"On the Trail"
Thursday, October 26, 2000: ĻThank God they cut the grass!Ļ
Kayamentza-Shell, Ecuador
We were awakened early by Angel, one of the fellows at the sing īnī pray last night and he asked us if we were ready to sing and pray this morning. He had asked me about it the night before but I didnīt think he meant 6:30 in the morning. I told him that I would be good to sing and pray if he gave me ten minutes to put on my clothes and eat. But the sing and pray did not materialize and in about half an hour Rosa came into the school and told us that the whole village was clearing and repairing the runway today. Frank and I decided that we would help out so after a eating our last cookies and carrots from breakfast we headed out to the airstrip.
It was very impressive to see everyone working together, some cutting the grass at the roots with the machetes others putting the cut grass in piles, and others hualing the cut grass and dirt off. I took a machete and started cutting but after about 20 minutes relized I would make a much better contribution to the village as grass hauler. Everyone would take short breaks and someone would walk around with chicha to fill the thirsty throats. They wouldnīt break at the same time just when they needed it individually I guess. The littlest kids played in the fresh dirt and Miguelīs pet monket reeked havoc like usual until it was finally tied up. As the day got warmer and the sun started baking flesh my sense of volunteerism wained and I headed in and attempted to teach a little boy named Domingo Tic-Tac-Toe in the schoolhouse. Frank showed up a few minutes later and we layed down on the school benches and read a number of chapters from the book of Matthew to each other. It was a more a read discuss, question, ponder, and then go on session but we made it through a number of pages. Every so often we would jump up at the sound of a plane nearby but each plane flew away without landing. We had at first thought that Rick might come yesterday but and I didnīt want to go but now that our food had run out I had the expectation that Rick was coming I was really anticipating his return. If he didnīt come it was an eight hour hike through the jungle to the nearest road. Hunger finally moved me from biblically focused lounging to food focuses inquiry. It was about noon and one of the kids told me that the village had already eaten out at the strip. We knocked down two grapefruits from a nearby tree but my hunger soon returned. I headed out to the track and asked Rosa if she could cook us up a lunch. This sent the whole village into a debate in Shuar as to what the gringos could and could not pallate. Finally, Rosa and I left as the rest were still in hot debate. She got some yuka roots and green bananas from her mother and we were in business. About a half hour later Frank and I were feasting on boiled bananas, yuka (we liked that better than the bananas), and 2 eggs each. I asked if we could pay, Rosa said it was a gift, and so we dicided to give a gift of money in thanks.
Just after lunch we heard the buzzing of a prop plane and this oneīs engine started slowing down, to land! Sure enough it was Rick! But everyone was working on the runway!! As they saw that he was indeed landing it didnīt take long for everyone to pick up their machetes, baskets, and babies, and clear the runway.
Rick landed with smile and we packed up and said lots of goodbyes to our new friends and hopped in the plane. We taxied back to the other end of the runway and Rick said a quick prayer and then gave it full power.
We began accelerating but the tailwind was not helping us with any lift. We were soon cruising at about 45 miles an hour but still on the ground and the runway was running out fast. Rick was trying to get it to go up, hopping over water ruts but it wouldnīt fly. And then we headed off the end of the runway and just feet over the brush. Luckily for us the runway end in a cliff and Rick was able to point the nose down and get enough speed to pull us into barely flying mode. I wasnīt really anymore nervous than usual while it was happening but when he told me that was his worse take-off ever from that airstrip I went into retro-panic. But we were flying and that was good. Rick later told me that God had been merciful to somehow tell the villagers to clean the strip that morning. With half the strip cleaned of grass we had been just barely able to take off in the tailwind and with all of our weight. Any more grass and it would have been a much closer call or a jungle treetop crash. I was glad to find this out once we were back safe and sound in Shell.
We flew to another village across the river and picked up Joel. His dad handled the take-off on a slightly more friendly, and longer dirt strip and then Joel took the controls. He has been flying many times, in training with his dad. He took us back to Shell and landed us in style! Well done Joel!!
That evening we jammed at a nearby church with Joel and some of his friends. I played the piano and Frank played the electric guitar. It was a rockin-praisinī good time for all!
That night I made some calls to some of Ricks associates to try and see if my lithium ion rechargeable battery could go through zap-therapy and be boosted back to normal storage capacity. After many phone calls to Uncle John, Uncle Jim, and Uncle Charlie, we finally got a hold of Allen in Quito and he said that he had tried zapping lithium ion with no success. So that means buying a new battery soon as the recharge capacity on this one is down to about 15 minutes if we are lucky.
Frank called a fellow about a chiropractor for his back pain but with little luck. We headed back late but found a place still open that served us a great dish of rice, friend bananas, french fries, soup, and juice.
Back to a bed at Hotel Azuay! Happy for a round-trip flight! TAD