Corn Island - Blogabond

When we were in Matagalpa last month at the Pioneer School, our third day of class the branch office called and asked if we could leave the class go to Corn Island, and get there before the end of the week. Corn Island is on the Carribean coast.
(They dont have much corn growing there. Yes, I was looking for it. Still very disapointed.)
If you go by land it takes parts of three days. 9 hours by bus, and 4 hours by boat on a river and then 4-5 hours across the carribean sea to the island. We didnt have that much time, so we took a flight instead. The first picture shows the view when we were landing. The water is beautiful and the beaches are nice white sand.

I feel like I need to brag about our survival skills because the apartment we stayed in was only partly furnished. We didnt have a fridge or a washing machine. That was a first in my life. Here is a shot of me washing clothes. I learned if you wear socks like a pair of gloves you can wash them at the same time as you wash a towel or shirt. Saving time washing was a goal of mine. It could've been my inexperience washing by hand, but it took me hours to get through our loads of laundry. AND, because it was so humid, the clothes would sometimes take 4 days to dry! At that point they smell as fresh as an old wet dog and start growing some grey kind of mold.

Living without a fridge was also a lot of fun. Every meal had to be cooked from scratch, and every last bite had to be eaten or it went bad. A bible student gave us 3 pounds of fish as a gift. Sounds good right? Well, it was 90 humid degrees inside and no way to keep it fresh, so we fried it all and sat there sweating, forcing down every last oily bite.

We had to sleep under mosquito nets. Malaria and Dengue fever are a problem. The girls who lived in the apartment before us got Dengue. At dusk about 5:30pm, mosquitoes would pour in the house. They were horrible. Some nights we would close up all the windows right before they came and just sit in the breezeless heat. And other nights if we left the windows open for air, we would climb in bed about 6:00pm and just let them swirl around the mosquito net.

I know it sounds like we have a lot of bad things to say about it, but we are really glad we lived there. Just in case someday we have another assignment like that, we'll be prepared. But man, am I glad to have our washing machine and fridge back.

The congregation made every thing more than worth it. There were 55 in attendance at the meetings. Shane was the only speaker for three weeks. Except one 5 minute discourse given by a local brother. Anytime we thought about the mosquitos or the fridge thing all we had to do was go to meeting and we forgot it all. This group is something special! Only 8 publishers are here but the attendance is booming. Anyone interested in coming to this island? It has a huge English territory and if you actually have money you can buy a fridge and screens for the windows! It probably runs about 600 a month to cover all costs down there. Think about it...

This little boy is named Roman. He was just too cute. His mom is studying the bible. His dad is a descendant of the people indiginous to nicaragua. You can see some of the traits in Roman too.

This family lost part of their roof in the hurricane. They said it was early in the morning and they heard the radio warning to get to a safe place before the hurricane hit. Claudia, the mom, grabbed a sheet, a towel and her bible and they all went to the Kingdom Hall to wait out the storm. The wind ripped off a panel of their old zinc roofing. The water poured in and soaked everything they had. The bed, the tv and all their books. They were sad about all of that, but when we called a few days after the storm, I asked how they were doing and she said, "Oh, we're doing fine. Now I can see the stars when I'm lying in bed. They are beautiful!" We are hoping they'll be able to get a new panel for their roof soon.

The Kingdom Hall is one year old. This side with the fence is from the street. On the other side the hall is open with just seucrity bars. It lets a lot of air in, so that is nice, but when the rain blows sideways water comes in. (Imagine in the hurricane they had there!) There were two apartments on either end of the building. We had the apt. on the far left and the couple who was coming after us was going to live in the apt. on the far right that you can see in the picture.

There is an airstrip that divides the most populated part of the island. When the planes are coming in they shut gates and you cant cross from one side of the island to another. Unless you walk about thirty minutes and make a huge U around the end of the runway. It is closed from 7-9am and 2-4pm. But the rest of the time you can walk on it. Its feels like a road made for giants and you never see any vehicles on it. In the picture you can see the group heading up to another part of the island. And in the sky you can see the rain coming. Hurricane or no, it rained HARD there and the storms moved in FAST!

There is a Big Corn Island and a Little Corn Island. (Neither is growing much big or little corn though. Dont be disapointed like I was.) Shane's parents, Bill and Betty, paid the fare on the boat so all of the publishers of the congregation could go over to Little Corn Island and spend the day. We distributed this tract. We walked the whole day, there are no cars on Little Corn island. The people were really friendly. But I kept expecting some drug dealer to leap out of the bushes and take us all hostage. For real. The beautiful tropical island setting might decieve you but they have a drug problem there. One store put a sign out that warned, "The same 'friends' who will sell you drugs, are the same 'friends' who will come later and rob you once they think you are high." One of the sisters with us said one time she came to work on the island and all of a sudden a bunch of people started grabbing sticks and machetes and took off running for the other side of the island. Old men and young boys included. She asked what was going on and they said a boat loaded with drugs was coming in from Columbia. And if they ran in fast enough with something to protect themselves, they could grab some cocaine and sell it for $4000 a pound.
Happily we met only smiley, friendly islanders.

I need to add something about the boat ride to and from this Little Corn Island, the waves were the biggest I've ever seen. Shane says its because I've never ridden anything but Washington State Ferries. But I swear I thought they might come over the boat and dump us down into the swirling depths. At one point the waves rose on both sides of the boat at least ten feet and we dropped into the gap in between them. I looked at Shane and said, "I feel like they're digging my grave!" He grinned wider than the brim of his hat and said, "Yeah Nessy! Isn't it great?" Only Betty was a comfort to me because she was scared too.

For all those reading, I'm going to keep writing, but I recommend you take a break. Your bottom might be going numb in your chair or eye strain could be setting in, but since you are so engrossed in this reading, you may not have noticed it. We've just missed writing a bunch of blogs, so I'm catching up. But you really should pace yourself and stop and walk around or something.

Back to the mainland:

When we got back to the mainland we had to move. The brother at the branch talked to our circuit overseer and recommended a town called San Jose de los Remates. The c.o. wanted to send the couple there to a nearby comunity to start the meetings there and Shane and I would stay in San Jose de los Remates and help out there. We took a day with Betty and come to see the town. Everything is so cute. There´ll be more pics of that later.

And we took advantage of being close to Luis and Maribel dropped in to visit them. They were special pioneers in Jinotega and now they are in the traveling work in Juigalpa.

We had to say goodbye to our friends in Jinotega. They threw us a great going away party, with good food and traditional dancing. And then everyone danced. It was fun and also very very hard to leave everyone. They even dressed us in the traditional clothes after they finished their dance. (It will be meaningful for some to know that, Yes, Shane wore traditional clothes and made a spectacle of himself!!!)
They were so good to us. Josh and Michelle, Fran, Erica, Micah and Angela all came to help us load the truck. We came late and the truck was already there, and they had us half loaded up by the time we got there.

A couple we were studying with made us a goodbye meal. Brain and bull testicle soup.
Does that sound gross? Well, to me it was good. Some mothers recommend that their daughters dont eat it. It might cause abnormal hair growth or some such thing they say, but well, I liked it and so what if my voice occaisionally slips into a bass and now and then I´m picking up heay objects just to see if i can. Poor Shane on the other hand was already fighting a population of amoebas and the soup just wasnt his cup of soup. He is smiling in the picture but he was really stuggling. He looked a bit pale when he choked down the first bite. Sooo, pretty soon we noticed all the cats of the house hanging around at his feet. Yes, he was slipping the special meats down to them.

These are shots of our new place It is very charming. It has been a bit of an adjustment. We came from a town with two congs. of 80 publishers and loads of pioneers and appointed brothers. Now we are two of seven publishers and there are only three other baptized members of the group.

Last week we were feeling lonely and we both prayed about it. Sooooooo, on Sunday we had a group come to visit from Managua. Sixty people came to help us preach door to door! They came in a private bus and parked in front of the house. It was great and kind of crazy. There was a line for our one bathroom pretty much the whole time. We all came back to our place for lunch and everyone spread out all over the porch in front, living room, patio and backyard.
The local brothers and sisters went preaching with us too. It was such a boost for them. There were so many people in the house that when everybody loaded back on the bus to go home, people were waving from the bus windows who I hadn´t even met! We were so encouraged by the visit. Shane and I laughed afterwords though that maybe next time we should just pray that we are a LITTLE lonely.

written by

Shane Perry on November 23, 2009 from Corn Island, Nicaragua

from the travel blog: Shane and Vanessa's Nicaraguan Adventure

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You have to post a pic of Shane in native clothing! Do you have any with the both of you in matching clothing? That would be adorable. It might be as cool as the matching tigger shirts pic Tori made me get at Disney. Every time I see it I want to smash my face into a wall. It sounds like an awsome adventure. I proud of you guys for sticking it out. I noticed no motorcycle in the kitchen, did the laptop not sell?
-Shawn

written by Shawn on November 25, 2009

Not everyone can have 4 kids and drive a Ducati... I just dont got it like that. Oh... and I sold the Laptop and the Motorcycle. All my fun toys have gone away. Im thinking about getting a Dremel tool now. Dont have one of those laying around the garage do you?

written by Shane on November 26, 2009

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