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Thriller fiction and Non-fiction

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Day 1, part two: Purpose

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As soon as I posted the first post for today, I regretted it. It was too general, too simple and really didn’t explain why I was here or what was going on. There is only so much I can cover in a “blog” without it turning into something else, of course, and I plan to write this up for another publication or two when I get home. That said, I think I can add some more detail to explain the “purpose” of this adventure.

Since the mid-1960s, Moskito Indians from the La Moskitia region of Honduras and Nicaragua have been diving for lobster. In the beginning they dived without scuba, freediving, and were very good at it. But, as is somewhat inevitable, they had to go deeper and deeper so they began using scuba. Even then they have had to move deeper and deeper to continue their harvest.

In short, their diving has evolved well beyond any recreational or commercial limit into the extreme—and extremely dangerous. Often, these divers make 8 to 12 divers (or more) a day for 12 days to 100 feet or more. Simply put, that is insane. One of the greatest mysteries of this is why these divers don’t experience more problems than they do.

Dr. Elmer Mejia has been treating these divers for nearly 20 years, starting out as a hyperbaric technician, then a nurse and now as a physician. Today I showed him a video produced about 15 years ago in Roatan. He is in it. He remembered the people and the situation. Dr. Mejia does his best to treat these divers and restore their health and function. Sometimes he is successful, other times less so. But, he has dedicated his life to serving this community and trying to make a difference.

These extreme diving exposures often lead to severe paralysis and sometimes death. Today, Dr. Mejia treated a diver who had come to the chamber paralyzed from the top of his abdomen down. He can now walk again, but he is unable to urinate on his own. He has to wear a catheter. On the boat before he ever made it to the chamber, this man had to insert his own catheter—he used kitchen grease as the lubricant. Dr. Mejia is continuing to treat him and work with him to restore him to normal function. He is fighting the residual affects of the diving injury along with a serious urinary tract infection at the same time. We can only hope for the best. If he returns to his home in La Moskitia, he’ll probably only live a couple more years. Continuing to use a catheter, finding sterile materials and such, is nearly impossible.

So, that ultimately is the purpose for this adventure. We are going to travel to Puerto Lempira to visit with some of Dr. Mejia’s former patients and see where they live. I want to understand their quality of life. It’s important we all understand the price these men are paying to harvest lobster for American dinner tables and “all-you-can-eat” buffets. As Divers Alert Network, my employer, evolves we are looking for ways to use our expertise in diving medicine to help underserved populations like this one..

Changes

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The last time I visited Honduras was back in February (If you’re curious about my first impression of Honduras check out the February posts). I’m not sure if I’m just more familiar with things this time around, but things seem a bit calmer this time around.

There is a certain civility to the roads here that I’m not sure I noticed before. While there is a fair bit of honking of horns and such right outside my window, I also noticed today drivers almost anticipating that they were going to get cut off and so they stopped or slowed (driving defensively?) to allow other drivers to pull out into traffic.

The last time I visited, as we drove across the country to and from the airport, we were stopped at a number of police checkpoints. Coming in yesterday, there were none out on the roads. Now, it was Sunday and it was hot and the sun was bright. It is entirely possible that the police just didn’t feel like setting up the checkpoints, but I don’t think so.

A few months ago, the country was still a bit on edge from the transition in their government. Now, it seems as if people are used to the new normal and living their lives. We even saw a protest that blocked the road for around 20 minutes last time, but there was no sign of anything like that yesterday. On the road from San Pedro Sula to La Ceiba, we have to pass over some small mountain. Every few hundred yards (it seemed like) there were mountain streams with people cooling off and passing their Sunday afternoons in the water.

One thing Elmer, Alex and I discussed on the drive was the economic situation in the US and its influence here. Elmer explained that “when the US gets a cough, Honduras gets pneumonia.” They are very dependent on us for their own economic viability. So, he was happy to hear that things seemed to be improving in the US. I did notice some new construction here in town today, too. And not as many young men hanging out in the park in the afternoon. Those seem to be good signs for Honduras.

Very early in the morning Elmer and in the morning are going to get on a small commuter plane and fly out to Puerto Lempira, Honduras. (If you have Google Earth, check it out) That is the real purpose of this trip. In February, I learned about the Moskito Indians and the toll harvesting lobster by hand takes on their bodies. This trip, we are going to visit the “capital” of La Moskitia and see things first hand. There is a place there where impaired divers are given physical rehabilitation. Even so, most of them only last a few years because of their injuries. It should be quite an experience.

Before I left home, Elmer told me to bring good boots, long pants and long-sleeved shirts. So, it’s off to the jungle we go. If I can connect from La Moskitia I will post from there. No clue at the moment, but to be honest I am doubtful I’ll have any access at all. Stay tuned for more…pics will follow soon..

Return to Honduras

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Sunday morning I head back to the airport and from there back to Honduras. While my last two international trips were about the completion of a project, exhibiting a collection of photographs, Honduras represents the beginning of a new one—and a new adventure.

After making sure everything is in order on Monday after my arrival, on Tuesday Dr. Elmer Mejia and I are traveling by airplane (there are no roads to get there) to Puerto Lempira in the La Moskitia region of Honduras to visit with lobster divers. Reportedly, there are around 9,000 Moskito Indians in the region who dive regularly harvesting lobster. About half of them have some neurological condition, including severe paralysis, that was caused by the extreme exposures and dive conditions these divers experience. They often dive well beyond any recommended dive table in the hunt for lobsters, sacrificing their bodies, so Americans can have all-you-can-eat lobster.

The problem is these divers don’t see any other way to make a living. If they try to dive more safely—as people have tried to teach them before—they can’t collect as many lobsters and feed their families. If they don’t dive, there really aren’t many opportunities for them to earn a living at all. That is, none without helping to run drugs across Honduras heading north to the American market. So, in short, it comes down to feeding one American appetite or another to make a living and probably die trying.

Dr. Mejia and I are going to visit these divers, many of them his former patients, in their villages. I hope to learn more from them about their diving circumstances, the conditions they work in, and understand their lives at home.

Not sure how much access I will have to the internet. I will be able to connect in La Ceiba, but I’m doubtful about the time I’m in Puerto Lempira. Never know until I get there.

And away we go!.

Wrap –Up France

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Below are my final notes from the trip. Most were written soon after the event, but I wasn’t able to post until now, so the time frame may seem a little weird. I could go through and re-edit, but I want to keep this instant/initial impressions without overanalyzing too much. So, live with it… 😉

Cheek Kissing
I have come to the conclusion that I really like the French/European custom of cheek kissing—between men and women anyway. At first I was sort of holding back, a little uncomfortable with it and I could tell a couple of the French women found it a little awkward that I wasn’t doing it. So, I told myself when in France…by the time I left, it was totally natural. Definitely a custom I could get used to.

Closing ceremony
Last night was the closing ceremony of the Bordeaux film festival. They recognized each of the participants, including me, with flowers, a certificate and a bottle of wine to recognize the event. All in all, the event was a great success and a lot of fun. The owners of L’oenolimit (where my exhibit was displayed) told me that often when they have a opening for a new exhibit, there is a good crowd on opening day, but then no one comes in after that. Except with my exhibit. They said they had good traffic each day by people coming by to see my photos. I was very pleased with that.

Following the presentations, they showed a film, followed by a buffet and party. You can see some of the pictures from the party, including lots of Russian and French faces of the volunteers and helpers who took very good care of all the participants. It was their night to let their hair down and they did just that.

Two final notes on my apprehension about traveling in France. For various reasons, I ended up taking the tram to the closing ceremony by myself. I knew the way because I had taken the tram with a friend earlier in the week. But, I still thought it was an interesting progression for me to have gone from being spooked about traveling their at all to getting on the tram by myself and moving around the town. And, at rush hour no less, so the trains were crowded. Sort of proud of myself for that one.

After the party, as we were chatting before heading back home or to the hotel, one of the French girls asked me my impressions of France. I told her of my initial concerns and she said she had heard that before, but hoped I would tell all my friends that all French people are not like that. I have to agree. While it is possible to meet someone on the street who is arrogant or impatient, the French certainly don’t have a monopoly on that feeling. You can just as easily find that in America. Every person I met was open, warm and friendly. I look forward to going back someday. Truly.

Addendum
In the airport in Amsterdam. Delayed for who knows what reason, but no way to shift flights because my baggage is already in the process. It would have been nice if someone had mentioned that during check in. So, I sit and I wait, knowing full well I am missing my connection to home. I hope there is a late connection of I will be stuck in New York overnight. At this point, I am at the mercy of the airlines. Nothing to do but wait.

Further update:
Made it to NY 6 hours later than expected. But, for once, everything worked out and Delta rebooked me on an American flight to home. I’ll get in around midnight (6 am France time) which is nearly 26 hours after I began this odyssey.

New experience for me, coming through Passport Control here in New York. I got pulled aside and had notes scribbled on my declaration form. Not a comfortable feeling. Ultimately, it was all nothing. They had flagged my name looking for another Eric Douglas, but it did make me start wondering…and I might just have an extra bottle of French wine in my checked luggage. So….

Wow!

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Today has been all over the map. I’ll do my best to give you a recap.

We began the day with a Russian Orthodox church service held in a Catholic church. The Russian orthodox community here is too small to have their own church in Bordeaux, so they have come to an agreement with the St. Peter (Saint Pierre) catholic church in the city to use a small chapel off the side of the main cathedral. What makes that interesting, the two faiths split hundreds of years ago, but obviously they local communities have opted to work together.

Even more interesting, the orthodox priest is French and doesn’t speak Russian, but he still conducts each mass in Russian. The group of parishioners is small but dedicated. After the ceremony, they invited us to have tea and coffee with them.

From there, we joined the participants in the film festival for lunch at a local restaurant. We ended up having a table full of Americans, a table of French people and a table full of Russians. We toasted to Mother’s Day.

Then we all got together for a trip to a local winery. After a beautiful tour, we got to sample a couple of their wines, as introduced by the owner herself. She was a lovely lady and very friendly, but you could also tell she was an aristocrat in her world. We checked into bottles of the wine she gave us on the tour but they were 45 and 52 Euros per bottle. I passed.

May 9 is also the end of hostilities for World War II in Russia. This is a major event in Russia as approximately 20 million people died during the war. It was a terrible time and deeply ingrained in the Russian psyche. We joined a group of Russians and French out for dinner and Russian style drinking (vodka and toasting) to remember the evening. It started out a little rough as tensions were high for some reason, but things quickly relaxed as people got a drink or two in them. I gave a couple toasts over the course of the evening.

All in all, a pretty amazing day.

But, now we are looking at our flights leaving here and things are getting a little tense. It looks like everything will be fine, but I’m not 100 percent sure. The latest eruption of the volcano is jostling flights again. We’ll see how it goes..

A funny thing happened…

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…on the way to Bordeaux

This morning we set off for the coast. It isn’t like any of us were strangers to the beach, but we wanted to see the French side of the Atlantic. We never actually got to the true Atlantic, but we got close enough.

We visited the city of Arcachon. Beautiful little sea-side resort town with some fantastic architecture and a great, flat wide-open beach. I’m sure in season, it would be packed with people, but today it was still pretty empty. I did see one woman sunbathing topless on the beach, even though it was windy and in the 70s today. But, have you ever noticed how its never the people sunbathing topless that you want to see topless?

To get all of us down to the beach, half of our group had ridden with a friend of our translator’s family. This woman was headed to the beach anyway for a few hours and we could tag along. After we all got there, we went out separate ways. We were going to meet up to go home. But, she was ready to leave before we were so, we decided part of the group would take the train back to Bordeaux. Unfortunately, when we got to the train station, the last train for the evening left 10 minutes earlier.

No choices at this point, but Lorissa’s husband drove half the group home and was going to return for me, Lorissa and their son. Lorissa called some friends in the town who immediately came and got us to take us to their home for dinner. Walter, who described himself as an Italian/Frenchman cooked dinner while the family and the rest of their guests chatted. As I understood it, there was an Orthodox priest, his wife and a couple neighbors there. While dinner was cooking Walter took me into his wine cellar (he said wine was his passion) and showed me a bottle of wine from one of the best wineries in the area that was bottled in 1913. He told me it would still be drinkable, but was more of a collector’s item than anything else. Walter’s wife is Russian as well, so the orthodox priest led the assembled group in a blessing of the meal. I stayed respectfully quiet.

As we finished up dinner, Lorissa’s husband returned to pick us up. But, the evening wasn’t over yet. About halfway home, the engine in their car died. Fortunately, they had roadside assistance insurance (which reminds me, I need to call AAA when I get home) and a tow truck came, followed by a cab to get us all, about two hours later than expected, back safely to Bordeaux. Just one more little adventure in the game of life..

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