The Good, the Bad & the Ugly – What it’s like where we live.

Message to a new full-time volunteer.

Welcome Ken!

Ken, in the yellow shirt, is coming back as a full-time volunteer.

You’ve been here before for a week, but now that you’re coming back to live here full time you need to know what life here is like.

We live a big rough, but they live rougher.

Let’s call it the GOOD, the BAD & the UGLY.

The GOOD: The people. Wonderful, grateful, generous with the very little they have. They often come in their canoes to present gifts of Yuca and other food plants they grow to feed themselves.

Indian brother and sister

The BAD: When you unpack your bags, close them up tightly.  You never know what’ll make its home inside.  Snakes love’em.

Snake bite victim She barely made it.

Never put your hand where you don’t look first.

Never step outside at night without a flashlight.

(We found a poisonous snake on our porch by the door, right where we normally step.)

Deadly hog nose snake.

Never walk even in cut grass without boots. The smaller snakes are the most poisonous. (see the one which bit a woman, almost killing her.)

Always store your boots upside down. Scorpions, the really bad kind, love to nest in them.

Always shake your boots out before you put your foot in, or you might get a nasty surprise.

Never walk between two close objects at night. Huge spiders (some poisonous) build their webs very fast.  What wasn’t there at sundown could be there later in the night.  You and the spider could get a bad surprise.  You don’t want to make one of those big guys mad.

THE UGLY: Get used to bats zinging by your head at night, and hope their built-in radar works. No, football helmets at night won’t work.  Too hot.

Bats like the nighttime.

But other than those minor things it’s great to be here and helping such wonderful and needy people.

Sorry we didn’t get this info to you before you left home.  It must’ve just slipped our minds.

Welcome Ken!

Joe and Maribel

Mariibel & Joe