The Most Dangerous Instrument in the World

The sins of the parents do come back to haunt them ... at one time or another. This was brought home again on Sunday morning. Even half a continent away, safe in the rural area of Honduras, the instrument that strikes terror in the heart of every parent surfaced.

Students from the local Catholic Primary School were featured in the morning service. Nice, cute and, certainly, more extraneous activity than normal to distract during a long sermon. But, that wasn’t the horrible part. More than twenty of them came equipped with recorders. Of course, you can imagine the mayhem that accompanies twenty bored children with recorders in their hands. Odd snatches of notes from idle lips, the occasional nostril, and continuous clatter and activity were the order of the day. And then, finally, the moment we waited for ... the performance. Of course, I suppose, they could all have had accordions.

Saturday night I went to a church supper in a neighbouring community. Their church was, at one time, the central church in the whole diocese. It was a four hundred year old structure made from adobe. Truly fascinating. The walls were over a metre thick and the old rafters were well seasoned with age. So incredible to step back in time and so unexpected as well. Coming from Alberta where nothing is really more than one hundred years old, it is always so strange to be able to place one’s feet in the paths of people from such a long time ago. In a way, I connect with most of Alberta’s historical timeline because I know (or have known) people who were there at the start.

Last night Edel, Santiago and I went to move a trap hive into a new home. I waited for the phone call to establish the fact that it wasn’t raining in El Belin but it didn’t come. At nine, I finally got through to Edel and found out it was a go. I loaded the equipment in the truck and headed to the home where the new beehive was located. The boys had decided to wait at the pulperia so weren’t around until I called and located them.

We got out the equipment and I then asked where the new hive and trap hive were. “Just over there”. Well, fortunately, the moon was at three quarters and provided a fair amount of background light. We headed behind the house, past the worm bin, past the little shed with 100 nine day old chicks and came to the river. Ummm. You never told me about this. But ... wait ... there is a bridge. A four by four stretched across the river about two metres above the water. Fortunately, it hasn’t rained heavily for a couple of days so the river was really only a noisy, rushing stream depth. Still, not something I wanted to fall into. Edel and Santiago hot footed across the ‘bridge’ and, happily, found a long branch which I was able to use as a safety crutch.

Once across, we donned the new bee veils I had brought from Canada and headed to work. The hive was easily moved and we did so within short order. Then, the return trip. Since the hive was located near the bridge, I felt that we should cross the bridge before taking off the equipment. No point in having a cloud of bees around you as you head across four inches of wood (which, comfortingly, Edel was telling us was beginning to crack). We made it quickly and, after a couple of brushes and inspections, were able to remove the veils and head home. Uneventful really.

Manuel and I visited the police station to offer our program to their members. I had been stopped at a police check on Saturday and the officer was most interested. We will see whether the interest shown by the officer in charge yesterday translates into new students. Our system is perfect for these officers because, even if they are transferred (a regular occurrence), they can continue their studies in the new location.

Three hundred passion fruit seedlings are in the ground. This week we will work on some grass cuttings and, hopefully, some fruit trees. It was nice to see things taking shape in the ‘orchard’.

At El Cipres, a small piece of land where we are trying some ideas, a storm broke apart one of the fish tanks we had been repairing. As well, continual petty theft of fruit and fish is proving to be a real discouragement. We will decide this week whether it is worth the effort to continue. The potential for a family to have a good living from this property is so great but we can’t do any of the demonstrations we want because of the loss of things before they mature. We know who is stealing the stuff but can’t do anything about it.

TTYL
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