On the record

First Edition

Someday, when I’m sitting in the nursing home talking about my life, I know there will be sad nods and eyes full of pity. They will attribute my warblings to age and a shriveling brain. So, time to get some of the less believable events in my life on the record  before they can be dismissed as the  ramblings of a confused elder. Unless it’s too late . . .

 

I had spent two weeks in the Miskitia jungle in Honduras at a medical clinic. I loved the little village, the peaceful and smiling people, the gratitude they had for every mango that fell from a tree. Every day started from scratch; pick the grain, grind it, make the bread. Fetch the water from the river. Along with the incredible hardship and deprivation came this freedom from decision-making. You did only what was needed to survive and then you went to bed. I heard not one complaint. I saw only love and gentleness with the children. Young and old sat quietly for tooth extractions without medication. Maybe one tear was shed. Some people were sent home likely to lose their lives for lack of  basic, simple medication. We could give them what we had, but after that? It was a beautiful experience, but the trip home was an entirely new and unexpected adventure.

We were taken out in long boats. I don’t know what was in the river, but I was careful to keep my elbows in. Then, we were loaded onto dump trucks and driven from pothole to pothole with little or no road in between. I was sure my kidneys would break clean off their stalks. We arrived at the dirt airstrip and were loaded onto one plane that looked like a mosquito and also a DC3. I was on the DC3 with eleven others. We sat on benches along the sides of the plane, strapped in all John Wayne style. In between our rows was a huge barrel marked “gasolina.” I’m a clever girl, so I figured that out. Didn’t seem like the best idea, but whaddya gonna do? Not smoke, that’s one thing you’re not gonna do, except the “attendant” was leaning against the barrel lighting up. The attendant was in camos and combat boots and had a rifle strapped to his back. Peanuts, anyone? A similar individual was piloting the plane and appeared to be about 16 years old. There was no copilot.

About 5 minutes into the flight, there was an explosion and the plane lurched. I will never forget the eyes of the med student sitting across from me. They were enormous, fixed and dilated. I took my journal and placed it inside my shirt. Should my remains not be completely incinerated, I wanted my family to know this had been one of the best experiences of my life. We pointed out the window at the smoking engine and consulted the soldier, who appeared not to notice the issue. “Oh, that,” he said through our interpreter. “It’s nothing. Just a little stick hit it.” A little stick floating along at 5,000 feet?

I looked out the window and noticed the trees getting larger and larger. We were going down. I recalled seeing photos on the news of charred airplane shapes on wooded mountain sides. Then, we hit the ground in what turned out to be a landing of sorts, all intact. We disembarked, and by that, I mean we stampeded off the plane. As we stood on the field, really in a field, they opened the cargo door and unloaded our gear, boxes of fruit, a crude sort of coffin, and–I kid you not–a gigantic man in an orange jumpsuit with wrists handcuffed behind his back and feet in chains. Back into the dump trucks we went. We were told it would take 3 days to get parts for the plane

We were delivered to our hotel to wait for the plane to be repaired. Our hotel was a Honduran army base. It consisted of several long, concrete buildings, open at either end without doors. They looked exactly like those hog confinement buildings on big corporate farms. There were windows but no glass or screens. There were rows of army-style cots, and we settled in, wondering what might be living in those scratchy blankets.

We were beckoned to a building where meals were served and were joined by some teenage soldiers. They were delighted to have company, being stationed in what appeared to be thousands of acres of jungle. It was 110 degrees, but they wore full-on fatigues, combat boots, and hats. After a dinner of red beans and rice, which we’d had 3 times a day for two weeks, we sat around the table and played games. And this is the part I want on the record now in case I mumble about it in a decade or two while slurping my pureed chicken. We taught them the card game Spoons. In this card game, when you get a certain hand you surreptitiously take a spoon from the center of the table and keep it until someone notices. In this particular version, when you got the spoon, you moistened it and stuck it on your nose, where it hung until someone saw it or it fell off. I have this permanent snapshot in my head: young boys in army uniforms sitting across from me, rifles on their backs, spoons stuck on their noses, laughing their heads off. I remember thinking it might be good to let them win. I have relatives who are unarmed and dangerous when they lose at cards, so in retrospect, playing guys with rifles seems risky. In fact, it was unmitigated fun. And, it was a moment.

Three days later, we boarded the same plane. I figured it was now held together with actual airplane glue from a model plane kit. Off we went (with who-knows-what in the hold) to Tegucigalpa, then on to Austin. From there, it was off to Chicago where, at midnight, my last leg to Iowa was cancelled. You can bet there was no griping at the airport counter from this passenger.

On the record!