The day began as it usually does. We woke up, ate breakfast at 8, and began to prepare for the day (in this case, days). After about an hour of trying to get our backpacks, supplies for the trip, and buckets for the water filters on top of the car, we finally managed to get everything to fit. We were all set to begin our long journey to the mountain town of Rio Blanco.
After a five-hour road trip– full of beautiful landscapes and a lot of potholes– we arrived at our destination: a small church in Rio Blanco.
The pastor we partner with, Pastor Sergio, was quick to meet us and invited us into his home. We began to talk about the hike we were about to embark on (well, those of us who speak Spanish talked and the rest of us sat silently and listened curiously). We were informed that the name of the community we were going to is called “El Cielo” (which means heaven is Spanish), and to our surprise, Pastor Sergio had never been there himself. He told us that he had only had conversations over the phone with them– so no one, not even the pastor, really knew what to expect.
We planned to tackle the mountain in the morning after church on horseback so we wouldn’t have to carry all of our supplies up the mountain ourselves. We figured it would have been near impossible for us to carry all of those water filters and buckets, along with our gear, all on our own.
Not everyone on our team was totally convinced on the effectiveness of the water filters by the way. I took it upon myself to change their minds. Ellis (the 11 year old son of the missionaries we work with) and I set out to find the dirtiest water we could get our hands on. It didn’t take long for us to find a nice puddle of muddy water– it even had some tadpoles in it! I scooped the water into the bucket with the filter– tadpoles and all. I aimed the filter into a clear cup the pastor had given me and we watched as the filter worked its magic. Everyone was surprised to see what had been brown water, trickle out of the filter as clear as the glass it was poured into. They were even more surprised when I took a sip of the water and didn’t drop dead. We passed the cup of clean water around and everyone took a sip. Pastor Sergio, who was last to drink the water, gave his seal of approval by saying “bueno” (which means good in Spanish). After a few group pictures in front of the mountain we would soon hike, we left the church and headed to our hotel.
About five minutes later we pulled into the entrance (which was a metal folding gate in the side of a wall just big enough for a car to fit through) of our hotel. We were each shown to our tiny rooms. The cyan walls in my room were covered with dirt and still had rebar sticking out of them. On my left, there was a small TV on a table and a fan on the wall. To my right was my bed with a bug net tied up and hanging overhead. A pair of geckos hung out by the light fixture and were kind enough to eat some of the bugs. The bathroom wasn’t really separate from where I slept at all– only a six-foot wall separated the two areas. The tin roof of the hotel made the rain sound like the ocean.
After we got settled into our rooms we walked to a literal hole in the wall restaurant– it would be the last real meal we would eat for three days. Once we all finished dinner we walked back to the hotel to get some sleep and try to mentally prepare ourselves for what the next couple of days would bring.