Today we went to Cuatro Cayos. Pastor Carlos was having a Kids Day for the kids of the village. We met Jerry, another missionary worker here, and Griselda (sp?) and her daughter at Griselda's cafe in Rio Dulce. They were going to Cuatro Cayos as well. There are 2 ways to get to Cuatro Cayos. One is by boat. This is a good option as long as the river is not up too much from rain. Then it turns into a floating obstacle course. You can also drive there, IF you have 4-wheel drive and the gates are unlocked as the road to get there crosses some private property. Its not like in the States a lot of property IS landlocked! Jerry had been there by truck before and we wanted to find out how to get there by truck in case we ever needed to take the kids home this way so we decided to drive. (We also had just purchased a 4-wheel drive Suburban earlier in the week and wanted to try it out.) So after a tamale breakfast courtesy of Jerry and Griselda, and those tamales were GOOD!, we were off.
 |
| Our new ride. |
Everything was going smoothly until we got to a gate that was locked and the guardian of the property had gone to Seja (a town not too far from where we live that we had passed thru on the way). So we had to turn around and try another way. There was another road we had passed that was a little longer and was a tad bit more of a challenge, but who doesn't like a challenge?
The "road" went up a pretty good hill that looked like a couple of monster trucks had just played "Lets see who can dig the biggest hole?" Undaunted, we tried it anyway. Jerry knew where he was going so we let him go first. He got about half way up and was trying to go up the trail to the right when he got hung up on a stump. We wisely (?) put Alex behind the wheel as she had driven before and we began digging and pushing and pulling on the truck trying to get it off the stump. (We were doing this by hand as we did not want to chance both trucks getting stuck.) Alex did not realize Jerrys truck was a standard ( she had NEVER driven one before!), but as the tires spun pretty easily in the mud she didn't have to worry too much about stalling it out. She did really well.
 |
| After her first successful off-roading adventure! |
We finally got Jerry's truck out and then I got the Suburban stuck trying to BACK UP another mud-slicked hill we had came down on the way in. Jerry was able to get around me facing the right direction and we attached a rope and were able to get the Suburban out as well. New, all-terrain tires for the Suburban are in the near future.
We drove back to the locked gate, parked the trucks, and decided to walk the rest of the way. We took turns carrying the PVC poles for our puppet stage and the crate that had all the puppets, face paint, etc... in it for the next 3 miles (I'm guessing, but pretty sure I'm close). Several of the hills we climbed were STEEP and tall. Everyone drove on and nobody complained. After about and hour and a half we arrived at the bridge over the river at the boat landing. Now Brie is not a huge fan of heights, much less a suspension bridge that moves around alot (especially with Brenden and Toni's help), but she crossed like a champ. Once across the river we only had abut 1/4-mile to go. Three of the boys fom the village ran to meet us and toted the PVC poles for us the rest of the way to the village. Just seeing how excited they were made all the walking and mud and effort worth it.
We finally arrived at the village around 11:00. There were about 50 kids there waiting for us. They were overflowing out of the church. We quickly set up and did our very first Hacienda de Gracia award winning puppet show about Noah and the Ark. We were able to talk Toni into narrating for us as his Spanish is a little better than ours (that was a joke). All the kids did have speaking parts though and I think we pronounced everything right as everybody clapped at the end (of course, I guess they could have been clapping because it was over...Naaaaa).
Then the kids had a contest to see who could remember the most memory verses and who could recite all the books of the Bible. The kids tried really hard and did really well.
After this, the kids from CC put on a play about the Good Samaritan, Samuel and also about James 2, about not showing partiality to someone based on how they look. They were really good and looked like they really enjoyed showing what they learned.
 |
| The traveler getting mugged by the bad guys. |
 |
| The Good Samaritan helping the traveler on his donkey. |
The village also treated all the kids, as well as us, to Pan Dulce and a hot drink (I don't know what it's called) that is made from boiled corn, rice, some cinnamon and some type of citrus fruit I couldn't put my finger on, and milk. It was different but actually pretty good.
While Jeanne and the twins set up to do face painting, Brenden, Dani and I pulled out the parachute. The kids really had fun with the parachute. We started off throwing a ball around with the parachute. After awhile though the kids started getting bored with the ball so they decided to liven it up a little by using a dog,
a cat,
(Sorry, the cat was too fast. I couldn't get the picture quick enough.)
and even some of the smaller children. (No children or animals were harmed during the making of this film, I mean these pictures).
Jeanne and the twins painted every child in the village at least twice I think. One boy even pulled his sleeve up for Jeanne as she had already painted all his exposed skin. The kids really went crazy with the body art.
We finally packed up about 3:00 as we had a ways to walk back to our trucks and wanted to get there before dark. Four boys from the village and the "mayor" walked us back. A couple of the boys had bicycles and one carried the trunk on it all the way back. That was a BIG help. The trunk wasn't so much heavy as it was bulky. Their help was a great blessing.
We made it back to our trucks with plenty of time to spare and made it back home without any further "adventure". It was a tiring, but a GREAT day.
