“I’d like to think that we weren’t just giving a dose of an antiparasitic but also a little dose of optimism,” Father Martin said at the end of the day. “And yet there are those who would take even that away from these people.”
As the first month passed, Alex watched as the resident missionaries went about their work, which consisted mostly of trying to establish a school, or at best literacy, and a small medical clinic. These activities took place in the church, which was close to a hundred degrees during the day.
Alex rose with each lemony dawn, sometimes watching the last of the men begin their daily trek down the mountain. She then set out to explore the region, trying to figure out what could be there that would cause someone to want to drive the missionaries away. If anything.
Some days she would hike on foot. On other days, burros were available. She would never travel alone, never travel unarmed. On her journeys, the most striking thing in Alex’s eyes was the magnificent raw beauty of the countryside, rivers and waterfalls, thick jungle, and endless unspoiled vistas. Always, she took photographs. Her digital equipment had enough memory for two thousand shots. She fired away liberally, then cleared out the clinkers in the evening.
Twice, Manuel returned to Barranco Lajoya to take her on explorations by air.
Each time, he guided her back down the mountain and drove her to a nearby landing field that could accommodate helicopters but not airplanes. From there she took off and surveyed the region by air.
On the first trip, the pilot took her all around the area to the east and northeast, all the way out to the Rio Amacura delta on the coastline and the blue Caribbean. She could see Trinidad and Tobago in the hazy distance. Then on another day, a different pilot flew her westward down over the Amazon jungle to Puerto Ayacucho, which was the capital of the Venezuelan state of Amazonas.
“The army has a huge base here,” Manuel explained. “We cannot fly too close to it or they will shoot at us. For sport, if for no other reason. They conduct a continuous campaign against drug runners from Colombia, yet some of them also take payoffs from the drug runners.”
Alex nodded. Then they continued south to one of the world’s great natural wonders, the Casiquare canal, a waterway that linked South America’s two greatest river systems, the Amazon and the Orinoco. By air for the first time, it was breathtaking, much like going over Niagara Falls and the Mississippi at the same time.
“When we return,” Alex asked, “can we fly north over Barranco Lajoya? I’d like to see the summit of our mountain.”
“We can do that,” Manuel answered.
The aircraft then guided Alex over her village by air. She took more pictures. She then had the pilot trace the route of the river until they found the places where the water came out of the ground. She could see no place where pollution could have begun, as once reported.
On foot, and on the backs of donkeys, Alex learned enough about the surrounding areas to take hikes on some days through paths in the jungle, never neglecting her sidearm, always accompanied by men with rifles from Barranco Lajoya. Her daily outfit-boots, fresh socks that she’d wash each night, hiking shorts, a T-shirt, a red bandana, and cap-became her work clothes. She clipped the compass to one of the belt loops on her shorts and it remained there.
Her “school uniform,” as she thought of it. Her arms and legs tanned within a week. Her stomach flattened even more than usual, and her legs grew stronger than ever from the rugged hiking and climbing. Her local guides showed her to clearings where she could see horizons that were hundreds of miles away on a clear day. On other days they showed her lush orchards that they had planted on their own. The guides often trekked fifty pound bags of fruit by donkey down the path and sent the produce to market. On another day, she was led past the area when the women bathed to where the stream merged with a much larger body of water. There were three dugout canoes waiting, and her guides took her on a journey upstream about ten miles by paddle. They stopped at a quarry where the men picked up about twenty pounds each of smooth flat rock, a distinctive local granite with a quartz content that, like the sand in some of the river beds, gave the rock a pink hue.
“What are those for?” Alex asked.
Both men smiled. “Mi sobrina,” said one of them. “My niece. And some of the other girls.”
“What do they do with them?” Alex asked, intrigued.
“We’ll show you later,” the girl’s uncle said.
Then, when the boats were loaded, they allowed the current to bring them back. It took the better part of a day.
That same evening, Alex received the answer to her question about the stones. The granite substance was not just unique for its color, but also for its density and durability. When Alex examined the stones, she was amazed how hard they were. They were like little pieces of natural iron. As a result, the young girls in the village used hammers and chisels on them and created jewelry of all designs. The jewelry was then sent to markets in the cities to sell to tourists. For a pendant that took many hours to create, a girl would receive a few pennies. But it was better than nothing.
A sweet sixteen-year-old girl named Paulina, the niece of one of the boat guides, had accepted Christianity. She was a very plain girl with mocha skin and dark hair that she wore pulled back. She had delicate brown eyes and worked small miracles with the granite, making boldly carved crosses onto circular stones. Paulina’s designs were the best of any village girl. They sold well as far away as Ciudad Guyana, Alex learned.
The first time Alex saw one of the Paulina’s works, she gasped at how skilled the artistry was. It was akin to hearing a gifted child sit down and play Mozart on the piano.
In reaction, Alex’s hand subconsciously went to her neck where her father’s gold cross had been for many years.
Paulina giggled.
“Why did you do that? You’re not wearing anything at your neck,” she asked.
“I used to. But I lost it,” Alex said.
“Oh.”
Alex grinned and selected one of the girl’s pieces. It was a flat round stone, graying pink, slightly smaller than an old American fifty-cent piece, but twice as thick. The cross had been carefully cut into the center of the stone. The stone was heavy for a piece of jewelry but had a slight hole at the top where a fine strand of leather was threaded through.
Alex put it on right away.
“It will protect you,” the girl said engagingly.
“Of course it will,” Alex said. Impetuously, she hugged the child. The asking price was less than fifty cents American. Alex gave the girl the equivalent of five dollars. Then she bought two smaller ones for friends back home.
The stone crosses were, Alex reasoned, the perfect souvenirs of her stay at Barranco Lajoya. For some reason, it made her feel complete again, as if she had found something that had been missing. Even when bathing in the river, even when washing her hair in the river with the coarse Mexican soap, it was the one thing she never removed.
A fifth week passed. Then a sixth.
She thought of Robert many times during these days, his smile, his sense of humor, his kindness, his body, his warmth. She still was resentful for one aspect of her life, angry with God so to speak, over Robert’s abrupt departure from this world, without even a word of farewell. How could that have been in the plan of an almighty and forgiving God?
But she mentioned this to no one. Being so far away from her normal life, all her past experiences, allowed her to think, to put things in perspective, to turn new emotional corners.