Climb of a Lifetime

Climbers Conquer Pico Duarte

Pico Duarte, the highest point in the Dominican Republic, beckoned with promises of adventure. The original instigators of the trip dropped out at the last minute, leaving four eager beavers crazy enough to commit to the expedition. The co-conspirators assumed alternative identities to protect their reputations as respectable citizens: La Doña (me), Mr. Congeniality (Fred), Euell Gibbons (Delbert McCluskey, an experienced AID officer), and Dirk Pathfinder (Adam Namm, a first-tour consular officer).

From Voluntary Nomads, Part Six: Dominican Republic Dramas, Chapter 26:

Climb of a Lifetime

The explorers prepared for a long weekend of camping and strenuous hiking. In spite of Dirk Pathfinder's sturdy self-image as the epitome of readiness, he forgot his toothbrush and had to borrow one from La Doña before leaving town. After triple-checking their checklists, the intrepid bunch set off for the mountainous world of pine trees and the climb of their lives.

The first leg of their journey took them to Jarabacoa for one night in the candlelit Hotel La Montaña. If it hadn't been so dark, they might have set up bowling pins in the unusually long hallway, but they retired for the night instead. Dirk and Euell went to bed in peace, but La Doña and Mr. Congeniality weren't as lucky.

La Doña, toothbrush (her own) in hand, entered the bathroom and lit a candle on the shelf above the sink. What she saw in the shadowy mirror reflection sent her rushing back to the bedroom, waving her toothbrush wildly above her head.

"Aaack!" she screamed at Mr. Congeniality.

Following the gist of La Doña's posturing, Mr. C. snuck a peek inside the bathroom door where he discovered a family of chartreuse tree frogs secured by their orange suction cup toes to the slick yellow tile of the wall. La Doña peered around his shoulder as he pulled the shower curtain to form a barrier between the frog zone and the area of human occupation.

"That's okay, I really didn't plan to shower anyway." La Doña kept an eye on the shower curtain as she hurried to take care of her most urgent bathroom needs.

As soon as Mr. Congeniality and La Doña cuddled into a comfortable spoon position, electric service resumed. Pupil-constricting light glared down from the single bulb hanging from the high ceiling. The frog family's quack-like croaks echoed in protest.

Before Mr. C. could find the light switch, La Doña spotted a large black something in the nearest corner of the ceiling.

"Hey," she exclaimed. "What's that?"

Mr. C. toddled across the saggy mattress for a closer look. "It's just a bat."

"Just? I can't sleep with that hanging over my head."

Mr. C. jumped down and surveyed the room for potential bat-extraction tools. He grabbed his running shoe and threw it at the bat. He picked up the other shoe and tried again. Pow, the bat fell to the floor and scuttled under the bed.

"Aack!" La Doña pulled knees to chest and scrunched up against the headboard.

Mr. C. jabbed at the bat with his shoe. The bat hissed and retreated further.

"Can't you get that out of here?" A hint of hysteria shrilled in La Doña's squeak.

Valiant Mr. C. thrust shoe into darkness again. This time the bat latched on. With a single mighty swing, Mr. C. launched both shoe and clinging bat out the open window and into the starry night. The bat flew away and the shoe hit the dirt two stories below.

La Doña and Mr. Congeniality laughed themselves to sleep with the quacks of tree frogs croaking in the background. They rested well in their blissful state of ignorance, completely unaware of the perils that lurked on the rugged trail to Pico Duarte. ###

Voluntary Nomads can be found in paperback at Amazon.com (click here ) and Barnes & Noble online (click now ) or as an e-Book at Smashwords.com (click this ) as well as many of your favorite e-Book outlets. Or you can go to Outskirts Press (click this link ) to download Voluntary Nomads in PDF.



Scouts

Santo Domingo had well-established scouting programs that interested our young teens (Dakota at 14 and Tina, 13). Both the Girl Scout and Boy Scout troops sponsored activities almost every weekend and our lives filled up with preparations for ten-mile hikes and camping trips.

The scout leaders invited parents to participate in a few of the scouts' camping trips and some of the longer hikes. Our whole family went on the camping expedition to Saona Island.

From Voluntary Nomads, Part Six: Dominican Republic Dramas, Chapter 25:

Scouts

A Dominican naval vessel carried us out to sea. I stood at the rail and drank in the fresh sea air, keeping my eye on the horizon and watching for signs of the island. At first it looked like a tiny bump. The hump grew as we approached and it appeared to sprout fronds like a chia pet when we came closer.

I expected the ship to deliver us to the beach where we would set up our tents in the forest of coconut palms. But no, our captain cut the engines and dropped anchor in deep water several hundred meters off shore.

I felt my heart rate rise as a small motorboat putt-putted toward us. I didn't want to believe that such a feeble scow was meant to be our ferry. We had twenty people and an enormous pile of camping gear to convey across an expanse of water that seemed to widen as we waited. How many trips? Who would go first?

The prospect of transfer from naval vessel to lowly tub terrified me. The waves were too high. The ship lurched one way as the scow sloughed in the opposite direction. To step across the gap required some of the same skills as tightrope walking. I gasped as each scout made the leap. When my turn came, I held my breath and threw myself across the void. I stumbled and flopped like a flounder into the Scout Master's lap. Everyone laughed at my graceless landing so I hammed it up a bit, high on adrenaline and the thrill of landing in the boat instead of in the ocean.

On shore, the leaders told us that the main danger on this expedition was falling coconuts. They shocked and amazed us with terrible tales about legendary fatal head conkings. I kept a wary eye on the fruit hanging high above us, although I wasn't sure if the warnings were serious or tongue-in-cheek. All of the scouting activities went on as planned, and no one in our party got bonked.

Only a month after that successful scouting adventure on Saona Island, I felt inspired to assist the Girl Scout leader with a beach camping trip. We drove out of Santo Domingo with two vanloads of girls and gear and found a perfect spot near the town of Bayahibe. The scouts pitched their tents and made a fire ring for the evening's campfire. Then I suggested a hike on the beach.

We flipped a coin. Heads, we go north; tails, to the south. The twenty-five centavo piece landed heads up. About fifteen minutes up the beach from our campsite, we found a long, shallow tide pool that begged to be explored. As the girls poked sea urchins and chased tiny tropical fish and combative crabs, I climbed a rocky outcrop to see what lay beyond.

I took one look and spun around at once. The beach beyond the rock barrier was crowded with people. Naked people. Unclothed male human beings. Birthday-suited men demonstrating mutual affection.

I clambered down the rocks and quietly urged my charges to return to camp to begin dinner preparations.

When we went beach combing the following day, I led the way without a coin toss. We headed south, the opposite direction of yesterday's exploration. ###

Find all of our stories in Voluntary Nomads, available in paperback at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online as well as your favorite e-Book format at Smashwords.com and Outskirts Press

Club Med

Hedonism may not be the only attraction of the Caribbean, but it is a powerful one. Certainly the pursuit of pleasure was all I had in mind when I booked a long weekend for our family at Club Med, Punta Cana, in the Dominican Republic.

From Voluntary Nomads, Part Six: Dominican Republic Dramas, Chapter 24:

Club Med

We joined a group of embassy folks who gathered at Club Med to enjoy the many activities provided at this all-inclusive resort. Dakota and Tina found their friends and made a beeline to the sports activities led by the Club Med G.O.s (Gracious Organizers). Dakota and his buddies headed straight for the windsurfing beach; Tina's bunch homed in on the archery field. Fred and I went sailing for an hour before we parted ways. I wanted to try aerobics. Fred had his eye on the juggling class.

I found out later why the juggling class appealed to Fred. The G.O. was a curvaceous young French cutie whose string bikini had no top half. Impossible as it might have seemed, somehow the whole class, including Fred, did learn to juggle.

The aerobics class pumped me up. I jumped and kicked and hopped around with the best of them. Cardiovascular conditioning from years of running gave me a huge endurance advantage. Lacking proper shoes, I pranced barefoot on the hardwood stage like a Martha Graham clone. There was no logical reason not to do two classes back-to-back, so I did, and finished the second one wanting more.

With our friends at dinner, an all-you-can-eat sumptuous buffet prepared by a team of French chefs, we all babbled our enthusiasm about the Club Med activities, classes, and food. I sipped a plummy young cabernet and made multiple forays to the bread and cheese bar. Crusty, butter-infused garlic bread sang a harmonious duet with ambrosia-rimmed, creamy Camembert.

Constant refills of beer mugs and wine glasses energized the atmosphere and the party gathered steam. Everybody agreed that the post-dinner show in the auditorium should crown our evening.

Guests filled the tiers of wooden bench seats and excited chatter all but drowned out the piped-in background music. Then the lights dimmed and the Master of Ceremonies stepped out onto center stage.

"Okay everybody – it's time for Crazy Signs!"

All of the guests stood up to mimic the moves of the G.O.s as they demonstrated Club Med's signature communal dance. A wild combination of the Hokey Pokey and the Macarena, Crazy Signs drove us insane as we stumbled through the complicated series of waves, claps, stomps, kicks, twists, turns, bends, and shouts. It also broke the ice and set us up for the next act: the Couples' Contest.

Our M.C. called for three couples to volunteer as contestants. The row of embassy people behind Fred and me yelled and whistled while the M.C. chose the first two couples. We didn't know the conspirators in back of us were pointing and gesturing as well as hollering.

Couple Number 3? Fred and Nancy.

A bronze Adonis G.O. guided me to a chair and handed me a heart-shaped scrap of cloth and a threaded needle. He wrapped a red silk scarf around my eyes and then pushed Fred over my knees so that Fred's rear faced the audience. At the M.C.'s signal, we female halves of the three chump couples revealed our total lack of skill at blind-appliqué. The guys yelped when stuck, and the audience cheered. The sadism applause meter gave second place to Fred and me for that event.

Humiliation escalated with the break-dancing contest. Fred got down on the floor and tried to spin around on his back. I blushed ten degrees of flame red while I tripped over my tangled moon walking feet. Couple Number 3 sagged to third place.

I wasn't overjoyed to see the blindfold coming my way again. But this time I carried the victory and won first place for wrapping Fred like a mummy in toilet paper.

Then Fred shook and shimmied in a grass skirt for second place in the hula dance competition.

My face ached from the self-conscious grin stretched from cheek to cheek. What could possibly come next?

Balloons. Each patsy girl had to run the full length of the stage and plop down on a balloon in her guy's lap. I ran as fast as I could and pounced with all my might. I bounced. The other couples' bursting balloons popped and banged like fireworks. The audience roared. The M.C. insisted that I try again. I sprinted across the stage and plunked harder. I ricocheted higher. Same result on my third try. Oh, the shame of it.

At the end of the Couples Contest, the M.C. awarded second place to Couple Number 3 and gave free drinks to all the contestants. For future show-nights at Club Med, Fred and I took care to sit behind our friends, not in front of them. ###

Click on the links to order your copy of Voluntary Nomads: paperback available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble online store or any e-Book format at Smashwords.com



Spike

After we arrived in the Dominican Republic in April 1985, we promised Dakota and Tina they could each get a pet. Tina found a beautiful black kitten she named Carbon (accent on the last syllable in Spanish, meaning coal). Dakota wanted a puppy.

From Voluntary Nomads, Part Six: Dominican Republic Dramas, Chapter 23, here is:

Spike

Our vet told us about a breeder he knew whose pair of boxers had just produced a litter of ten. He gave me the address and phone number and I called to set up an appointment for Dakota to see the newborns and pick one.

Dakota chose the only brindle puppy. I could see the love in his eyes when he looked up at me as he stroked the tiny head. "I'm gonna call him Spike."

A few weeks later, Spike was weaned prematurely when his mother stopped lactating. We brought Spike home and bottle-fed him. At first the adorable little fellow needed extra care to overcome his poor beginning as the runt of his litter. Technically Spike belonged to Dakota, but most of his treatments required adult-level skills. Who better than Mom to fill in? While Dakota and Tina studied at school and Fred worked at the embassy, Spike and I consulted with Dr. Nova.

Between visits to the veterinary clinic, Spike and I stayed at home. I administered the medication for the calcium deficiency that made his legs too weak to hold him up, and I rubbed him with the ointments prescribed for his mangy skin rash. His artistically cropped ears needed daily bandage changes as well. I wiped up his little puddles and other housebreaking mishaps when Dakota wasn't around to perform that chore. Spike also depended on me to protect him from Carbón the cat, big enough to overpower the awkward little puppy.

By the time Spike was six months old, he had outgrown his puppy problems and developed into a healthy dog. At the end of every busy day, when I sank into my rattan rocker, Spike appeared, pushed against my hand to demand a vigorous butt scratch, then plopped down beside me. He rested his plush chin on top of my bare foot and gazed up at me as I stroked his head until he dozed.

One evening after we had assumed our usual positions, Spike jerked awake and jumped up. He sniffed the air in all directions and trotted to the dining room. I followed to see what had aroused him. A gray-brown blur scurried along the wall and froze in the corner. No doubt in my mind, the intruder was a rat, possibly a refugee from the vacant-lot-cum-garbage-dump across the street. I intercepted Spike, swooped him into my arms and scrambled up onto the top of the dining room table.

Spike barked. I screamed. Fred, Dakota, and Tina ran in.

"Let the dog go!" Fred's shout echoed in the high-ceilinged room.

"No, no, the rat might bite." I clutched squirming Spike closer to my chest.

The rat took off, scrabbled for footing on the slick terrazzo floor, and headed straight for Dakota's room. Tina jumped up on the table beside me and buried her face in Spike's shoulder. Fred and Dakota shot us withering looks, strode to the bedroom, and slammed the door.

Muffled thumps, grunts, bangs and thuds sounded across the hall. Spike whined and quivered in my arms as the bedroom door swung open. In one hand Fred brandished Dakota's tennis racket. In the other he clamped the tail of a limp, blood-streaked rat. Beside him, Dakota cocked his baseball bat and mimed a home-run swing. I wished I could apologize to Spike for spoiling his fun, but if Fred and Dakota couldn't understand my motives, how could the dog?

After our hunters disposed of their quarry and embellished their tale a few more times, we calmed down. Spike curled up with his head on my foot as if to say, "No hard feelings, Mom." ###

For more stories about the perils of having pets overseas, get Voluntary Nomads in paperback at Amazon.com or at Barnes and Noble online store or in your favorite e-Book format at Smashwords.com



Leaving Mogadishu

Although no one knows what the future may hold, I doubted that I would ever have the chance to return to Somalia. Unlike the camel in the photo, I had to look forward, not back, and prepare for our move to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic.

Leaving Mogadishu

With the assignment cable in hand, we could start making plans. I brought out the calendar. ASM classes started in August; we would leave Mog in early October; our home leave in Texas and New Mexico would last six weeks; in January Fred had to report to Washington for training, consultation, and Spanish classes; our arrival in Santo Domingo was expected in April. This program looked like fun but maybe not the best plan for school age children.

I didn't want Dakota and Tina to have to change schools four times in one year. I did some research and found out about the Calvert School in Maryland. Calvert School offered home schooling materials with optional teacher support by mail. I signed us up for the whole deal – fifth grade for Tina and sixth grade for Dakota. If successful, my master plan would keep them up-to-date with their studies and able to enter the appropriate grade in Santo Domingo for the final term of the school year.

We asked around and learned that many families faced with the same problems would choose to split up, the wage earner going his way and the spouse and children spending the intervening months in their home of record, until time to show up at the new post when they would reunite. We scoffed at that idea, a practical solution perhaps, but not our style.

I turned my attention from education to logistics. Embassies usually contract with local moving companies to pack employees' household effects. Somalia didn't have moving companies as we know them, so the job reverted back to the employee, or, in most cases, the employee's faithful (or even unfaithful) spouse.

Before I started packing, though, I had to go through the sorting process. Airfreight, sea freight, accompanied baggage, items to discard or give away – our fifth time through the familiar old routine.

As soon as GSO delivered the stacks of packing boxes and packing paper, Dakota got to work. He packed all of his possessions the first day.

In his words, "I figure you'll be needing my help with the rest."

I did need his help as well as Fred's and Tina's. Our team effort finished the job on time and resulted in no breakages whatsoever. Can't say the same for all packers, even the professionals.

We sweated as we worked on our packing at home, and the kids and I sweated at school. ASM had no power for three weeks after a backhoe operated by Somali road crew demolished the school's power pole. An emergency generator ran water pumps to keep the bathrooms functional, but the school had no lights, fans, air-conditioning, computers or electric typewriters.

Tina said she didn't miss computer class at all. Fred asked her why.

"I don't think computers are necessary for my chosen profession."

"And what is your chosen profession, Miss?"

"Housewife."

Fred laughed and said he imagined that Tina thought a typical housewife lived in a fine home, had lots of cuddly babies, and told the maid to fix lunch.

As we left Mogadishu, we carried away fond memories of many exciting experiences. But our final adventure in Africa happened during the taxi ride from the Nairobi Hilton to the airport to catch our midnight flight to the States. It was a moonless night, velvet black beyond the reach of the city lights. The hum of the tires and the cozy warmth of the cab almost lulled us to sleep, but the taxi's abrupt stop in the middle of the road bounced us awake. Across the yellow beams of the headlights streamed a parade of phantoms. A herd of wild zebras strolled across the highway, taking no notice of the insignificant intruders in their kingdom. Goodbye, Dark Continent, and thanks for the picturesque farewell salute. ###

Click here to order Voluntary Nomads in paperback from Amazon or click now to get the paperback from Barnes & Noble online. If digital is more your style, click this to find the right format for your e-reader at Smashwords.



Farewell to Shark's Bay

Fred and Nancy at Shark's Bay

"Where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise," according to poet Thomas Gray. I cringe at the thought that we lived our lives according to that principle, but when I remember Shark's Bay....

Farewell to Shark's Bay

(from Voluntary Nomads, Part Five: Somalia Safaris, Chapter 21)

On the trip back to town, passing Shark's Bay, Fred drew our attention to the unusual number of cars parked on the beach. A few months earlier the trip to Shark's Bay had been simplified by the construction of a real road. The Somali government built a highway to reach a prisoner-of-war camp down the coast from Shark's Bay, and the road passed close enough to the beach to give access to any kind of vehicle, including ordinary passenger cars and motorcycles. Shark's Bay became a popular recreation destination, no longer our private beach. With the shine of adventure removed, our trips there had become less frequent and we hadn't been there in months.

Fred signaled Buddy to stop, and we walked to the beach to see what was going on. People gathered in small groups. There was not a single person in the water. The absence of laughter and happy beach noises left a disturbing void. Buddy approached one of the groups to ask what had happened. He learned that a shark had attacked the teenage son of an Italian diplomat. Two other men yanked the boy from the shark's jaws, but not before the shark had bitten through his leg. Friends had carried the victim to their pickup truck and raced off toward Mogadishu, but the truck spun out in the sand and rolled over, throwing the injured boy out of the truck bed. With the help of bystanders they flipped the truck onto its wheels and went on to the hospital in Mog. We heard later that the victim's family arranged to fly him home to Italy for further treatment, but he died before the plane reached Rome.

In the following weeks we heard another horror story about a family who had invited a friend of their eight-year-old daughter to go to Shark's Bay with them. A shark attacked and killed the daughter's friend, biting her poor little body in half.

I couldn't count the number of times we had played in the water at Shark's Bay without ever worrying about sharks, much less seeing one. I wondered if the new road had brought so many people to the beach that the sharks took notice. Someone told us that the sharks were Zambezi River Sharks that had adopted an alternate migration pattern.

We knew about the danger of sharks on Mogadishu's city beaches. No one from the international community dared to wade in the water near town where aggressive sharks attacked in the shallows (except for the two German men who were killed on the day of their arrival, without getting a chance to hear the warnings). Mogadishu had become a busy port through the destruction of a protective reef. The sharks had unobstructed access to the offal dumped into the harbor by the large-scale meat processing plant located there. Now the sharks had discovered our former paradise and it would never again be the safe playground we had enjoyed so much. ###

There's more to the story than just these excerpts -- find the whole adventure in Voluntary Nomads in paperback at Amazon.com (click here ) and Barnes & Noble online (click this ) or digital versions for Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo, iReader, all in one convenient location at Smashwords (click now ), or download the PDF for your PC or laptop at Outskirts Press (click away ). So many choices!

Bad Luck?

Contemplating Monkey Business

*Today's excerpt from Voluntary Nomads, Part Five: Somali Safaris, Chapter 20.

Bad Luck?

I've heard the saying that bad luck comes in threes. How about sets of three? A spate of misfortune seemed to begin with my first and only visit to the corner tea hut.

Tea huts were common on street corners all over town, residential neighborhoods as well as commercial zones. From a distance our corner tea hut could be mistaken for a wind-blown gargantuan tumbleweed. Its stick and thatch physical construction may have been haphazard, but the social network was tightly woven. Gate guards and domestic employees stopped by every day for a glass of hot, sweet tea and a bit of gossip. Dakota was a frequent patron too; he bought candy there.

"Mom! Come on – I gotta show you something.'" Dakota pulled me by the hand and dragged me out of the house, through the gate, and over to the tea hut.

I followed Dakota into the dim interior, aware of a sudden dampness in my armpits. A dark shape flew at me and dug its claws into my hair and the back of my neck and shoulders. My flailing and screaming only made the thing strengthen its grip. I ran outside. The creature on my back screeched as loud as a demon from hell. Something limber and rough scraped across my calves as I twisted and turned.

"Mom! Mom! Stop!" Dakota couldn't catch up with my spinning flight.

The tea man rescued me. Why was he laughing at my terror? He grabbed the hemp rope that had been slapping my legs and reached toward me with his other hand. My attacker launched itself from my head to the arms of the tea man.

"See? It's only a monkey, geez." Dakota tugged his cap down over his eyes and scuffed his boot in the dirt.

The monkey sneered at my disgrace. I had never felt more foolish.

I slunk home and retreated to the bathroom. I snorted at my reflection in the mirror – red face, wild hair, torn shirt. A shower would fix me up, I thought. But there was no water.

Muttering expletives, I marched outside to check the water pump. Dead as the proverbial doorknob, this was the sixth water pump to burn out in the nine-month life of our new water system. I was too frustrated to notice any numerological significance of the six and nine, multiples of three.

While we waited for the installation of a new water pump for the house, our car broke down. I cleared the dining room table to make room for another session of gasket making. Fred assured me that the file folder and duct tape replica would keep the car running until we could get a replacement water pump from Nairobi, just as Dave's gasket had done the year before. Fine, I thought. What's next? ###

To find out what's next, get Voluntary Nomads at your favorite retailer. The paperback is available at Amazon.com (click here) and Barnes and Noble online (click this). Or you can download your favorite digital version at Smashwords.com (click! ) or Outskirts Press (click now ).

*Monkey photo courtesy of Free Digital Photos.