Excerpt
The van pulled into the tiny village of Tapaz in a cloud of dust. Disembarking the vehicle gave me a sense of "gloom and doom" when I stopped and looked around wondering just what it was I had gotten myself into. Myrna had warned me over and over again that coming there would catapult me backwards into what it was like in the United States one hundred and fifty years prior to my own generation. Looking up the road in any direction introduced me to nothing but ramshackle shacks and cottages void of TV antennas or cable boxes.
There were no cars or children riding bicycles. There were no streetlights or street signs. There was no sign of a cell phone antenna but there was one lonely high-tension wire. There were no sidewalks or paved roads. There was no sign of a mailbox or pay phone. The homes had windows but there was no glass or screen in them. Most of the homes had roof's constructed out of tin except for Bong's. The roof on his home was made of palm tree leaves.
Once inside Bong's house the tour was on. Besides lacking any furniture to speak of, there was no sign of any interior walls or ceiling. Looking straight upward brought into view, nothing but roof-trusses covered with spiders and lizards. There was one three foot long light bolted to one of the trusses in order to allow light to be cast into all the bedrooms. Nighttime was the only time we were allowed to have light. A "jumper" cable coming from an unknown source supplied the electric.
The tour continued into what was to be our bedroom. This revealed a room approximately six by six and a half feet. The bed was a two by four frame with bamboo slats nailed to it for that "springy" effect. After the bedroom, the tour continued into the kitchen, which revealed a refrigerator that wasn't plugged in. It apparently had been borrowed to store soft drinks and beer for our wedding and wasn't to be used until then. Looking to my right brought into view nothing but a counter top and a sink that drained into a drainage ditch outside. Next to that was a plastic container holding drinking water; each glass dispensed individually as needed. The water came from one of only two available sources. One source was the village water pump, which seemingly worked whenever it felt the desire to, and the other was when it rained.
The longer I stayed in the village, the more I would come to realize just how important the rain, when it came, was. The rainwater was captured via anything that was capable of holding water. This included pots, pans and plastic buckets. Once captured it was then poured into what was called a "sand/gravel" filter. The water would run through the sand and rock placed into a plastic bucket with a spout on the end of it. It would then drain into yet another container and then be poured into the drinking water dispenser.
Next to that was the "Pugoon" or "cooking devise." This is a "anvil" shaped hunk of cement with chambers within it to channel heat to two different burners. It is fed with wood that must be chopped on a daily basis and serves no other purpose other than to heat water and cook, just like a stove. The kitchen tour almost complete, I was for some reason, still looking for the water faucets on the sink, yet I knew there were none. Water for washing dishes was supplied by one of the two village wells, one of which was just outside the back door. Water from there is kept in a blue plastic bucket by the sink. If one ran short on dishwater, it was necessary to go outside and get more. There simply wasn't any plumbing.
The tour finally wound up outside where it was obvious I would have to get used to an "outside" toilet. Flushing was done by dipping well water out of a large drum next to the bathroom door and then dumped into the toilet "forcing" everything down into the septic tank. We then moved onward to the "well." The well was not only the source for water to wash dishes, but it was also where laundry was done as well as personal bathing. We then went back up front.
Standing in what I suppose was a front yard, I heard booming sounds off in the distance in the surrounding mountains. I remember looking upward into the sky and, seeing no clouds, wondered where the "booming" was coming from.
"Sounds like rain," I said.
"That's not thunder." Bong said. "Its gun fire from up in the mountains. The gorilla's are fighting with the military up there, but don't worry; the land here in the valley is too flat, they would never come down here. They would be overpowered by the military and either killed or captured. They'll stay up there where they know they can outsmart the military."
This was a scary thought. Here I was in the middle of nowhere; in a jungle half way around the world from the comforts of home, electric and flush toilets, surrounded by mountains crawling with terrorists. I had purposely put myself in this position in an effort to keep my promise to Myrna and get married in the village of Tapaz, so her family could be there. I had promised her a "traditional wedding" in every sense, but as I would later discover, keeping it "traditional" wasn't going to be as easy or as enjoyable as I was hoping it would be.
As the days would "wile" by, I kept asking myself, if in fact, I had done the right thing by coming there. The challenge of learning their customs and way of life would later become a major "self-imposed" goal; after all, I was there for the duration.
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