In the beginning years the missionaries who had located in Tribal villages along the banks of the jungle rivers lived by trading items the villagers needed for native food supplies. These food items were supplemented by supplies from town about five times a year. Getting these supplies to the missionaries was no simple matter. Depending on the depth of the water in the rivers the trip could take up to three weeks. In some locations the boats had to travel 500 river miles. This distance wasn’t a straight line, ‘as the crow flies’ but rivers don’t flow in straight lines and in the dry season the deepest channel weaves back and forth to the degree you almost meet yourself either coming or going!
Here’s how a supply run would play out. The missionaries would have gotten a detailed food and whatever else they might need from town for the next several months, list, out to the mission buyer in town. The buyer would then spend the next several weeks purchasing, packing and marking each missionary’s order. The challenges of the buyer and what he had or didn’t have to work with is a subject for a whole post in itself. When the orders were were all ready, meaning dozens if not hundreds of boxes stacked high in the buyers home, the supply launch would be brought down the river to the port closest to town. A series of nasty rapids made navigation right up to town impossible. So a local truck owner, driver would shuttle the supplies and people the 60 kilometers from town to the port. He was very fussy about whom or what he would brake for. A cow yes but anything else, maybe yes and maybe no. Loading the boats (usually three plank boats or huge dugout canoes lashed together with long poles) was an art in itself. My Father from whom several of us learned the tricks of the trade would have every box and every barrel of fuel loaded where they would fit best in the boats, on paper, before it ever got out to the port. That helped greatly with the actual loading. The work was beastly! It seemed the truck loads would always arrive at the port around noon when the sun was the very hottest. Fifty five gallon drums, full of fuel, had to be stacked three high. Each one was wrestled into place by brute strength. On one occasion my father was working a full drum weighing 200 kilos if full of gasoline, a lot more it it’s full of diesel fuel, down a steep slope, lost his footing and the drum rolled right over him. He was o.k but thinking of that incident reminded me of the time he had spent the night sleeping on board the launch in his hammock. He couldn’t figure out what was so slippery under foot when he got up the next morning. It turned out the vampires had been feasting on him the night before and had forgotten to turn the spigot off when they had finished. He was slipping and sliding around in his own blood.
Once the boats were all loaded they would be held in position by long straight poles lashed into place by hundreds of feet of ropes and chains. It was of utmost importance each boat hold it’s own position as the rig made it’s way up the river. Navigating through the ‘rapids of death,’or the ‘devil’s passage’, (just two of the many very dangerous stretches of river along the way) required that the boats maintain the proper distance from the others or disaster would follow. The port of departure itself was located on the very tranquil banks of a smaller river but within a couple of hundred yards the boats would move out into the waters of the big river. At that point the big river is very swift and full of rapids and rocks. More than one rig has sunk right there because the river pilot didn’t approach the swift current at the right angle or any number of other things could have gone wrong. Everyone on board and especially the crew responsible for “getting everything right” heaves a sigh of relief when that first stretch of bad water has been successfully navigated.
But we must back up and speak of the most precious of all the cargo. That would be the women and children. Before we had air service the only way for anyone to go and come there in the jungle was by river boat. As the boats were being loaded at the port, there was always a small area that would be used as a kitchen left open on the biggest boat. If possible there would be a palm roof over this area. The women on boat would do the cooking, usually over a coleman camp stove. I need to do an entire post on the kitchen and cooking on these trips. There were no chairs for passengers or crew on these voyages. People sat on the sides of the boats or on the cargo, sometimes on fuel drums. At night folks hung hammocks over the cargo, this when there was a roof with a strong enough frame to hang the hammocks from. The bilge area was a good place over which to hang your hammock but you’d be awakened several times at night when the designated bailer bailed the boat. I see I’ll have to continue this another time.
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