Despite the fact that it was Easter Sunday, our breakfast was a slightly somber affair. The people on the various teams, West Virginia, Racine, and local, knew we were about to part and wouldn’t see one another for a while, if ever.
After eating, we set about packing everything up to leave, including the bags of medicine our smaller group would be taking to El Salvador at some point.
Because Dr. Allen’s passport had been stolen, and because all government offices were closed for the holiday weekend, we the El Salvador team would be staying in Guatemala for at least one extra day and since we couldn’t stay at the camp itself, other accomodations would be made for us. Some of the missionary staff from Guatemala City were kind enough to act as hosts for our team, so that we would split off and stay with them in their homes. Dr. Allen and Mary Ann would stay with Marcello Diez and his family; Andrew would stay with Alex; Butch would stay with Marcello Hounko; Flo would stay with Marcello D’s secretary Susie and Ashley and I would be staying that night at the home of Oswald and his wife Rita. Sounded great to us, but we were about to get a shock from Oswald we hadn’t expected.
Some of the missionaries had passed out copies of their support cards that morning, which are cards with a picture of the missionary and their families as well as contact information used for gathering financial support for their mission work. The one Oswald handed us, however, was surprising. It showed a picture of Oswald and his wife Rita, but listed them as “Odwar and Rita”.
I thought, Oh no! We’ve been calling him Oswald all week when his name’s really Odwar! We’ve been calling him the wrong name!
I showed it to Ashley, who was shocked too. However, she was brave enough to actually go up and ask Oswald what his real name was. Oswald explained that, yes, his name really was Odwar, but since no one could ever pronounce it he just told people to call him Oswald.
Oswald and Rita had been in the thoughts of the entire camp for the past several days. Earlier in the week we had learned that Rita was seven months pregnant, but that she was experiencing some difficulties with the pregnancy in which her body didn’t seem to be producing enough amniotic fluid for the womb. This was the sort of problem that might cause problems for the baby and her doctors were concerned that they might have to induce a premature delivery in order to save the baby’s life. This wasn’t a sure thing, though, and she had undergone many tests to try and see if it was a matter of simple dehydration or if something more serious was wrong. Oswald had driven back and forth to Guatemala City to be with her throughout the week. Even by the end of the week, though, we still didn’t know whether an early labor would have to be induced.
With this knowledge in hand, Ash and I decided to give them an early baby shower gift. We had brought with us a beautiful quilted baby blanket that had been donated to us for the mission trip. This Ashley folded up in such a way that it made a pocket in the front. And into the pocket I put the little teddy bear I’d been saving. We gave this to Oswald just before we left.
Despite all common sense, we rode back to Guatemala City in Marcello’s van with Marcello driving. Fortunately, Marcello was a much more sane driver during the day when there was a greater amount of traffic to slow him down.
It was so good to get back to Guatemala City. The weather is so much nicer at that altitude. We went directly to the airport, where Marcello parked and then went inside with Butch, Dr. Allen and Mary Ann to see to helping out the rest of the team as they went through customs and prepared for departure. Ashley decided to go also, to find out if there had been any word on what happened to our suspicious looking bag full of Enfamil. Then, after sitting around at the van for a bit, I realized that my stomach still wasn’t feeling well at all. In fact, it darn nigh hurt. I decided to go in as well to find a bano. Flo and Andrew stayed back to guard the van, the roof of which was piled high with luggage, which would be attractive to thieves.
Inside the airport I found my bano and did my business. My stomach felt a little better, but the tempest was definitely brewing again. Dr. Allen had repeatedly told everyone to let him know at the first sign of stomach problems, but like a dumbass I had not.
Not long later, I found Ashley who had, in turn, found the Enfamil bag. The airport staff didn’t give her a lot of trouble about it. They didn’t even get huffy when she revealed she didn’t have the papers in hand that proved the bag was hers, but instead asked a few pointed questions then handed it over. From what Marcello told us, the airport is supposed to pay around $76 per day for any baggage that doesn’t get to the proper passenger, so it appeared as though there would be some windfall from this yet. Once back in the van, we found the paperwork for the bag and gave it to Marcello, telling him that he should get whatever money he could in the deal and send that many more kids to camp.
After seeing everyone off safely, we the El Salvador team piled back in Marcello’s van and headed to his house for lunch.
I told Ashley that my stomach had been giving me problems. She said hers had too several days earlier, but she had knocked it out with a firm application of Cipro. In fact, she’d replaced the little doll charm in the cloth pouch she’d got in Antigua with a round of Cipro pills and this she then gave to me. I took one Cipro after lunch and that wiped out much of my intestinal problems. However, the Cipro pouch would not leave my neck for the rest of the trip.
Before lunch at Marcello’s house, I finally got to check my e-mail for the first time in over a week. I had 20 pages of e-mail awaiting me, most of it Spam and business to take care of from West Virginia Writers. Even though I was on a DSL connection, it was taking forever to go through everything and delete all the Spam. Instead of finishing that right away, I fired up my gmail account and sent the following note to friends and family back home.
Happy Easter greetings from Guatemala City. We have finished our
first week of this two-week mission trip and are resting in
preparation for travel to El Salvador tomorrow.
The week has been an amazing one. Exhausting, yes; scary, sometimes,
but amazing all the same. I have no time or space for much detail,
but we did four total medical clinics this week in two separate towns.
I got to play pharmacist for them, dispensing medicines to patients
according to instructions from doctors and students actually trained
to know what the medicines were good for. We had a staff of around 40
students and doctors of both the traditional medical and dental
varieties. The clinics were a huge success both medically and
spiritually. We saw some uplifting and harrowing sights and will have
the pictures to prove it.
Our original plan to be in El Salvador today has changed somewhat due
to our team leader having his passport stolen by a pickpocket while we
were in Antigua on Friday. (The pickpockets did pretty well off our
group, actually, though neither Ashley nor I had anything taken.) Our
local mission leader has many connections, though, so we will
hopefully be getting a replacement tomorrow and head on to El Salvador
about mid-day.
Don´t know when or if we´ll get to write any more. Just remember that
no news is good news.
–eric & ashley
Then I shut it all down and went to go eat.
During lunch we began discussing how it was we were all supposed to get to El Salvador, now that our plans had changed. Originally, Marcello was going to drive us there himself, but since our departure time had changed to Monday afternoon at the earliest, he didn’t think he could. The reason for this is that Marcello’s first major children’s camp was to begin at the campground on Monday and he, as its leader, needed to be there. The next plan to come up was to send us all to El Salvador by the Central American equivalent of a Greyhound bus. These were supposed to be very nice and air-conditioned, so we could ride there in comfort. Sounded just fine to us. The only real issue was to make sure that this CA bus line would allow us to carry the enormous and heavy amount of luggage that we had to bring with us. If not, it was no good to us.
Marcello had to leave on errands, but he assured us he would find out how much luggage we could take. Meanwhile we decided that it was unlikely that any bus-line was going to let us have three massive suitcases each, plus multiple carry-on bags, so it was probably best if we consolidated as much of the medicine into as few bags as possible.
We also spent much of the afternoon popping the pre-natal vitamins out of their little blister packs and pre-dosing them into baggies, just so we saved that much more room. While quiet work, it was painful as the blisters kept jabbing under our thumbnails, ripping the skin there and causing our thumbs to ache fiercely. It was during this time that Butch once again made the mistake of falling asleep in our presence, so we defaced him with little hair-scrunchies and sunglasses.
By 5p, Marcello had not returned and we were getting really antsy about the situation with the luggage. Even after consolidation, we still had loads and loads more luggage than was likely to be accepted. Oswald happened by around then, so we asked him to phone the bus-line for us and inquire. After he got off the phone, he explained that the bus-line was only going to allow us one 25 pound suitcase each. We laughed and laughed and then got worried again.
Presently Marcello arrived and we broke the news to him. He didn’t seem surprised about the bus/luggage situation, nor did he seem at all worried. In fact, he sat down to watch highlights from the most recent soccer championship matches. Marcello almost always has an air of cool collectedness about him. Ashley wouldn’t let the matter rest, though. She kept asking him how exactly we were supposed to get to El Salvador.
Marcello just kept saying, “Don’t you worry. We will get you to El Salvador.”
I wasn’t worried. See, I recognized in Marcello the soul of a Wheeler Dealer. I’ve known a number of Wheeler Dealers in my life and while they can often be terribly frustrating in their methodology or apparent lack thereof, they always get the job done. They might not do so exactly on time and they might have to resort to underhanded tactics or call in some favors to accomplish their goal, but they always accomplish it. Ashley, however, wasn’t content unless she got some specifics. After all, some of the bags we had with us belonged to team members back home and she had promised to return them and she was worried that Marcello’s plan might involve leaving empty luggage behind.
Finally, I think just to get her off his back, Marcello told us that he would personally drive us and all of our luggage to El Salvador on Monday afternoon, or at least as far as the border depending on whether the team from San Salvador could meet us there.
“Now will you let me watch my game?”
“Yes. Thank you,” Ashley said.
We dined on a never-ending supply of Marcello’s wife’s home-made pizza. We stuffed ourselves stupid, then sat on the couch with Marcello’s children and watched Spongebob Squarepants in Spanish, until Oswald signaled us it was time to go.
We rode in Oswald’s car as he drove us to his home in another neighborhood in Guatemala City. At night the city is very much in armed-fortress mode and there is very little traffic out, at least on the roads we drove. We spoke only a little on the way there, as neither he nor we speak much of the other’s language.
Oswald and Rita’s home was in another gated neighborhood. It too had the fortress like garage door and a front door beyond that. Inside, the place was small but comfortable with a large kitchen and a beautiful brick archway dividing the living area from the dining room and kitchen.
Rita speaks very good English. She and Oswald were wonderful hosts to us and sat up answering all of Ashley’s questions about the pregnancy and its difficulties. Rita said she would be undergoing some additional tests soon and that they would know by the following week whether they would need to induce labor two months early or not.
Before we went to bed, Rita warned us not to be surprised if we ran into someone else in the apartment, as there was another person living there. Her name was Christina and she was there with her husband Cody and foster daughter Mia Rene. We said we’d keep an eye out for them.
It felt good to sleep together in a real bed for the first time in over a week. My snoozing was only disturbed briefly by some conversations I could hear from outside in the street. This neighborhood was still fairly active even in the wee hours, so the conversations of neighbors hanging out on the curb were audible, though I couldn’t understand them, so it just became background noise to my slumber.
We had no way of knowing that the following day would be the most exciting, eventful and dangerous of our entire trip.