When Your Plane Feels Like It Will Fall Out of the Sky ....

Sorry, no chance to publish pictures, just a brief update

We are in Senegal, West Africa, spending time here with our Andando Foundation. Left Oregon with a team that started out with a team of eight, but wound up here with only seven. As we tried to check in at the Portland Airport our son Lewis was not allowed on the plane because of “passport issues”.



So the seven of us got on the plane early, early, Friday morning -, flew to New York and then to Dakar Senegal. Lewis had to make an emergency trip to Seattle to straighten out his passport and has not arrived as of yet, today being Tuesday Nov 29th.  But we know he is making progress and on his way.


No blog post would be complete without another airline story. So we’re halfway across the Atlantic and they serve the airplane dinner. As we enjoy the fine cuisine (not), it starts to get bumpy. Then ... all of a sudden .... all of us passengers are shocked and very alarmed when the plane drops a hundred feet in half a second! Everything flies into the air, including most of the food, drinks, and a small child or two. Anything not strapped in hits the ceiling of the aircraft. Real bad feeling.



People start yelling and screaming. Many passengers have not been through this kind of radical turbulence. It is very unnerving. When you experience this rapid plummet from the sky, you begin to wonder if the wings are going to fall off the plane. I’m thinking, if this is bad, then we can turn around and head back to a nearby airport. Then I realize that we are halfway over the Atlantic, probably three hours from land. This is not comforting.



I look back up the aisle of the plane and it is an astonishing view of carnage. Plates of food in the aisle, everybody is soaking wet from all the drinks flying around, and some people are crying. Unreal. And it is still bumpy and the plane is rocking. I’ve lost my appetite.


Eventually, we stabilize and the pilot comes on the intercom to reassure us that they "had not anticipated the choppy conditions". They were apparently as surprised as the rest of us. 

With all the sophisticated equipment they have, they couldn’t see this coming? And then he says, “we are the first flight to come through here, so there were no previous reports of bumpy conditions” - what? Where are we? No one has been through here before us? Are we lost?



The rest of the flight was reasonably smooth, but no one could really relax.



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We are out in the bush, here in Keur Soce, Senegal. It’s a remote village where we are deeply involved in many development activities. Unfortunately, access to internet is not good, and it might be a few days until I am able to blog again.

We are engaged with our team in a variety of projects, with a focus on a building effort at a new facility.  We worked hard there in the heat all day, and made a lot of progress.  

Fiona was injured in a fall at one of the gardens.  She took a pretty good tumble.  But she's tough and will carry on.  

Another update report will follow in the next few days. 

Once a Plumber, Always a Plumber ... Even in a Foreign Country

Before we left on our trip to Nicaragua, our son TK had asked me in advance to help him install a toilet at their remote homestead.   They only have an outhouse pit, which is a long walk from the house where they live. 

So I agreed, in advance, and set about this task.  I was somewhat familiar with their house, and knew there was a small well-built shed close to their back door that would serve as a good bathroom. 

On our drive home from a tour of the country, we procured the proper fixtures, pipe, and fittings.  At least that's what we thought.  A trip to a foreign plumbing supply house can be a challenge, trying to bridge the cross cultural gap in language, methods, and equipment.  

As an example: we were discussing parts using the common plumbing phrase "male and female" to describe  fittings.  (If you don't know what that means, I'll have to address that in a future blogpost!).  We weren't getting anywhere until the sales clerk said "macho" - okay, now we're getting somewhere.

We  arrived home in the evening and commenced pounding away at the concrete with a sledge hammer and chisel. Lacking any power tools, you have to do this work by hand, using a solar lantern.  They don't have electricity at their house.  It was not that fun, but at least we were making progress.  


The next day was a big work day and we started out early, like 6:30 am.   Fortunately TK had a local guy who helped work around the homestead, named David (pronounced in Spanish as Dah-VEED).  He was a hard worker and helped to dig the trenches in the ground to lay drain pipe.

Things went well.  I was able to tap into their water line, get the pipe run under the concrete floor, knock holes in the concrete walls to runs pipes, and even knock out a window to let in some light. 

I was surprised how well things were going.  This kind of construction project can be fraught with disaster, especially since they live 20 kilometers out of town and there is a shortage of decent tools.  In other words, you can't just run down to the hardware store and pick up a few more things.  You have to make do.

The second day looked promising, with most of the hard work completed the day before.  But then major problems ensued with basically bad parts.  As I installed the fixtures, none of the stuff fit together, and there were several missing pieces - it was very frustrating.  

I did my best, and it took a long time, and when I finished and turned the water on, everything leaked.  Bummer dude!  This was going to be a hassle.  The quality of the parts and pieces, and even the fixtures (toilet, sink, faucet, hose bibb, valves, etc.) were very "poor" - although "terrible" is probably a better word.  

This called for extra time, effort, and creativity to get done because we didn't have a whole lot more time here.  Like this was the day to finish.  I took a break for a cup of coffee.  I needed to rally my internal resources, and have a talk with myself "come on Kevin, you have to find a way to get this done!"  Ha! Ha!

I started over with the fixtures and parts and pieces and basically took everything apart down to ground zero and rebuilt everything all over again.  There may have been some bailing wire and duct tape involved, but lo and behold, it worked!

Getting low on time to finish, we filled the holes, poured concrete to patch the openings, and filled in the trenches where the drain pipes were buried.  The toilet flushed properly and the sink worked and victory was at hand!

What did I learn from this experience?  Sometimes you have to dig down deep (pardon the pun) and use your emotional reserves to complete a very difficult task.  Oh, and as I have said before ... America has the best plumbing in the world. 

How Do You Rate a Natural Wonder? On A Scale of Ten?

So we are traveling around Nicaragua with our son TK and his wife Jenny.  We had achieved a wonderful surprise by showing up for her birthday, and now we were taking a few days to look around the country and enjoy some time together. 

Our destination this particular day was the crater of the Masaya Volcano with a promise of viewing flowing molten lava up close and personal.  Not exactly sure HOW close, but we were going to find out. 

 
This small Central American country of Nicaragua is full of volcanoes.  They seem to be everywhere, about one every twenty miles, and many are quite spectacular. 

On the way, we had coffee with a local contact regarding the Nicaraguan business climate and local opportunities.  Then we had to wind our way through hills in a quest for the restaurant with a wonderful view of the crater, where we had a late lunch.   You can see the crater in the background of the picture below. 

  
In other words, we took our time making our way to the crater with a few stops, we were not in a hurry.  This turned out to be a mistake. Even though this is a major tourist site in that country, they have some rather unusual hours.  

We got there around 4:35 in the afternoon.  And there were a bunch of cars and buses in line, and the gate was closed.   What?  This is like a national park, why would they be closed?  So we got in the queue and shut off the rig and waited.  

 
You have to wait a lot in developing countries.  For manic Americans, you really have to throttle back on the pace of life and just roll with it.  Everything takes a long time.  Waiting is not a strong suit of mine, not in the top ten of my premium personality traits. 

I finally walked up to several people who were milling around and asked in my broken Spanish - "what's going on?"   Well, they close down between 4:30 and 5:30 to ... adjust their prices ... !

If you get there before 4:30 you pay like two bucks.  After that, you pay ten bucks.  Blatant exploitation of tourists!  C'mon man!  So we sit there and wait, and the line of cars gets real long.  The sun goes down (this is the tropics - the sun sets every day at 6:00).

So, with my amazing skills of discernment, I come to realize that apparently, the lava looks better in the dark, and so you have to wait for it to get dark and they charge you more money.  

Except, well, they don't open up until way after they said they would.  The whole thing seems kinda dumb.  If they want you to pay more money, I sorta get that, but why do they make you wait, along with a whole bunch of other cars and buses and minivans, motorcycles, etc. 

So they finally open the gate, and proceed to collect money from each and every vehicle (this is gonna take a long time!) and explain the ground rules.  

Here are the rules:  
- Wait until you are allowed to drive up to the crater 
- Then you will be admitted with several other vehicles 
- Then you have 15 minutes to view the lava 
- Then you have to leave

What kind of rules are these?  So you wait for over an hour so you can pay more money to go up and see the lava and then you have to rush off?  Pretty bad system if you ask me. 

So  we do what we're told, (again, not a strong suit of mine) and go up and see the lava.  Frankly, it was underwhelming.  There were only a few precious spots where you could look down and see the bubbling lava, and everyone was kinda throwing elbows to get a view.  Couldn't really see much.

And then the guides starting blowing whistles and yelling!  It's time to leave!  Hey, we just got here!  What kind of natural wonder is this?  Super lame. 

So you start off down the side of the crater, and there is the next bunch of spectators coming up the one lane road in a mad rush to get their 15 minutes of viewing time.  

All in all, it was a disappointment.  If you were going to rate this kind of thing, what kind of score would you give it?  On a scale of ten, I'd give it maybe a seven - I mean, the lava was cool (actually really hot, pardon the pun) and the nighttime glow was interesting.  

But the whole operation was very poorly run. This is not a thrill ride at the local carnival, it's supposed to be a wonderful spectacle.    

Couldn't even get a decent picture.  We left scratching our heads, there has to be a better way to do this. 

Color Commentary - Nicaragua is Bright! What color is your shirt?

It's amazing what a change of scene can do.  When you come from the rather dull grey monotone of the Oregon winter, the vibrant colors of Nicaragua couldn't be more striking.  

We spent yesterday walking around and exploring the old historical city of Granada in on the shores of the giant lake Nicaragua.  It was at times, eye popping.  I took a lot of pictures, but they never seem to truly portray the impact of the variety and intensity of the colors here.

Since we have a nice rental car (a truck actually, a Toyota Hilux, the kind with the extended cab and four wheel drive that are a staple in developing countries) we can get around almost anywhere.

Including the hardware store.  TK has asked me to help install a flushing toilet at their homestead, and we went researching for parts and pieces.  We found a good place and pulled in and had a discussion about toilets, and pipes, and valves, and fittings.  Even a sink too!  Great fun!

They were in kind of a hurry to leave, and were closing the place up at 2:00 on a Saturday.  The proprietor told us that everybody wants to go home and drink.  

Even the supermarkets are bright colors

Our destination yesterday was the old city of Granada, a place a four hundred year history full of classical old colonial buildings, churches, and plazas.  And color.  They don't use subdued pastels and earth tones here, it's all bright primary colors.  

I have included several pictures scattered through this blog post, trying to capture the flavor of the town.  I will let them speak for themselves without explanation. 




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A funny thing happened the evening we arrived at our AirBNB house in Catarina.  One of the challenges in getting around most developing countries, including this one, is that they don't have very good directions. 

The streets are not marked and there are few directional signposts.   You just have to sort of wing it.   When we pulled into this small town, we thought we had a general idea of where the house was.  We were dead wrong. 

We drove around a while and without luck and realized it was hopeless.  We had no address and not a clue how to find the place.  Luckily we discovered we had a phone number, apparently for the "caretaker".

We called him but the conversation immediately went off the tracks.  He said "turn left, turn left, turn right, turn left and look for the white gate."
What?  How do you even know where we are?  We just start randomly turning and expect to find the place?  We've already done that. 

We're thinking maybe this guy will come out on the street and meet us.  Jenny asked him "what color shirt are you wearing?"  

We can just picture the guy looking down at his shirt, "what color shirt am I wearing?  Why does this matter?"  He eventually answers "it's blue, kinda dark or light blue, maybe like chartreuse?  periwinkle? maybe a little darker?"

This information proved to be worthless, because he was standing inside the gate and we couldn't see him.  Ha! Ha! Ha!  He probably thought the question was completely strange.  He eventually sent a young lady down to meet us at the corner, and we made our way to the house. 

When we finally met up with him, we decided his shirt was more like navy blue with little stripes.  It's important to determine these fashion questions.  

Nicaragua is Full of Surprises

We couldn't talk about this trip in advance because it was a secret.  We were going to Nicaragua to help Jenny celebrate her birthday.  Jenny is our daughter in law, married to our son TK.

So any blog post before we got there, or even on our way, would have spilled the beans.  As it turns out, we were able to pull it off, and Jenny was amazed, what a fun way to spring a surprise on someone. 

Only, well, okay, it's sort of a long way to go.  We had been wanting to come and visit TK and Jenny for a while and this was a perfect way to make it work.  Nicaragua in Central America is not that terribly far from the US, unlike some of the places we visit.  

They were having breakfast in a local popular cafe, and it was pre-arranged that we would meet them there.  As we walked in, Jenny was like "Oh look, there's your mom and dad TK, Wait, WHAT?" her jaw dropped and she took a moment to process.  We shouted Happy Birthday!  and she was completely astonished.  She had no idea we were coming. 



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It's now Saturday, yesterday we traveled by car to another part of Nicaragua to a town called Catarina.  It's about three hours away from where they live, and it's by a couple of large lakes.  One is actually in the crater of a volcano, Nicagagua's version of Oregon's Crater Lake.  I wrote about this in a previous blog post when we were here earlier - click here: Oregon isn't the only place with a Crater Lake.

We are staying in a house on the rim above the lake, and from here you can see the second lake in the near distance.  This second lake, called Lake Nicaragua is much larger, probably fifty miles long and almost as wide.  In fact, it's the biggest in Central America, so big that there are two huge volcanoes rising up out of the middle of it.  This whole darn country is full of volcanoes, many are quite spectacular. 

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We went out for dinner last night, to celebrate Jenny's birthday, but were challenged to find a nice place.  We ended up on a big plaza in the middle of town that was filled with a very lively crowd.  There was a concert going on (super noisy) and a parade of futbol supporters (very noisy) and a bunch of music and cars driving by (very noisy).  All in all, it was ... very noisy, but quite energetic. Seems like everyone in town heads out to the plaza on Friday night for some fun. 

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The place we're staying in is a grand old house on the rim of the lake, with spacious spanish style interior and beautiful lush grounds.  This is the kind of climate and landscape where anything can and will grow, competing with fellow plants for room to grow.