A letter from Roatan

Hello again! I thought I would post an excerpt from a letter I wrote during my time in Roatan.

I had written from the airport on the way to Roatan in September saying I would update everyone when I got home, but I've been so busy that it simply hasn't happened yet. 

The 5 weeks I spent on the Island with Timothy were wonderful! We had a great time together and I was so blessed and encouraged by the time we spent with the little Baptist church there. (It was such a wonderful and welcoming church to share with about my plans to go to Cameroon!)

I hope that this little bit of my letter to my friend Amber-Lynn will give you a picture of what it was like on Roatan...

Leaving for church the first Sunday

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    At the moment I am sitting in the dark, tucked under a mosquito net, writing by the soft glow of a small lamp. It is very hot, but I am cozily wrapped in a blanket. Outside my windows I can hear crickets, roosters, and several obnoxious birds that can't really be described in words. The sounds are as close as if they were inside since none of the windows have glass. And the smell, oh it's wonderful! It is the beginning of rainy season here and the air still smells sweetly of the rain we had this afternoon. It is only 9:00pm but since the sun sets here at 5:00pm it feels very late and the darkness is very thick. There is a quiet peacefulness about the evening here. It's the perfect time to read a book. I've been reading one that I got in the mail from World Team before leaving for Roatan: "Filling Up the Afflictions of Christ." It's a really good book; you should borrow it from me sometime.

    Oh hey, guess what I found in my kitchen the other day? A box of matches made in Cameroon! And on the back of the box is a map of Cameroon. I'm going to bring the empty box home to put in my Special Box. Goodness, you wouldn't believe how quickly we go through matches since everything's gas here. The first couple of days I didn't realize that the oven was gas too and was quite excited when I saw it actually worked. However, to light it one has to pull the oven apart, then avoid burning fingers or lighting oven mitts on fire while putting it back together--always a great adventure! I love my little house here and am even enjoying all that's involved in washing and drying clothes in this rain and humidity. The washing alone is a big job, but the really fun part comes in the drying! There is always lots of laundry and once it is all hung out on the deck it looks like a maze out there. Oh, I just love seeing everything rippling and waving in the wind, little glimpses of the green jungle and brightly colored birds peeking through when a big gust of wind comes. The large white sheets with ruffled edges are the most beautiful to behold in the wind--so crisp, and so responsive to every little murmur of the breeze.

After getting all the laundry hung, which takes several hours from start to finish, I like to take my knitting and lie in my hammock on the deck in among the sheets and shirts and towels. This is the perfect vantage point for bird watching, as I am quite safely hidden from their notice. Of course, when it starts to rain everything is all a flurry again as I rush to bring all the (usually still wet) laundry back inside before it is drenched--or worse, carried away by the strong tropical gales. Then I set to folding and draping everything over our thee plastic children's chairs (the only type of chairs they seem to have on Roatan) and hope that the storm ends soon so  everything can finish drying.

    We have had a few large tropical storms hit during our time here already. This involves loss of electricity and usually a police warning for everyone to stay in their homes for 24 hours so the police have time to clean up and make sure things are safe again. (Which is a 'clean' and 'safe' quite different from those same words in Canada, but still seeming perfectly normal to me here.) The chatter in town the day before a storm hits is whether it is going to be a hurricane or tropical storm, and people are quite firm in their opinions, the more cautious ones buying some canned goods to add to their shelves. The day before our second tropical storm hit (actually, probably 3 or 4 hours before) I was at the Coconut Tree buying some bread. The sky was already the telltale grey-blue, the water churning roughly, and the coconut trees turned up like umbrellas that have been turned inside out by a strong gust of wind. There were 5 or 6 of us in the little store (about as many as can fit). Timothy waited outside for me with the empty water bottle we were changing out. The little group of us waiting to pay for our groceries debated the type and intensity of the storm good-naturedly, poking fun at the choice of provisions each had made, no one having the makings of a full meal. Before leaving the Coconut Tree we were all friends and one lady who was buying only a jar of peanut butter and a small ball of cheese (a luxury item) took all of our names. She gave us her "address" (how many paces her house was behind Pur Vida) and suggested that if the storm lasted too long we should all bring what food we had to her house and share a meal. This did not happen of course, as it was only a tropical storm and we were all back out frequenting the road again after a day had passed. But when any of us met each other at the Coconut Tree again we greeted one another by name with smiles and laughter in our eyes (and perhaps a joking question about dry sandwiches or peanut butter on cheese).

    There are no towns here, but simply areas of the Island since it is so small. We are in West End which is one long dirt/sand road (full of huge potholes that fill with water for a few days each time it rains). On one side of the road is the ocean. On the other side of the road are little shops, many open on one side like stalls at a market. Behind these shops are lanes with houses along them. The houses are quite far apart, so a lane with only 3 or 4 houses might take 5 to 10 minutes to walk. Really, 'lane' is often a not-so-suitable name as they are steep, rocky, bumpy paths that look like they've only been formed because people have walked them so frequently. Our house is at the very end of one of these lanes, a rather secluded walk particularly after dark. There are large flowering bushes to one side of the lane the last few minutes before reaching the house, and even more trees and flowers in front of our house for a ways. A flock of chickens greets you as you near the house, and I quite enjoy walking between them to get there. When they are gone, a rare occasion, I miss the color and homey feel they lend. Our house is wooden and the back 3/4 of it rests on very tall 'stilts' as it is perched on a drop-off. Behind and to the left of the house is beautiful jungle. And to the right is our neighbor's house and more jungle.

    Our area of the island is on the 1/2 that has electricity, so most of the time we have lights in the evening. Well, not quite most, but much of the time we do. They go out so frequently that it doesn't really seem strange anymore to sit in the pitch black and eat supper, or to lie in our hammocks in the thick darkness. Actually there is a different type of beauty to this--the beauty of sound. When the darkness is so thick around you that you can't see your hand in front of your face, the sounds of crickets chirping, geckos scampering across the walls,  birds singing, dingos  barking from great distances to one another, and sheets blowing in the wind sound so much louder, more vivid, and closer. And they make such a peaceful symphony to rock quietly along to, adding the rhythmic squeaks of the hammock's metal hooks to the mix. oh, I'm sure you would love it.