August 18, Esteli, Nicaragua – The truck is a mid-size Toyota with club cab to comfortably seat four.  Yes, the four-wheel drive is a necessity, not a status symbol.

Rafael is not going with us to show the “La Esperanza” (The Hope) movie near Condiga and Pueblo Nuevo, but his 15-year-old nephew Alvin is.  We delight in the similarity of our names and dub ourselves “Los Ayudantes,” (the helpers).  Vickie adds to our title, and we are soon known among our amigos as “Los Ayudantes Excelente.”   The truck is loaded with a generator, projection and amplification equipment, and the big screen (also known as a white bed sheet).

 “Los Ayudantes Excelente” 

We head north on the Pan American highway about an hour, past tobacco fields and grand green mountains.  The highway serves trucks, cars, bicycles, pedestrians, hitchhikers, cows and dogs in relatively equal quantities.  I’m reminded of the video games where one scores points for hitting some targets while trying to avoid others.

Our first stop is a pottery shop.  The road off Pan Am is maybe two miles much like the “goat hills” north of New Sharon.  Keep a sharp eye out for cows, dogs and people!  Three women are working.  Vickie strikes up conversation and shows me the four wood-fired kilns and two rooms where products are displayed.  My purchase is a hand-made piggy bank, plate and cooking pan for $7.  No negotiating needed.  A bit of a feeling of guilt accompanies the purchase as it is.

We meet our contact people at a Nicaraguan convenience store—no fuel, but plenty of snacks, drinks and baked goods.  Alvin buys a bag of Dorito-like chips for himself and one for me.  We meet Humberto, a forty-ish pastor—wearing an orange shirt like myself—who looks after ten rural churches.  We also meet Sara, a Peace Corps volunteer who has gained great respect from Greg.  She is translating a report on her activities for English to Spanish.  Sara is 23 and has been in country two years as of August 28.

Now, Sara, Alvin and I are in the back of the Toyota.  I’m holding tight to the roll bar while Sara and Alvin sit on the corners of the truck bed.  I’m thinking it is a quite common and quite unsafe practice as we are off four-wheeling again.  Five miles up the mountain road we stop to pick up another pastor.  Well, at least he is trying to start a church, and shows us where he plans to build it next to his home.  Yes, of course, he too is wearing an orange shirt.  He jumps in back.  Like myself, Jose has five children and prefers to hold on while off-roading, or, I guess, maybe it’s on-roading.

Pastor Jose, Marvin, Pastor Humberto, Alvin, Sara and Greg

Greg nearly stops the truck when we encounter, in the exact center of the “road”, the cutest young one-eyed burro you can imagine.  He is at once grey and unfazed by the Toyota.

 The church is in solitude behind a primitive post and wire fence, and we meet—you guessed it—one more orange-shirted pastor.  Greg wonders what’s up, and we tell him he should have checked his email.