March 17 – Morning.

A wonderful connection moment this morning. We were packing up to head to the beach after the half day of work (more digging) when Marco walked over to where Arnolfo, Roger (Roe-hair), Nicholas and I were working, looked at me and smiled and said “Corby, loonie!”.

After a minute of explanation and question and answer on both sides, I figured out that he’d said “Corby, Lunis (Monday)”. He was leaving for the weekend and wanted to tell me he’d see me next week.

I took a minute to explain my surprise (“Loonie in english est ‘loco’”) and that my first thought was that this quiet calm wonderful man came up and called me crazy. The laughter continued for a good while, with multiple impressions of the look on my face at the first second and calls of “Corby, you loonie!”.

Now when we say our goodbyes after a day of work, there is inevitably someone who waves and says “You loonie!”.

Ahh… the love of brothers brought together…

This is a series of posts on a very dramatic day. Please start at Part 1 for context.

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The drive home was at much higher speed than the drive out, as the road was empty, but it was in the utter blackness of a rural night. We followed the pickup truck that was carrying Dennis’ body, all of us packed into Pablo’s van. The entire ride was spent swerving back and forth across the road avoiding the worst of the potholes so we didn’t have to slow down. The 2 drivers often chose different paths so it felt like some sort of strange ballet (or perhaps a convoy avoiding artillery fire) crisscrossing each others paths, lighting up the country side together or blinding the two men sitting in the back of the pickup with our headlights as we slid to the front of the van with heavy braking behind them.

We passed a police car, one on the left, one on the right, and kept barrelling down the road. Both vehicles had to stop for bathroom breaks on the way, and everyone got the stressed nervous giggles at having to pass the police car again if he caught up.

Lester and the pastors took the pickup truck to continue the police paperwork as we pulled in to Doña Normas. I had to go through Dennis’ bags (he was my roommate and I knew where his thinga were) to get some clothes and his plane tickets while Doña Norma and Darlene retrieved his passport from the safe box for Lester to take to the police. We silently fell into our beds and slept the sleep of the shell-shocked.

The next morning there was no fixed breakfast. Everyone slept as late as they could and ate fruit when they got up. If you know Doña Norma, you realize what a serious thing this was. She has food ready for meals no matter what. She takes her cooking very seriously. It was a further sign of the shock that everyone was in.

There was a memorial service planned, and I returned to my room to look at the piles of Dennis’ luggage and clothes and try to make sense of the day.

I still haven’t.

Goodbye Dennis.

This is a series of posts on a very dramatic day. Please start at Part 1 for context.

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After resting a while, some of the others wanted to go back in the water before dinner arrived, and I wanted photos of it (my reputation of “If you see it, photgraph it” is being upheld here), so I went along. I focussed my attention on writing messages in the sand to photograph and send home, and turned to take only the occasional photograph of the swimmers.

One of the last photos I took shows Daniel closer to the shore, Lester further out, and Dennis quite a ways further still. Another message or two and all but Dennis were standing near me breathing heavily from their workout. Lester was intently studying the water, and I could see Dennis bobbing with the waves quite far out. Lester was certain somethign was wrong almost immediately, though we watched for a minute unsure. It was perfectly in character for Dennis to want more to experience, to do this thing to the fullest. When he started moving further out Lester turned and ran for the restaurant to get help. In a few minutes a handful of young men from the restaurant staff had come down and Dennis had begun to make headway towards the sand. He began to drift sideways, but was still approaching. As he got closer, we started to see he was in trouble. A teen who was sitting in the restaurant ran into the water in his shorts and royal blue tshirt. Every time he came to a wave he’d bend forward with his arms out and cut through it, then charge forward again until the water was deep enough to get his feet off the bottom. Soon he was swimming like an Olympic sprinter with his arms curved and his head turning in perfect time. It was obvious he was an experience ocean swimmer. Dennis had moved so far sideways that the teen had a long way to catch up. It can’t have been easy to see where he was headed, the surf was so rough.

I was so busy watching the teen that I lost track of Dennis and I started thinking “he should be there by now”. I scanned the water looking for him and for a moment I was confused about where he could be, when the boy pulled Dennis’ head and shoulders out of the water and started clawing for shore. It was only a short way before he could stand and was met by a group of men (including Lester) who took Dennis’ arms and legs and started AR while carying him to shore, then they pulled him onto the sand and started CPR.

A crowd had gathered, and I realized that I wasn’t going to be of any use (there seemed to be a number of people who knew what they were doing and Lester had things well underway). I stepped back and knelt and started praying. More people came (apparently there was a doctor in one of the nearby restaurants) and they kept working. I was a bit scrambled about what to pray. When I first saw him I was shouting BREATHE! at him in my mind, but soon it changed to “Father, into your hands.” over and over again. I have no idea where it came from, and I was actually trying to think of something else (moving mountains, uprooting trees, making friends breathe all ran through my head) but I was helpless to do anything but pray “Father, into your hands.” I couldn’t stop. After a minute I was reassured quite strongly that “this is what he needs now”.

Eventually there was a hush as those working stood and stared helplessly down. The doctor had said there was no use in continuing.

I stayed there praying and crying as some of the initial mob of onlookers bribbled away. One man walked up to me and put his hand on my shoulder. I looked up at a stereotypical Nicaraguan man in shorts and a tishirt with wavy black hair and 5 O’Clock shadow. He squeezed my shoulder and said in accentless perfect english, “Your friend?”. I was so surprised that I just nodded. He continued, “I’m sorry. But you know he’s in a better place right now.” and then he walked away, part of the crowd.

The rest of the evening is a blur of snoozing in a swinging bamboo chair, getting some food that I hardly tasted, waiting for the coroner to showup, walking out onto the beach and looking at the stars (it took an embarassingly long time for Harvey, Jessica and I to find the North Star as we all tried to do something to keep our minds busy). Someone had the idea earlier to get some photos of the sunset that occurred shortly after his death, so that occupied a few minutes. A number of people from the orphanage and local churches all appeared over the course of the evening to offer help and support. Somehow we waited out 5 hours and by midnight we were on the road home to Doña Normas to try to make the token effort at sleep.

See Part 1 and read up if you haven’t got the backstory on this day.

After swimming, the McInnes and I walked up the beach to some rock formations and tidepools that were a kilometer or so off. I picked shells and beachglass for my kids, and Daniel and Jessica (and Mike) tormented crabs and other wildlife. Dennis joined us for a while, but he left when some local kids came by and offered pony rides back to the restaurant. Dennis perched on that tiny little horse was a sight to see.

We slowly made our way back, further off the water this time: hermit crab territory. I noticed one or two and then Jessica told me to stop, stand still and unfocus my eyes. Suddenly the movement popped out at me. Most of the “pebbles” were actually crabs scuttling around and there is a ring of stillness around our group as the detect our presence and suck up into their shells. Walking along… and suddenly their legs disappear and the shell hits the ground and tips over. It’s like a miles-long herd of micro-miniature fainting goats.

(That’s the first youtube hit for fainting goats, I can’t preview it here, but it looks safe. Someone please tell me if it isn’t.)

The final Part is here.

Part 1 and Part 2 are up, but this one stands on its own, pretty much.

A Prairie Boy’s Observations On First Contact With The Ocean

• It’s not as warm as I thought it might be here, but if it was any warmer I don’t think it would feel as good in the sun and the heat.
• It’s FAR saltier than I thought it would be. My sinuses were burning and I was spitting brine every few minutes. It was wonderful.
• Surfing is an unappreciated art. Even just body surfing, it’s far more difficult to catch a wave at the right time and in the right way than it looks. Most often I was ready to be carried by a big wave only to have it tumble around me an leave me unmoved. When I did get carried, it wasn’t very far. I may have to arrange for some of Lyndon’s body surfing lessons and a long warm vacation somewhere to work on my technique.
• I had no idea the undertow was so strong. After a large wave it was difficult even to stand in knee deep water because of the water rushng back out. There’s an optical illusion involved too: if you are trying to walk towards shore there are thousands of bubbles rushing past you out to sea. It’s like when the car next to you at a stoplight rolls forward a little and you stomp on the brake even though you are stopped. Very disorienting. I didn’t have my glasses on (so my maximum focal length was about 9 inches) so I couldn’t focus on anything on the land to keep my reference. I must have looked drunk.
• L’Oreal Ombrelle Extreme 30 SPF with Titanium Dioxide will protect fish-belly white skin all afternoon without reapplying, even with a half-hour’s play in the ocean. I’m not even barely pink, no sun effect at all. I HATE smearing the slimy stuff on, but I can’t argue that it works. Thank you MrsPages.

  Part 3 is coming.