I was invited to join a small group traveling to the north part of the North Atlantic Region of Nicaragua. The leader of the group was Mark Vanderwees who is the CRWRC representative at the Nehemiah Center. Also in the group were his wife Nancy, adopted son Jesus, Nancy’s uncle and aunt (Herb and Jeanette), and two leaders from AMC (Accion Medica Cristiana) named Carolina and Manuel. The purpose of the trip was for Mark and Carolina to review the progress of a 3-year project being administered by AMC, but with funding from CRWRC.
One of the key components of the project is the establishment of farms for research and training of the Miskito population. The goal is to have a sufficient, sustainable supply of food for the people. At each of several centers, there are forty people being trained, who were selected by the communities from the area.
They spend two days each month working at the research site, and then they take their learning back to the communities. Some of the crops I saw were malanga, sugar cane (I ate some of the stalk), carrots, lemons, oranges, tomatoes, watermelon, cucumbers, squash, papaya, cacao, cabbage, plantains, bananas, beans, corn, soybeans (they are different than Iowa soybeans), yucca, sorghum, and coffee. They work with about 48 different crops. All these are grown on very hilly terrain. The projects seem to be going very well.
We left Managua about noon on Monday. We travelled for one hour and then found one tire of our van was overheating. I guess it was a brake problem. We drove 5 miles back to the airport to rent another van. We drove mostly north to Wiwili where we spent the night.
On Tuesday we left to head towards the Rio Coco (Coco River) which is between Honduras and Nicaragua. In your mind picture us leaving at 5:00 AM in the dark, going down narrow winding roads, taking wrong turns, and ending at a point in the country that was not passable. Oops, we were on a farmer’s horse path. We somehow get turned around in a small-area between a fence and a creek. A short way back we stop at a farm house where we see a horse with saddle and a farmer standing nearby. We ask for directions.
Carolina says, “I will pay you 100 cordobas (about five dollars--a day’s wages), if you accompany us to the river, which turns out to be a 2 or 3 hour drive. He runs to his house, changes his shirt, and hops in our van. He knows the way. On the way we push the truck up several hills that the two-wheel drive van can not quite handle. We arrive. We wonder if the van driver and his new farmer guide will make it back to Wiwili.
Our Rio Coco journey begins. The boats are 40-foot long and 4 -foot wide canoes with a 40 horsepower motor at the stern. At the forward end of the boat another Nicaraguan stands with a long pole to test the depth of the water or to guide the direction of the boat. To our left is Honduras. To our right is Nicaragua. Kids swim naked along the shores. Women wash clothes on the rocks. A few times on our 3-day journey down the Rio Coco we spot an alligator. The terrain is beautiful.
When we stop at the research farms, we climb 50-foot tall steep, and slippery banks. We are told that during the wet season the river can rise to the top of the bank. We men find a place to relieve ourselves near trees with our backs to whomever might be around. Meals are provided by our Miskito hosts. We eat beans, rice, and chicken. Once we eat deer meat, sometimes plantains. But always beans and rice. Unfortunately, I usually struggle to finish my beans and often don’t succeed.
We are on the river again. It rains and the most beautiful rainbow I have ever seen appears. We have thick fog (neblina) in the mornings. Further north we go down small rapids between rocks. But four times we must get out of the boat and walk up to ½ mile along the Honduran coast while the boatsmen negotiate the rapids. We sometimes help by pulling on long ropes attached to the boats to get the boat through the rapids. We see that earlier a boat has capsized and broken apart.
At night I try to sleep in a hammock , but my body is too long (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it). I sleep on the floor. We sometimes “shower” by pouring water over ourselves by means of a pan dipped in a 5-gallon bucket of water.
We end our boat journey and take a Toyota truck for a ½ hour drive to our final destination, Wauspan. The road is very bumpy. I support myself with my hands on the seat to absorb some of the shocks.
We check in at the airport. We will be flying a single prop plane holding about 12 passengers. There is a pilot and co-pilot. The air field has cows grazing near the runway. As we taxi to the end of the dirt runway, six children run near the plane. We take off and fly back to Managua in 1 hr and 20 minutes.
It was a very good trip, but I am muy consado (very tired). I shower and nap.
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