Traveling Thursday

Thursday we traveled to Awas Tingni to work with the people there. It was a long, bumpy ride with beautiful scenery.  

When we got to Awas we started to unpack the bus. It started pouring down rain so we quickly took shelter under the porch nearby. All the kids who had come out to see why a big yellow school bus had arrived in their village ran under the porch as well. The first few minutes were awkward as most of the kids only speak Mayagna and Miskito. We tried all sorts of things to break the ice—hand games, singing, making silly faces—finally Rachel pulled out the gel pens. We started drawing small pictures on the children’s hands and instantly they were flocking. Kids were pushing and shoving to get to the front of the line. It felt like we were drawing for hours. It was finally time for lunch. We braved the rain and ran upstairs into the house to get our soup. After that we retreated to the bus to eat lunch and wait out the rain. The rain finally got a little bit lighter and Jared, Janelle, and Zac headed up to the school to begin the water training. Ariela, Eric, Rachel, Tim and I went up a little after them to make sure they didn’t need anything. They seemed set so we headed off on our own little adventure.

                Awas Tingni isn’t an especially large village so we decided to walk along the main road to see all the houses. It was the way we had driven in, but walking you get a different perspective. It was wonderful getting to take in all of the sights of the village. We saw children full of smiles playing in the yard, clothes lines (made of barbed wire) bending to the weight of the clothes, lots and lots of mud, cows and pigs roaming everywhere, and many houses. Getting to see the village this way gave us a glimpse into the lives of the people here and will hopefully help us to interact with them more effectively.

                Later in the day we headed down to the river to do some water testing. At the first river we saw a mama pig come to the opposite side of the river. She had six piglets behind her and we were sure that she was going to turn around. Instead she jumped in and they followed. The river was running rather quickly after all the rain we had had and we weren’t sure how she expected them to be able to cross. Soon we saw the mama pig and four babies run past us. A few minutes later a fifth one came by—unfortunately we never saw the sixth piglet. At the spot in the river where we were doing testing there were two people in a dugout canoe on the other side trying to get a horse to come across. The man finally had to get into the river up to his chest to pull the house in. Once the horse was in it started trying to swim across. The river was too deep for its feet to touch the bottom so it was slow going for the poor thing. It took awhile (probably having ten people on the bank cheering it on didn’t help) but the horse finally made it across.

                After dinner we had a viewing of the Jesus film. We started it out by doing a puppet show for the kids about the importance of clean water. It was a wonderful collaborative effort with six of our eight team members and one of our interpreters. We aren’t sure if their laughter was because of our play or because of our troubles in pronouncing the Spanish, but none the less it was fun. The Jesus film drew quite a crowd and our team ended up having to get up out of our seats so people would have a place to sit—PRAISE GOD! The work that the Jesus film does is incredible. Not only was it probably the first movie any of the people there have ever seen, but it was in Miskito. What an incredible blessing that the people were able to hear about the love Jesus brings in their own language.

                After the film it was time to set up our sleeping quarters. The movie had been shown in the local Baptist church, which was also where we were staying. We quickly set to work unpacking our hammocks and tents. It was so fun to see seven hammocks hanging from the rafters of the church along with the two tents on the ground. It was like a giant sleep over party with friends! We finally went to sleep around 9:00 to be well rested for the next day.

-Linnet