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Published: December 20th 2007
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Landslide
Karina and Yadira by another landslide on the road to Puyo Sue and I finally purchased our new bikes - Super Luxors. They are not the highest quality, but they work and that is what is important. We picked them up from the bike shop on Monday and enjoyed our first ride. I’ll try to post a few photos on the blog if I can figure it out.
The weather here has been wacky as of late. We have had a rash of thunderstorms (which are actually not the norm) and a ton of heavy rains. On Monday I went to the FRATES communities for some meetings about a health project that CODEAMA has going on out there. I went with Fanny (Guillermo´s daughter - who is a nurse and the person responsible for implementing this particular project) and Mary Fifield, the Director of Global Pediatric Alliance (the group that is funding the project). Of course it was raining and we got wet and we had to cross a stream on foot - I did my best to rock hop, but ended up falling in anyhow. Oh well.
Tuesday, the off and on rains continued, luckily, I stayed in the office most of the day - I had a few
Flooded Road
The road to FRATES was flooded by Rio Puyo meetings and other things to take care of. We are doing a secret santa at the office - they call it amigo secreto (secrete friend) which makes me think that the activity is a little more on the illicit side of things rather than the festive side. Anyhow, my secrete friend is Bolivar - so yeah - we’ll be dealing on the festive side of things. I got a hat made for him that says CODEAMA - hopefully, he will like it.
Back to the rain story - Wednesday morning I woke up at 2am to heavy rains and thunder. I was supposed to go to FRATES again for another set of meetings - this time with Karina and Yadira from my office. I really didn’t want to go, especially since it was pouring outside. I stayed in bed debating whether I should go and then guilted myself into getting up and going. So I took a cab to the bus station and met up with Yadira and Karina.
The entire ride out it poured and I kept thinking that there would be no way for us to cross the river to get to the community of Vencedores (the same river I fell in the other day). As we drove out, all the rivers we passed were near or above flood stage and the road was getting worse by the minute. We hopped off the bus at the path to Vencedores. I checked to see if we could cross and the river was chest high and too dangerous to attempt passage. So…..we decided to wait for the bus to return which should take about an hour. Instead, the bus came back 10 minutes later - the road was washed out near FRATES so the bus had to return. We hopped on and about ¼ mile later the road we had just driven over 15 minutes earlier was now flooded by the river. The water was about 4 feet deep and rising. The bus driver decided to drive through the river - we made it, but barely. The water came up to the floor of the bus. When we got to the other side, they had to stop to open up the storage compartments under the bus to let the water out - glad I didn’t put my bag down there.
We continued on and finally got back to the main paved road to Puyo. The rain was so intense that it caused mudslides everywhere and many of the houses near the road were in jeopardy of being washed away by flooding. 12km from Puyo we were stopped by a landslide across the road.
We sat on the bus for about an hour waiting to see what would happen. This is always an enjoyable experience as people sitting around you all start talking about what happened and how long it will take to clear it away. Seeing as how they were on the bus with me and none of us actually saw what happened, I found this skill of omnipotent vision rather amazing. The guy behind me said that he had heard we would be stuck for 2 days - I told him that I hadn’t heard that - he said it was true though. I asked him how he knew and he just looked at me with a blank stare - yes, the little voice in his head must have told him. Eventually the truth reached the bus, by way of the police. There were three small landslides in the road - it would be another hour or two, but that we could walk over them if didn’t want to wait.
We were up for an adventure so Karina (in her white pants and tennis shoes), Yadira (well prepared with her rain coat and rubber boots) and I (also with coat and boots) headed into the driving rain to cross the landslides. A group of our fellow bus-mates decided to join us on our grand adventure.
The landslides were nothing big, we crossed the first two with little problem. The third was not as big, but was much muddier than the first two. I walked across with little problem, however, Yadira got stuck in thigh deep mud - so I returned to pull her out. Another young woman in our group got nearly across, hopping from rock to rock, then slipped and went face first into the mud. Karina saw this and froze. She reached a point about half-way across where she couldn’t go further and could return. He legs were not long enough to reach the next piece of solid ground/rock. I returned to give her a hand. She was afraid of falling and wouldn’t take my hand so in one motion I grabbed her and hoisted her over my shoulder carrying her fireman style to the other side.
Everyone laughed including Karina. They were so surprised that I did that and amazed that I had the strength to do it. I am sure I gave them a story to tell that night to their families. Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands I guess.
We managed to salvage Katrina’s white pants - don’t get me wrong, they were muddy, but not ruined.
I later found out from Antonio at FRATES that the storm did some serious damage out there. The road to FRATES was wiped out, there is no electricity, and the water source for FRATES was ruined. Antonio was beside himself and will have his hands full with work. I told him that I could free up some time to help him out after x-mas.
Tonight, Sue and I are headed to dinner with my office for our office Christmas dinner. We are going to Colibri which is the pizza place we like in town. It should be a fun night to conversation, pizza, beer, and holiday cheer.
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