drilling projects, has made the trip with me and is at hand, loaded with questionnaires.  I feel the familiar excitement and optimism of the start of a field project, and the lurking chaos.. But we have a plan, a clipboard, and a sharp pencil, so onward! Over coffee, rice and beans, I summarize mapping tips for Volunteers, and we all get used to the GPS and digital cameras. We gather again at the Alcalde office, crowed around a large wall map of the district. Distinct villages are pointed out, road conditions discussed, everyone is struggling for each others names. I traced the line of the river that runs through town, Rio Coco, international boundary with Honduras to North, no bridges or paved roads,  across it, and the only access to the remote Meskito communities downstream. My  secret mission is to get the river trip mapping assignment, after training is done. "Be careful what you wish for", says a voice in my  head, but I know I am going. Rob struggles with logistics and distances, trying to accommodate the Alcalde's priorities, my departure in 5 days, use both vehicles for villages, and get two boats on the river for mapping at the same time. A wishlist of  150 communities to visit is produced, but it does not have any breakdown for the 4 teams, or grouping by road versus river access. Listening in on the rapid Spanish between Rob and Mayor's staff, running a few steps behind the careening language train, I have my doubts. Without a kitchen stove, dry bags, sleeping bags, food containers, or any of the myriad gear I am accustomed to, I wonder how a 4-5 day river trip will work. Where will I sleep, for example? Launching tomorrow at dawn? Little specific  route or destination preparation has occurred, and here we all are together in the room ready to start. In the noisy scrum around the stained map, I feel the chaos factor crowding in. Steady now. Its Not Chaos, Its Just Not Quite  Predictable In a previous moment of insight in Bolivia (it came to me chewing coca leaves on a long hike and speaking philosophically in Spanish with the guys I worked with there), I realized that the biggest challenge for me in this international water work is accepting a loss of control and of ability to influence outcomes. I don't mind the bugs, the hard riding, the lack of comforts. But to accept that I am not in charge of the schedule, that I have only a partial understanding of the motivation, the goals and abilities of most members of our group, and that I don't even know just where this bus is going, or what we are waiting around for, is hard. It is a learned skill to let go a little without giving in, accept uncertainty, try to point the group to a decent start, and in a general direction, and then cheerfully accept and adapt to your fate. Like on a Grand Canyon river trip, sometimes you must embrace the confusion. Rob and I huddle in a corner, away from the group. Daylight is burning.  I tell him launching two five-day river trips requires at least a half day of provisioning before launching, and we better get started on the training this morning.  I have gotten verbal OK from Dave, the youngest WFP Volunteer, to do River mission, but the other Volunteers are wary, have no Spanish, no camping gear, opt for the cars and the hotel. SO, river trip for Joe is on! But what about the boats and required gasoline? We agree that I will take all four mapping teams out to the nearest village for group training, and Rob will stay in Mayors office and resolve the schedule, hire boats, and get planned. He is comfortable with the uncertainty, calm and friendly, and it rubs off on me. A friendly holler to the room, and we pile out into the vehicles to go do our community mapping practice run. " If This is The Easy Community, Where are the Hard Ones? " But "the easy community" we all go to practice on, turns out to be one hour by car and then 4+ hours walking round trip, to reach a handful of houses, a school and corn fields, at a bend in the Rio Coco.  We gamely tramp thru the mud, around new bean and corn plants, through lovely vistas of forest and fields. The land is green and vibrant from the rainy season, the day warm but not oppressive. My driven inner manager voice grumbles that I should have done the group training in Wiwili, then split up into 4 groups, instead of wasting the day all going to one village.  I am not on Nicaragua time yet. However, the long walk is not wasted, as our  group of 15 or so strings out along the trail, talking and joking in Spanish and English, feeling each other out and making human connections. Hiking in the woods works the usual magic on people and soon we are moving along smiling, in animated mobile social clumps. It feels like a geology field trip outing, with our sweaty faces, clipboards and cameras. At the village, we are an invasion. The leader, once located, makes a dignified formal greeting, a statement of hope amid poverty, and pointedly addresses the Gringos from the fabled foreign land to carry a message of fellowship. Touched by his eloquence, and emboldened by my hiking Spanish practice, I step forward and reply to this earnest kind man, a veteran of the Sandinista revolution and US-funded Contra War, that we will share the news of the kindness we received. I remember to use the Usted form of formal address, and stretch my language muscles to attempt to rise to this community moment. All satisfied with our role playing, we commence taking GPS points, digital photos, and Freddi does the Community interview for with their leader. My impression is poverty, but not squalor: the village has no running water or electricity, clean outhouses, hand-driven rope pump on a well, very little material goods other than machetes and plastic tubs in the household, a marked absence of consumer crap like sunglasses or watches, jewelry or any other glitz. Skinny curious barefoot kids are everywhere, watching the grown-up ritual, very polite and do not approach us. As always, the mystery of How do the Women always have such clean clothes living and raising children, working on a dirt floor ? Walking back, I complement Freddi on his English. He is a talented interpreter, a language natural with the ability to boost my Spanish phrases with quick bits of insightful advice. He pauses and looks away, and then shyly tells me he was born with a speech impediment, did not speak until he was four, when Cuban doctors came to his village and did an operation for free. At school he discovered he was gifted at language, and now is bilingual, making a decent living, eloquent, and handsome to boot.  Those Cuban commie doctors set him free. He is already using his language skill to subtly flirt with Rebecca, the lovely US Water For People / Peace Corp volunteer.  Great story. Walking again, we pause to talk with two campesinos and I notice my legs are tingling. Looking down, I gasp as I see my shoes are swarming with ants and they are inside my pants. I am standing atop a giant anthill. Insect panic, and general amusement follows at my eruption into yelping, twitching,  foot smearing, pants dropping display. The ants have risen above my knees inside my pants, and I struggle to wipe them out before they gain my crotch.   Finally they are off my legs and feet, and then off my hands, with dozens of (*thankfully) mild bites spread around.  "Jose, you were standing on their roof" says the kind Carlos, shaking his head.  I am still scratching my legs now as I type this, but the bites were nothing by Fire Ant standards, and the comic moment was almost worth it. Our first community interview and mapping  assignment done, we all return to our cars, then to Wiwili village.  One community down, 149 to go. At this rate we will be in Wiwili for 2 months not 2 weeks...It is almost dusk, and we meet Rob back at the riverside cafe/restaurant that will become our meal center for our stay. Rob is both concerned and pleased. We only got one community done all day, but he was able to work out a 4-team schedule and hire two boats (45-foot dugout canoes, hewn from a single log and powered with outboards), to make the river trips happen.

Nicaragua Water For People: Day 1, Caminos Malos, Gente Buena

It started with some innocent smuggling. Leaving my NY driveway at 3 AM, and driving into NYC, I boldly carried a  jug of the finest Maple Syrup past NYC/Laguardia TSA security, on into Miami, then into Nicaragua, exceeding the airline limit of 4 fluid ounces in my carry on luggage. The NYC security guys caught it on the X-ray,  checked the bottle seal, and let me slide when I explained the expatriate Canadian circumstances. Everything is negotiable in NYC if you make a human interest story connection. 

In Miami Airport, I had to leave the secure area during my layover (to get a Cuban sandwich and cafecito at La Carreta, my favorite airport restaurant in the world), so I stashed the syrup jug in a folded  wheelchair behind the AA airline counter near my gate. I thought I heard a clip of the James Bond  soundtrack playing as I checked for cameras or surveillance as  emerged from my syrup drop. I knew that Rob Bell, the Canadian expatriate director of El Porvenir, the Nicaraguan relief agency I was working with, needed a maple syrup fix bad after 4 years in country, and being a smuggler in the Miami airport made me feel like I belonged in Central America. It is a traditional lifestyle there, after all.  And I wanted Rob to send me on a river trip, so I was bringing the liquid bribe.

Soon I was landing in Managua at night , a sprawling capital with no obvious center, bounded by the darkness of Lake Managua on one side, with traffic and street lights in every other direction.  First use of Spanish, grab my guitar and bag, taxi through anonymous sprawl to the quiet hotel, more Spanish to get a late night  cheese sandwich and a beer rustled up by the kind lady behind the counter, and bed at midnight. On the move for 21 hours the first day.

In the morning, the first rooster crowed at 5 AM. Roosters, in the freaking hotel, in the capital. Not in the US anymore, Joe. There where 15 Methodists at breakfast in the hotel restaurant, some friendly overweight American coffee buyers, and coming up the steps, Rob Bell of El Porvenir, and 3 Nica staff guys.  Breakfasts of strong coffee and Gallo Pinto (red beans and rice, a staple), the other 4 American Water For People Volunteers (2 guys, 2 women, all friendly, competent, US water-professional types) emerged from hotel rooms, and  in no time we were loading into 2 Land Cruisers for the 8-hour drive to Wiwili, the end of the road and the start of our Water Mapping and Assessment project.

Well, there is nothing like a long car ride to get to know folks. No car music, mix of Spanish and English in our car, new faces for us and for them, and polite conversation gradually becomes friendly talk. Stop for lunch in Jinotega, the end of the good pavement. We were only going a couple hundred kilometers from Managua, but as the road changed to muddy ruts, the reason for the long drive became clear. As Cathy, WFP Volunteer from New Mexico said, " Shucks, 8 hours of driving would almost bring us back to Texas if we drove at  normal western highways speeds ". But we drove at 10-15 mph now, with no other traffic except big school buses that had special racks welded on top and back to allow dozens of guys to cling to the outside.

We pass women and girls washing laundry in streams, a teenager standing in a horsedrawn cart threading through city margin traffic, scrub covered volcanic highlands with cattle fences and cinder block homes, steep downhills and uphills. Conversation lulls, the car dozes. Mounted on horseback, a sweaty campesino leads two packhorses carrying lashed sacks, in a nostalgic scene devoid of  irony. A hydroelectric project and dammed reservoir in the hills. Spraypainted signs with government slogans that demonstrate Spanish idioms("Hecho Por El Pueblo, Para El Pueblo") and social forces ("Madres, Dar El Pecho a Su Bebe por Mejor Salud").  The dogs are very skinny. A threat of rain, so we stop and buy plastic sheeting to cover the luggage on the roof, and some super-sugary red soda (La Rojacita) that tastes like hummingbird feeder solution. Ten minutes later, a sudden downpour hits, making us all feel quite satisfied with ourselves and our dry luggage. The road becomes muddier.

Finally, we arrive in Wiwili, as darkness falls. A flurry of cell phone calls to locate the El Porvenir advance team staff. They are at the Wiwili Alcalde's office (roughly, the mayor/county government office), and we go there to meet them. Emerging stunned from our cramped vehicles, we are thrust into a round of friendly political greetings, ushered into the Alcalde's all-purpose utility room for a reunion (conference), as 20 chairs are pushed into a circle. My brain gropes for Spanish phrases, and for the names of those I have already met today, plus a dozen new ones. The Nicaraguan flag is carried into the room, and suddenly, a meeting is in session. The Localed is a big man with gold teeth, younger than me, and his formal greeting is translated with eloquence by Adrian. After greeting us, the Mayor explains that the Indigenous people in some remote areas have very little, but break everything, and do not value what is given to them, and unfortunately, this is their culture. Other citizens of this area should get some attention from our mission.  Hmmmm. Some history of tension there perhaps?

Rob of EL Porvenir speaks in Spanish, then English, and then it is my turn. I am introduced as the trainer for the mapping practice exercise for all mapping teams the next morning, and as nominal leader of Water For People Volunteers.  I take a breath, and launch into my best Spanish effort, acutely aware of the room of expectant faces. The old idea that fear of Public Speaking is stronger than fear of death flits through my mind, but I have had a chance to prepare a few good phrases. I boldly state that we are pleased to arrive, want to be messengers to our neighbors of the kindness we have encountered in Nicaragua and are interested in not only the water and sanitation systems, but also in the people and community. Full Stop. It comes out in a reasonable facsimile of Spanish and is at least understood, and everyone smiles. No one translates my speech for the other Volunteers, who look at me like "Thanks, I guess, what do we do now?".

The Mayor announces we are all going to dinner, and there is rejoicing. Cell phones flash everywhere. The restaurant in warned of 20 dinners coming. The staff wrap up the flagpole, and carry it through the street ahead of us to the restaurant (a block away), where they set it up at the head of the table. As we walk over, that mayor assures me this will result in a better meal and a fairer price. I ask jovially if he takes the flag everywhere, and he looks at me intently to see if I am joking.  I am not sure either, and quiet down for the rest of our walk.

A Mexican telenovela plays on TV, as multi-cultural confusion and feeding takes place. We gringo volunteers are not the only strangers, as the El Porvenir Staff and their 4 new translators (for us volunteers) have never been to Wiwili before, and so lots of meeting and evaluation is going on as fish and chicken, rice and beans, arrive on plates. Finally, the mayor picks up the tab with a flourish, and we decamp to the Hotel Central, a no-nonsense cinder block place where we are dished out keys and  find our simple clean rooms with cold water showers. A charming feature is all walls stop one foot below the tin roof, resulting in perfect sound interconnection among adjacent quarters. Conversations 2 rooms away can be clearly heard, and I have to turn on the water to hide my bathroom noises, as I listen to my neighbors, Rebecca and Kathy, settle in. I am tempted to call out "Good Night, Jon-Boy" as I rig my mosquito net and slide into my sheet sack, hand sewn and carried from NY. Finally, blessed rest again after a  long and challenging first day in Nicaragua.