The Beginning of the End 7/17/15

Today was the last full day on the island. We kicked it off with with hiking over to the East Village one last time to do our 1 week follow up cleanup. I am not sure whether I mentioned this or not but this was another thing that I had mixed feelings about for several reasons. First of East Village is just like Chachuate, it's not a novelty it's someone's home that you are walking into. Whether you are bringing business by buying from Aguardiente or you are cleaning up trash you have to be really respectful of where you are. The village was just as litter-filled as it was yesterday and you can't blame them. Where else are they going to put it? Some of the stuff can't be burned and just ends up floating out to sea. We ended up cleaning two main areas; the beach front (which wasn't too bad) and the side swamp area. Both were beyond repair when it came to picking up trash and we later found out that the swamp/marshy area that we were in was filled with the runoff of their outhouses and we were covered in the E. coli bacteria. We were all very cautious from there on to not touch our faces and when we all returned promised we'd scrub the top layers of our skin off. This whole trip has been very lucky when it comes to illness. There were a couple of 24 sunstroke victims and a few stomach aches both related and unrelated to the boat rides, but besides that everything has been pretty smooth sailing.

I'm gonna take a quick pause and tell an amazing story about just one of the women who lives on Cayos Cochinos, Rhetina. She is a mother of I believe 5 children now and has one arm. She has birthed ever single one of them on the island either mostly or completely by herself. She just had her most recent baby and the story is one that not a lot of others could say they share. When Rhetina felt that she was going into labor she went out onto the dock so she wouldn't get disoriented and forget where she was and managed to deliver the baby by the light of the moon. When she had recovered a bit she took the baby with the umbilical cord still attached to both parties to the witch doctor who cut it and sent her home. She did it with no assistance from a person or painkillers on the end of a splinter filled, rickety dock! Afterwards, when she had to take the baby and herself to the doctor on the mainland she left her eldest daughter who is the ripe old age of 10 to cook, clean, and take care of the other children while she was away. It's not as though she was being an irresponsible parent and taking advantage of her kids. She was doing what she had to do and everyone rallied and did their part and excellently at that. 

Okay, back to what I was saying. Olivia had left TBR early because she wanted to be able to walk slower and not feel as though she was being rushed so Adam and I decided to head out and see if we could catch up with her. It turned out that she had been moving pretty speedily because by the time she was already happily playing with some adorable pups!

Austin and puppy

Adam and puppy

A lot of the dogs look really similar to each other because there's a very limited population. Many have the German Shepherd/Rottweiler/pointy eared/long legged look. As we were hanging out a little boy only in his underwear ran by with a plastic back and a knife held aloft over his head giggling madly. All three of us gaped at him as he went by stunned and wondering if we should stop him but at the same time rooted to the spot. Seconds later we heard screaming and a horrific image of a gushing wound flooded into my mind but Olivia and her mother's instinct rushed to the scene and it turned out that Kona had scared the little boy onto the top of a rusty beer cooler and he was trapped. Crisis averted.

Skip to the end of the E. coli trash clean up and jump to the decisions of how we were all going to get back. For some reason or another the school bus boat was not avail able and the choice was to hike back the way we had come to start with or walk on a supposedly flatter but longer route along the perimeter of the island. I chose the latter in the hopes of an easier walk and a change of scene after having made the trek quite a few times for work and for pleasure. 

To be continued......