Day 11 – Sunday May 6

Today was a mixture of emotions. I am anxious to get back to my family, my bed, and a good night’s sleep. However, I will miss my friends here in Mabita.

This morning, we went over to Santiago’s house, and he played two songs for us on the guitar. Both songs are songs that he wrote himself. And, he told us that he stayed up all night writing one of them just for us to record today.

The song is about conservation, and the importance of preserving the forest for the wildlife, such as the scarlet macaws, in Mabita. I am really impressed at his musical skills, and how quickly he was able to put that together. He played the guitar, played the harmonica, and sang as if he had known that song for years. His only request, is that we send him a CD of his music. I told him, “no problem“!

Then we gathered together as many people as we could from the village to take a group photo for the end of our film. We wanted to make sure that we had a photograph of the group of folks we had gotten to know so well, and we thought it would be a nice touch.

After the photo, we said our goodbyes, some of them tearful, and loaded ourselves into the back of the pick up truck for the long dusty ride to Puerto Lempira.

At Puerto Lempira, we checked into our hotel, the Yu Baiwan, which is right on the lagoon, and sat down for some lunch. We had fried chicken, rice, beans, and salad.

Then we went over to the prosecutors office, and did an interview with him. We wanted to know what his thoughts were about the poaching problem, and what they were doing to try and stop it. He told us that they have limited resources, but that they are trying to crack down on the poaching. He said the main problem is, the culture here has been to catch and keep the birds for many, many decades, and trying to explain to the people that it’s illegal now, and teach them about conservation and keeping the birds from going extinct, is a huge challenge. He said they were going to try and confiscate some birds from one of the buyers this week, and that if they did, and they were able to take any video with their cell phones, that he will send it to me.

Our hotel is fairly pretty, has nice landscaping and a beautiful view of the lagoon, where you can sit under the palm trees and enjoy the ocean breeze. However, the rooms are very simple, and not the cleanest I’ve ever seen. Some bleach in the bathroom would go far. They only have electricity here from 6 PM until 10 PM, and other than that you’re in the dark. So I took my cold shower before the electricity was turned off for the night.

For dinner, a couple of our friends from Mabita, Juan Carlos, Tomas and our driver Carlos, who live and work here in Puerto Lempira, came to eat with us. It was the least I could do for all of the help they gave us this past week and a half, and we enjoyed the company, too. They told us that they hope that we will come back some day, and that this won’t be the last time they see us. I sure hope that we can make that happen.

The hotel has a limited food menu, so instead of eating fried chicken again, I ordered the traditional meal. Yep, you guessed it…rice and beans, and tortillas.

Then we all went to bed, as there is not much else to do here, and we will have a long day tomorrow of travel. The airport here, operates on a very slow schedule, so we have to get our bags checked in at 8:30 in the morning for an 11:30 flight.

It is vastly different from the United States, where everybody is always in a hurry and on a schedule. Here, it is much more of an, “I’ll get to it when I feel like getting to it”, schedule.