You haven't heard much from me the last week, I haven't had time to write! On Tuesday (Jan 6) I picked up the mechanic from Wings of Hope in Puerto Cabezas, he was right on time, and his luggage even came with him, which is unusual for La Costenia. We had a quick lunch and 40 minutes later were in Tronquera. We had about 1 1/2 hours before dark, I figured he would want to take it a bit easy after such a long trip, but he said "lets get started, we can do a compression test on it right now". We pulled
the cowels off the engine and I got the compressor and generator loaded up and brought them to the plane, and we worked until dark. We started right after our 7 AM breakfast every day for the next 3 days and worked until almost dark. He was very methodical (which is a good quality when your life is hanging in the air over the jungle) and it he did a quite thorough job. It isn't every mechanic that has to get in the plane to get home after his annual is done. He found nothing major on the plane that
would ground it, but a few little things that would have very likely caused trouble in the near future had he not fixed them. He said the plane is holding up just fine in the weather conditions (although hangar would be better), and the engine is doing well.
He finished the log books 1/2 hour before we left on Saturday morning, and I flew him back to Port. He had an hour after check-in before he needed to be at the airport, so we walked around town some, there isn't much to see in Port.
After he left, I spent some time on the Internet, a couple hours, visited some friends, and headed back in the late afternoon. Sabbath morning Brandel had a fever and didn't feel good. By Sunday morning he still had a fever, but no other symptoms, so that worried Marilyn a little. A fever isn't a big deal if it is related to a cold, flu, or something, but with no other symptoms could mean it was Malaria. We had to pick up some lumber for our house floor in Waspam anyway, so we decided to head to
town and get him tested Sunday mid-morning. Five minutes after we had arrived in town and turned on our phone, it rang. It was the Puerto airport Administrator, and he had a friend that was not feeling well and wanted to go to Managua right away. La Costenia is usually booked quite a few days in advance, so he couldn't use them get to Managua. I told him a price, and he called back 5 minutes later and said he wants to go, when can I be there. I told him 1 PM, and we raced around getting Brandel tested,
and also bought 400 lbs of food (less than 1/2 of what we need) for Katherine and Rob's evangelism seminar. Brandel's tests came back negative, and we left to Tronquera. I took the plane to Port, picked up two people, and with a nice tail wind landed in Managua a couple hours before dark. I went to eat with Richard and Carolyn Becton, fellow missionaries who are also pilots and working in Port, but were on their way to America through Managua. The next morning I did a few errands around Managua and
bought a bunch of fresh fruit and vegetables (always a big treat) for Marilyn, and took off by 1 PM. I went to 11,500 feet on my way back, it was 39 degrees F up there, quite cold for the tropics! I was glad my heater worked nicely. It was just over 3 hours due to a headwind, and I landed in Tronquera a couple hours before dark. On my way flying home to Tronquera, Lapan, our newest runway village, called me and said they had an emergency. I was loaded to full and it was too late in the day to go
there, so I told them I would be there first thing in the AM. They usually have a nurse, but all the village nurses take a vacation from mid-December to late January. Since they have no doctor or nurse in the village, it is hard to asses if it is a true emergency, or someone with a toothache wanting a free ride that costs me small fortune in plane gas. I took Marilyn, her first time to Lapan, and we left before sunrise at 5:45 AM Tuesday morning. The sun was just up and wisps of morning fog rising
as we watched the people (hundreds of them) streaming from the town the 20 minute walk across the flat tundra type swamp to the runway. Presently they brought the hurt man, he had a 2 inch thorn in his arm (you never know the exact length), which wouldn't be a big deal, except the next truck wasn't due in for another 7 days to transport him out. Marilyn determined he did have something inside there, but it wasn't a grave emergency, (as we suspected). So she spent 3 hours checking out the villagers
for a list of patients for Dr. Randy could see while he is here. Dr Randy is coming from America to visit this next weekend. She got a good list, and we took off with our two patients (sick one and his wife), 38 lbs of oranges (Lapan is the orange capital of NE Nicaragua, they use them for soccer balls there) and Marilyn. We got the guy off to the hospital, and Marilyn shopped around while I filled the airplane with gasoline, and stocked up with an extra 35 gallons in my gas jugs. It takes around
2 hours to get the plane filled, and we left mid afternoon fully loaded between Marilyn's groceries and the gasoline.
We have local elections coming up here on Jan 18, mayors, judges, and town leaders in this area. People are rallying all over, and there could be a strike if all doesn't go well. Please keep that in your prayers that all remains peaceful and they don't close down any airports. Our airport is never an issue because it is private, but Puerto Cabezas and Waspam can be a problem. Either way we are not in danger here in Tronquera, but we have visitors coming before, during and after the election day,
so that will possibly cause us some extra money and gas to try to get around airport closures.
That is our week, I hope I didn't bore you guys with too much detail.
Clint
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Wings Over Nicaragua Mission in Tronquera
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Tronquera, Nicaragua, Central America
www.hanleymissions.org
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