Greetings from rainy, but warm, Bonaire,
All the news will follow, but first, allow me to digress.
Back in the olden times, around 1975, we lived in a 2nd
floor apartment that backed up to a wooded area of very large trees. It was during the time I was trying to quit
smoking (Geoffrey was a new baby) and I would go out onto the balcony and sit there
and smoke the occasional cigarette so as not to smoke around the baby.
There was a huge tree adjacent to the apartment complex and
as I sat there smoking I wondered if I could make the leap from our balcony to
the tree. It was pretty far and there
were no limbs at the second story level, but there were thick wrist sized vines
growing up the trunk. The tree was quite
a bit taller than our three story building and I thought that if I could leap
onto and grasp those thick vines they would be able to hold my weight and I
could climb up into the branches above.
So I finished my cigarette, climbed up onto the balcony railing, took a
deep breath and jumped.
Everything worked out as expected, except for the fact that
those thick vines turned out to be Poison Oak.
By the time I had climbed up and back down that tree, my arms were
scratched up pretty good and over the next few hours my arms began to swell and
by the next day were covered in oozing pustules. The worst part was that everywhere the open
wounds touched new skin the stuff would spread and take over and man did it
itch.
I discovered that if I held an affected area under really
hot water the itching would subside, and since, by now, I was essentially
covered with sores, I got into the shower and sort of scalded myself from head
to toe. This brief relief was followed
by the realization (over the next few days) that my hot water treatment had
managed to spread the poison oak more or less uniformly over my entire body. To make a long story short (or at least less long) the sores
eventually scabbed over and healed up, but I've been scrupulously avoiding
poison oak, poison ivy, and any other kind of skin irritant from that day to
this.
Until now! Here on Bonaire I've managed to get into something similar
and, as I write these words, I’m on day six of a too familiar adventure. Yes, I’m older and wiser, so I tried to determine what plant
could have been the culprit (thanks, Jerry Ligon, for all your help with that)
and began to treat the affected areas right away with Daktacort, a
hydrocortisone cream. Still don’t know for sure which plant was responsible and
the stuff is spreading, though very slowly, and it looks like the original sites
are healing, so maybe in another week I’ll be back to normal. Yikes! What a mess!!
In our last note I told you about our painting project and
the new neighborhood pool project. Well,
the painting project, which was to take three or four weeks, is now in week
twelve with no end in sight; and the pool project was cancelled by the
neighborhood association because the owners could not agree on the design and
cost of the new pool. This pool project
has been talked about for years and now is tabled. The subject will be brought up, yet again, when
the new board meets in the spring of 2014.
I was afraid this would happen and once again it has. We’re stuck with
the crappy old pool for now.
We've been working toward the third renewal of our Sedulas
(residency permits) since we arrived at the beginning of August and it looks
like we’ll be able to finish that process next week. Four months out of each year devoted to
renewal. Wow. We love Bonaire. On our fifth renewal we can
do five years at a go instead of annually; can’t wait!
Our interest continues in the kid’s abuse hot-line, Respeta
Mucha (Respect Children) and the afterschool programs Jong Bonaire and the
Junior Rangers, along with a new program designed to assist abused women and children
called Bea Vita (Beautiful Life). This
is essentially a poor island and in spite of new money and improved services
since 10-10-10 the plight of the Bonaireans has not improved. The budget for the island High School has
been cut again and while political action and activism are on the rise there is
still a lot of suffering here on the island.
Speaking of suffering, hurricane season is officially over
and the cruise ships are back so our wrecked streets are once again clogged with
pod people by the hundreds. I suppose it’s
good for the tourist industry and the restaurants, but it sure makes it hard to
go to town.
Tina was just here for a nice two week visit and in addition
to diving and joining us in volunteering to help with the annual Duo Xtreme Mountain
Bike Race, she brought along the locations of “buried treasure” and we spent a
couple of days “GeoCaching” by using a handheld GPS unit to find boxes of
trinkets hidden by others playing this world wide treasure hunt game. A couple of the twenty five places here on
Bonaire, required a long hike to reach and of course a search to find the spot,
sometime on top of a huge boulder or buried under a rock or stashed in the out
crop of a cliff face. We signed the enclosed
logs and took or left objects for others. One cache had a travel bug with a message that it wanted to go to the Pacific Ocean so Tina took it and will place it in a cache on the Oregon Coast at Canon Beach. We found nine caches; it was great fun!
We took Tina diving on “the wild side” and she did here
first solo dive too, and as always diving here in our beautiful crystal blue waters
was wonderful.
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| At our water station at Washington-Slagbaai Park gate. |
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| Found it! |
Lionfish hunting continues unabated with our total in the
2500 range now. There are more frequent
opportunities to dive with rebreather friends, which is awesome, but still only
occurs occasionally. I sometimes dive
solo with my scooter and am able to cover several kilometers of reef and
explore places I wouldn’t otherwise be able to reach without my trusty Magnus
950. (When I write that I always feel like Harry Potter gushing over his Nimbus
2000.)
Berit and I celebrated the 23rd anniversary of
our first date and our 20th wedding anniversary. Matt and Garrett are both Happy Birthday boys
since the last Caribbean Note and Geoff and Amber will be traveling with us to
Missouri for Mom’s 90th next month.
Everybody’s getting older!
Berit’s crown has been bothering her for some time now and
she’s been avoiding having a root canal because of the new evidence of the
negative effects of that procedure, until finally the tooth became very painful
and last week she was the first of us to visit the island dentist and had the
tooth pulled. All went well and since it
was in the back you can’t even tell she’s missing a molar. Any additional work can wait ‘til we’re back
in the US in order to visit her regular dentist.
Sunday is Dia di Gracia here on Bonaire and Thanksgiving is
fast approaching; in just four short weeks we’ll be back in Oregon.
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| OUCH!!!! |
After our weekend trip to Missouri for Mom’s Birthday, we’ll
be back in time to cook Christmas dinner, so you’re all invited to our house on
Christmas Day for the usual celebration. And just for the record, if any of you
want to host the family gathering one day, we’re fine with that, as long as you
invite us too!!
Shoes filled with straw are being left in the markets and images
of Sinter Klaus and the Back Piet’s are everywhere here!! We feel part Dutch; Christmas is coming!!
All our love,
Dad
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