Pictures

 Kinota that I ran into at the durotank. These are postmortem, of course.

 Bush spider that I found IN MY BOOT when I went outside to take a picture of the snake I'd just killed.

 Nukse standing over her dead prey. Nukse, frog killer extraordinaire is standing over her prey post-execution.  (Two little buggars that found their way into my room).

 Christine and her grandchildren the day we went to grounds with them to pic watermelons.

The boat, loaded with the day's crop.

Snakes, Spiders and Watermelon

The last week has been an emotional rollercoaster, to be sure.  Not short on excitement, it’s also given me a couple good stories. Last night, for example, when I went out to the durotank to fill the spaghetti pot with water I forgot to take my flashlight. When I felt something on my arm, I assumed it was a tree frog, which are everywhere, and tried to fling it off. When the “frog” fell into the pot, I realized that it was long and skinny. Turns out that it wasn’t a tree frog at all, but rather a Kinota (local name for a Fer de Lance snake), which is deadly and aggressive.  After killing the snake with a hoe, I grabbed my rubber boots (protection against any other poisonous snakes lurking about it the dark) and camera to get a picture.  I shook out my boots and stepped in. Apparently I did not shake hard enough because a big, fuzzy jungle spider was in my right boot and met my toe when I stepped in. Thankfully, neither the snake nor the spider bit me. I think my guardian angel was working overtime last night.

On a more positive and hopefully less frightening note, on Wednesday Suzie Kay and I went to grounds (jungle farm land) with a local couple.  We walked the three kilometers to their first grounds, then trekked a short path to the river where we, along with their youngest son and three of their grandchildren, piled into two small homemade canoes.  In the canoes we headed across the river and down a ways to a small creek. Once stopped, we hiked another kilometer through a swampy area to the second grounds.

In these grounds (at this time of year) the crop is watermelon. I’d never picked watermelon before, so Fankali showed me how to tell if one is ripe. A small leaf atop the melon on the vine dries and turns brown and the melon itself, when tapped, produces a deep hollow sound. Over the next hour we harvested about 200 watermelons and ate about two each.

Next, we had to transport the watermelons to the boat, so we each loaded up with as many as we could carry and made several trips back and forth to the creek where Fankali had replaced one of the smaller boats with a larger one that had an outboard motor (lent from his brother).  To my own surprise, I could carry seven watermelons at once—four smaller ones in my backpack and three midsized ones in my arms.  Others carried buckets or burlap-style sacks on their heads. 

It’s amazing how quickly your eyes adjust to the jungle path. On my first trip down to the creek, I thought I was lost when, at one point, I couldn’t identify where the path was and wasn’t. Although certain parts of the path are obvious (cleared trees, foot prints in mud), others are not so clear. On my return jaunt, however, I took more notice of where the leaves were trampled a bit, where sticks were snapped, and the “path” became more obvious.

In addition to the impressive navigational strengths of our fellow villagers, who cut these paths by hands and slash and burn their grounds year after year, the physical strength of these individuals is hugely impressive. The couple that hosted us is in their sixties. Once the watermelons are transported to the boat, they are paddled by hand (oh yes, the motor didn’t have fuel) through the creek to the river and across the river to the camp from where they are loaded into a truck and later unloaded to be sold in Rica.  We walked at least five miles that day, most of which with a load of watermelons in tow.

The best part, of course, is that we nearly sunk on the way back from the grounds! The loaned boat was old and broken and, with the weight of five people and 200 watermelons, literally began to split at the seams. Christine, wife of Frankali, had to bail the boat out with a large bucket the entire way back because the water was pouring in so quickly. Despite the fact that I’m a good swimmer, sinking in a jungle creek full of eels, snakes and camens is not my idea of a good time!

More to come! (Photos of snake did not upload properly and will be added in a couple weeks when I visit the city).

If you are inspired to send a care package, the following will bring me substantial happiness:

• Beef jerky
• Parmesan cheese
• Mac ‘N’ Cheese
• Raisins or dried fruit
• Milk powder
• Powdered mashed potatoes
• Cliff bars or Lara bars
• Magazines
• Cornbread muffin mix
• Gatorade powder