Like much of life, supply runs had a lot of side acts happening along with the main show. \u00a0The transporting of people and supplies \u00a0obviously occupied center stage but just the doing of it generated a lot of sometimes serious and sometimes funny happenings.<\/p>\n
Many were the \u00a0occasions when the loaded boats were laboring against the swift current a man or a family would paddle out from shore frantically waving for the boats to stop. \u00a0The family would be living under the jungle canopy near \u00a0the shore working rubber or some other jungle product for a patron. A child may have come down with malaria or the man might have gashed his leg with an ax. \u00a0Whatever the case the these folks had recognized the sound of the missionaries engines from a long way out and knew they could count on getting help.<\/p>\n
In those days when lady missionaries traveled by river they wore skirts over pantaloons. \u00a0Why not just wear jeans or slacks you might ask? \u00a0Not in those times, it just wasn’t the thing to do. \u00a0Anyway, on one trip some passengers were on the prow of the boat talking or singing or just enjoying the passing scenery when suddenly one of the ladies became \u00a0aware that a wasp had somehow gotten inside one leg of her pantaloons. \u00a0Hastening to a more secluded area of the boat to take care of the problem was of utmost urgency but it just wasn’t happening fast enough. \u00a0By now the poor wasp knew something had gone terrible wrong and was frantically trying to exit the scene The more desperate the wasp, the more it stung and moved about which of course elicited more shrieks, screams and slapping from the by this time very unhappy lady. The river guide, an Indian man focused on his work of keeping the boats in the channel had been observing this whole scene from his seat a few feet back in the main boat. \u00a0By this time \u00a0he was practically falling out of his chair with laughter. \u00a0In the end the problem was resolved \u00a0for the lady, maybe not so satisfactorily for the wasp? \u00a0I heard the river guide tell the story with all the audio and motions many times.<\/p>\n
Another trip we came across a herd of wild pigs swimming across the river. \u00a0We needed meat so a few of us jumped into our dugout and gave chase while the big boats idled along. \u00a0We would knock a pig over the head with a long pole, \u00a0go back to the main rig and heave it onto the big boats. \u00a0We had gotten several pigs this way and were out after another when we heard shouts from the big boats. \u00a0Looking back we could hardly believe our eyes. \u00a0Those supposedly dispatched pigs were ‘coming back to life’ running around terrorizing the passengers and finally jumping back into the river. I guess in the final analysis things didn’t end so bad after all. \u00a0The pigs did get a new lease on life and and well, we still had the old standby of rice and sardines to fall back on with an abundant supply of coffee for those sardines to swim around in down there.<\/p>\n
Once on still another trip we were tied up to the bank for the night in a backwash where the current swung us back and forth all night long. \u00a0We were doing the usual preparations for a crack of dawn departure next morning when a very valuable piece of equipment fell overboard. \u00a0The better part of wisdom would have left it on the bottom of the river but…….! \u00a0The situation was kind of like the baby stroller incident of an earlier post except this time the river was much bigger and it was pitch black. \u00a0We stuck a long pole into the bottom of the river as in the stroller case and I sent down hand under hand to the bottom and thankfully found the item on the first 360 around the pole. \u00a0We all thanked the Lord!<\/p>\n
Then there was the time four of us including the Indian river guide of the wasp story were traveling upriver in a smaller dugout at a pretty fast clip when without warning we ran onto a sand bar about an inch under water. \u00a0As we ground to an abrupt stop everything and everybody was thrown unceremoniously forward. \u00a0One of the missionaries was a hefty fellow who happened to land right on top of a big aluminum cooking pot completely smashing it. \u00a0Our guide loved \u00a0to tell and retell that story as much as he did ‘the lady and the wasp’ story.<\/p>\n
At one time or another everybody for one reason or another ends up eating humble pie. \u00a0During the rainy season of, I think it was 1996, our little school in the jungle was honored by a visit from an editor of a well known Christian periodical. \u00a0I was one of the those who showed him around our neck of the woods. \u00a0Actually other than jungle, water and sky there wasn’t that much you could see. \u00a0The water was the highest I’d ever seen it, great for river travel but not good for seeing much dry land simply because most land was covered by the flood waters. \u00a0This one day we were exploring a smaller tributary in a small flat bottomed speed boat kind of craft. \u00a0Our editor had an improvised butterfly net and we were chasing this beautiful blue butterfly around the sharp bends of the river. \u00a0I had forgotten this boat didn’t have any keel to speak of and as we made a very sharp turn in the chase the boat went literally right up on it’s side. \u00a0We were very fortunate the boat didn’t flip over! \u00a0Well, our editor friend went flying right out into the river. \u00a0He lost his camera and I of course felt very badly I’d dumped him overboard. \u00a0The good part is that back home in civilization he was able to replace his camera and the best part of all is that he remains a good friend to this day. \u00a0There is a possibility he may read this post and I want to thank you Mr. editor for your friendship. \u00a0A couple of things to remember; \u00a01. Always make sure your boat has a good keel and 2. It’s easier to eat humble pie when your friends can laugh with you.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like much of life, supply runs had a lot of side acts happening along with the main show. \u00a0The transporting of people and supplies \u00a0obviously occupied center stage but just the doing of it generated a lot of sometimes serious and sometimes funny happenings. Many were the \u00a0occasions when the loaded boats were laboring against […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/danny-shaylor\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}