Dear Family,
I just returned from a trip to look at a new runway in Kukalaya. The people there said they worked building the runway for 10 days with the whole village, 700 people (I'm sure everyone didn't work, but even if 1/2 worked, that is a lot of people!). The the women and children worked hard too, completely volunteer. From a fly over last week, I knew it was close to ready. On Wednesday I flew to Lapan, and found a watchman for the plane. The local people said it was a 4 hour walk, but maybe a little longer depending on the rivers. I just had time, if I hurried, to make it back by dark at 6 PM, and planned to sleep in the plane. On the GPS, it is 13 miles. It takes 8 minutes in the plane. I left at 9:30 AM Tuesday walking from Lapan, with a younger man to show me the way. I took my SPOT satellite tracker. Anyone who wanted to check (link on the bottom of the front page of our website) could have seen every 10 minutes in real time where I was walking. The track will be there for 7 days. Since Marilyn doesn't have Internet, she is only able to get the e-mail messages. Before I left, we agreed that I would send a delayed message if I was spending the night. I am sorry for the confusion it caused. I need to change the subject of that e-mail.
I walked along a grass savanna for the first couple hours. One place the water was over my mud boots, so took them off and waded across. The mud was a slick black mud that took energy from every step as you slid around in it. There was a skiff of water on top of the mud, but it wasn't bad. We made it to the Kukalaya river after 2 hours of walking. Fortunately there was a person right there with a canoe and we paddled 20 minutes up that river and crossed to the other side. From there it was heavy jungle, and the trail became quite muddy. It was a thick mud that you sank in just over your ankles with each step. It held your foot tight with the suction of the mud and required you to pull hard to release each foot with every step. The jungle was very thick, you couldn't see more than 15 to 20 feet into it. The canopy over us blocked the sun, making it cooler walking. We walked as fast as possible. Once we came to a deeper swamp, and water was up to my chest. We carried our clothes and luggage over our heads and waded barefoot through the mud. On the other side, there was a submerged log we followed, it was about 2 feet deep in the water, very mossy and slick, and quite hard to stay on top. I barely made it over, wondering if I fell off how deep that part of the swamp was. There were mangrove type trees all over with those long roots that go way above the water. They said there are lots of crocodiles too (Cayman). I can't imagine carrying someone in a hammock with a broken leg across that, but they did it last month hauling someone out of Kukalaya.
After an hour, we finally we made it out of the jungle to the savanna again. This time the grass savanna was much wetter, more like marsh savanna. It had standing water that sometimes went over our boots, and your feet sunk into the muddy grass each step. It was the slimy black mud, but didn't hold your foot like the clay mud in the jungle. After another hour of that, we came to the lagoon. It is a big expanse of water, crossable only in a boat. In fact, they had used boats in some of the watery savanna we had just crossed, but the lagoon was deep. Pretty blossoming lily pads grew on the sides of the little water trails. After 30 minutes waiting, some people showed up who owned the boats that were parked there. We rode with them 1/2 hour to the village of Kukalaya. White cranes were fishing beside us as we paddled along, and you could see fish in the warm water. We came out of the grassy channel to the rolling waves of the lagoon. The middle guy took off his rubber boot and bailed the water out as each wave came over the edge a little into the boat. It was nice to get out of the little dug out canoe without having to swim.
The village was thrilled to see me. We gathered a crowd of about 50 people as we walked through the village on our way to see the runway, 1/4 mile on the other side of the village. It is always interesting to walk in a place after only seeing it from the air. It looks different from the ground. The runway is not quite long enough, but still usable. There were a few holes that collected water. I directed them on the proper markers on the edge of the runway, cutting the grass shorter, filling the holes with gravel, and making it longer. Overall, they have done a good job. They have a new government clinic in the process of being built. They have both a doctor and nurse stationed there right now. This runway serves Kukalaya (700 people) and Laya Siksa (Black Water, 1,000 people). They have no roads, only lagoons and rivers to access Puerto Cabezas (Port), a very long dangerous trip in a small boat with a sick person. The village of Kukalaya has one boat a month that goes to Port. Many of the people in the village have never been to Port. After the walk from the nearest road (Lapan) I sure see their motivation for building an airstrip! This time of year trucks can't even get all the way to Lapan.
Unfortunately, there is no radio in Kukalaya for communication. I spoke with the government doctor and the town leaders about this. We are going to try to get the government to put in a radio for the clinic. I am connected with the government hospital network with a radio in my house, so that would work for us. The problem is the government radio network is not very dependable. We don't know if we could access the 62 miles with our 2-meter system because there are some hills between us and that area. We'll have to investigate the different possibilities. There are no generators and no solar panels in the town to power a radio so a whole system would be needed. The government puts in whole systems when they place a radio so we are hoping to get the government to put a radio there.
It was 4 PM when we came back from looking at the runway so I only had 2 hours of daylight, not enough time to walk back to Lapan. Thursday morning, I got up and was planning on walking back, but the whole village got together and used their some of their precious hard to obtain gas, their largest boat, and the one engine they own, to take me back a shorter way. I told them it wasn't necessary, but they did it anyway. It was a large dugout canoe that flew along quite quickly, almost tipping over only once when we hit a big submerged log. We crossed the lagoon and went up some picturesque little creeks just like I remember from our time on the river in Guyana. It was raining and I was very glad for the little bit of protection my rain jacket gave me. The boat took just over 1 hour, and cut off 2 1/2 hours of worst walking -- the part with the water up to our chests and the sticky jungle mud. I was completely soaked from the rain, and inside my boots was soaking again too. I was very thankful for moleskin on my feet as my boots had been rubbing the day before. Soaking wet in rubber boots isn't very good for feet walking long distances. With the deep mud, tennis shoes would have been worse since at least the mud didn't go over the boots. It rained all morning the whole rest of the 2 hour walk back to the village of Lapan from the boat.
That was the best my plane has ever looked, sitting out there on that soggy runway on the grass savanna in the drizzling rain! I carefully checked it over, being sure the wet, cold, tired me didn't forgot any details in the drizzling rain. Water splashed all around as I bounced along during take off, and then all became nice and smooth as it broke free of that slick black mud I knew so well. I was very thankful for the airplane heater. I circled under 800 foot ceilings and got my wife on the radio, confirming the weather was OK in Tronquera before I launched into the clouds. It rained all the way home through the clouds, but stopped a few minutes before I landed at home. It was so nice to get warm clothes, hot chocolate, and see my kids and wife.
It is encouraging to see the faces of the people light up as I came into their village. It encourages me to keep up the work when I see people living under such poverty conditions give enough to take me on the river to save 2 1/2 hours of walking. It is a pleasure working for people who are truly grateful for the help we offer.
Next we have to submit paperwork to the government to get the runway approved, then they will send an engineer to inspect the runway, and taking them will be my first landing on that runway.
It was an interesting trip. I am thankful we live where we do. I could have been born in that village.
Clint
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Wings Over Nicaragua Mission in Tronquera
Clint and Marilyn Hanley
Tronquera, Nicaragua, Central America
www.wingsovernicaragua.org
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