Costa Jill

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Back to Life and Deaf.

Scooter with his birthday dog.

A memory pops into my mind, so clearly, of Scooter showing his spirit in the parking lot of Marineland stamping his little foot, shaking his head no, next to the old Dodge station wagon we bought from Grandma and Gaga Patterson. He doesn’t want to get in and leave the spectacle and excitement of watching the dolphins and whales jumping, singing and dancing for us.

It all started when my TV cable went out. For a decade I’ve been piggy-backing off a cable that wasn’t supposed to be live. Holding on to the attitude of Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book era, I didn’t feel too bad getting a little free cable from a big rich conglomerate. I started cleaning out the space getting ready for a new big legal flat screen variety and there, mixed in with the almost obsolete DVD’s and CD’s, is a copy that says ‘super-eight movies’. I pop it in and begin to watch. OMG, the beginning of our family: Scooter learning to walk. I laugh, I cry as our family life goes scrolling by. I do a quick calculation, 1968 – 1978, from Ormond Beach, FL where the children were born, through our lives as hippies traveling the country in a van, settling in Boulder, CO and our return to Sarasota.

After 1½ hours and a decade roll past, I’m emotionally drained. A smile soothes my face. My memory has been so easily nudged with these genuine images from the past. It’s all on a movie

Nicole and Scooter in Ormond Bch

lost, then found in the clutter of life. I sift through years of gift opening in front of endless Christmas trees, fancily dressed toddlers precariously carrying baskets of brightly decorated eggs, crowds of neighbor kids adorned in peaked hats in front of blazing, then smoking animal-shaped birthday cakes. But in between there’s real life: Scooter’s first steps turn quickly to running, falling, picking himself back up and continuing on. No crying or laughing, just pure inquisitiveness and determination, the wild outfits I wear and sew for myself and my kids, crazy fun times with the grandparents, dancing with friends, disciplining the children.

Crazy Xmas robes I made for kids.

Let me pick up that life back where I left off. Scooter’s first teacher was with us on that Marineland trip. Miss Sonny Bates, the best teacher a child could have, became a close friend of the family. She loved that boy, his spirited independent ways, quick intelligence and potential to move into the hearing world, and we loved her. After our shaky beginnings with oral education, she took the ball and ran with it, giving him the background he needed to successfully inhabit a hearing world.

I can’t remember why she left, but all hell broke loose after that. This sweet little classroom became a nightmare. Granted the circumstances weren’t perfect-a class of children with mixed disabilities: deaf, emotionally disturbed, cerebal palsied, autistic, aged 2 ½ (or potty trained) through 5.
Check in next time for the fireworks.

OMG I’ve become an elder and am telling a dread hospital story.

My six month chronic cough is intensifying to the point of doctor visits, both M.D. and holistic, drugs, natural remedies, X-rays to fight the pneumonia with which I’m finally diagnosed. My quick Christmas trip to Florida is extended by an onslaught of a new virulent strain of Australian stomach bacteria attacking my weakened body. It knocks me flat two days before my intended return to Costa Rica. My stomach churns, cramps, stabs and explodes. I induce my brother to drive me to the doctor. He takes one look at me, opens the windows and wishes he’d worn a mask.

“Back again?”  The doctor prescribes more antibiotics and as an afterthought,  “Drink lots of water”. Nothing about dehydration. My best friend, Lynn, picks up my drugs and the pharmacist says Gatorade is a must. Nicole’s doctor says Pedialyte. I buy them all and postpone my trip to Costa Rica once, twice. Stop eating solid food. Shudder down gallons of sickly sweet electrolytes, canned soup, slithering red jello, all tasting like rat poison. I’m alone. Terry and Lynn drop by with food and drug fortifications, jumping back from the door upon its opening, fearing to contract my disease.

After steady improvement at least in my head, I set a third leaving date for Costa Rica, pick my rental car, drive to Orlando with only one rest stop, jump on the plane already wiped out.  Oh shit! My gut rebels again and again. My false sense of being okay vanishes as I push past the seatmate and pace the aisle to the head. The 2 ½ hour flight becomes the longest of my life.

I’ve totally relapsed. My son, Ray, has arrived before me on his first vacation to Costa Rica in 12 years. He’s on his own and takes full advantage of driving my car to every possible tourist destination in our area.   I’m down fifteen pounds, and end up in a San Jose hospital. Nicole becomes a super nurse, drives me to the hospital, stays there with me until I’m stabilized and under doctor’s care. Jose takes the kids.

A sulfa allergic reaction sends me into anaphylactic shock. My lips to go numb, tongue and mouth swell, throat closes up so I can’t swallow and sound like the mammoth from Ice Age. After 3 days of IVs and drugs to let my blown-out intestines rest and heal, the vein collapses, my arm inflates to elephant proportions and hurts like hell. Next my muscles start screaming in defiance of their inactivity and lock into spasms in my back and opposite hip. Painkillers are added to steroids and antibiotics.

After five days of an intravenous life, my doctors judge me ready to be discharged, though the aches and pains I contracted in the hospital continue. If I have one more bout of diarrhea I’ll board a plane with Ray on his return and try my luck with the US healthcare system.

I spend my first week home flat, still with muscle spasms and wishing for a big hatpin to deflate my arm. Champion nurse Nicole watches over me and schedules my pill regimen. Ray leaves after a month and I never get to play with him. Sigh. The grandkids don’t know what to do with the sick grandma who used to romp with them.

I feed, medicate, nurture my sore body and stressed mind back to health. Patience, not my strong point, becomes my constant incantation as I end this  month long saga with a return to health.

Full Circle

Kicked low by pneumonia, low enough to catch the first flu

That flew in from Australia and knocked me flat.

Childbirth cramps bend me double to stare at my toes.

No solid food for a month, I shrivel.

It’s all too sweet, too salty, too hard to swallow.

The hospital gets me

Imprisoned by IV’s and pain.

I convalesce watching cooking shows

Dreaming of pesto shrimp in fettuccine.

I eat a fresh sesame seed bagel thick-knifed with butter.

Savor each mouthful – the chewiness, crunch, salt tingling my tongue.

Ruby clear Jamaica tea shades my glass and mouth with divine pleasure.

I’ve come full circle on the road to healing.

Journal – Beginning the 70’s Decade

Divine Peace

In this little journal hidden under a neglect of papers, books, illness, I now record the month journey through my physical degradation; a corner stone of my seventh decade. Looking back on my latest entry from December 7^th, my birthday, I found such peace in the solitude and beauty of my totem place – the deep pools of the Morete R. in Costa Rica. Maybe it gave me strength to bear the ordeal yet to come.

Howler Monkey

Dec. 7, 2012  – Divine Peace

River sun turns water aqua clear through the trees.

I breathe in green purity, exhale loneliness.

I feel peaceful solitude in this place of love.

Here with the howlers.

The perilous journey over wet rocks to visit them

Gives me back the balance and rhythm I’ve lacked.

Bringing yoga from my practice to my life.

What better place to tarry, meditate, play.

There is nothing better to do.

Next time: Knocked Flat – The illness that gave me a legitimate writing block. Glad to be back!

Sorry for the long delay. I’ve been recuperating from a long illness. Onward!

We spend the next two weekends breaking the news of Scooter’s profound hearing loss face-to-face with our parents. First St. Augustine, the site of State School for the Deaf and Blind, where daddy Ray was born and his father and stepmother still live. Grandma Trudie used to work at the school and holds it in high regard. My heart sinks as I listen to her description. “Sugar, this is where the experts are. The staff knows what’s best for those sweet handicapped kids. They’re well taken care of, around others just like them and will be protected, not bullied.”

Every word she says makes my heart sink lower. Protected? Boarded? Caged like animals? “Uuhh, I’m sure it’s a good school. Maybe it’s an option.” I’m not ready to give up my firstborn, beautiful son that easily. “I’ve got lots of researching and learning to do first.”

“Oh honey, I meant no harm,” Trudie stammered. “Just givin’ you an option. And I have some experience here.”

“I understand and appreciate your thoughts, but I know the philosophy of the St. Augustine school. They believe in the age old method of American Sign Language. I know it’s given deaf people a way to pull themselves out of the mire of “deaf and dumb” and given them a language of their own, but I want to give Scooter a chance to fit the best that he can into the hearing world by learning to listen and speak.”

I find out about a group in California called the Tracy Clinic, named after Spencer Tracy and his wife who also have a deaf child. They stress treating your child as any other, getting him fitted for the best hearing aids if there’s any residual hearing, and at the same time saturating him with language in a normal household.

The correspondence course is offered free as long as the lessons are followed and a feedback letter returned. Scooter at 2 years old, has a single hearing aid, and is definitely speech delayed. The best and most important advice saturating these lessons is Talk, Talk, Talk; making sure he can see our lips to practice lip reading. We stick bright simple signs on everything in the house for visual stimulation. The key – work with everything you’ve got and give it all you’ve got. And that’s the basis of Ray’s Auditory/Oral Education.

We find a support group of parents in Daytona Beach area dedicated to the oral approach, start making friends and getting positive feedback. Friendship and exchange with these families is probably the most important step up out of the mire of doubt and depression. We finally are getting to know people going through the same thing  giving us hope, support, answering our questions, laughing and crying with us.

Next time: Teaching Scooter (Ray)

I’m taking a break in my Life and Deaf memoir to post a memorial to my dear friend Nat Fain.

Blue Moon over the Blue Moon

Capt. Nat

“The whole idea of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is to set foot in one’s own country as a foreign land.” G.K. Chesterton

I found that land in my own backyard. I knew I was home when I saw the infinite unobstructed vista of grass and water, sea and sky straight to the horizon that is the Florida Everglades. The ability to see all around me; clear of tall mountains, trees or buildings, is part of my South Florida heritage.

Captain Nat was a perfect sailing companion for our adventure along the Lower West Coast. A rare Florida native, he embodied the traits of a true southern gentleman and accomplished sailor. A smile showed readily on his handsome tanned face as he loped about the boat on his tall lanky frame, tightening lines or checking GPS settings. He was easygoing, but calm and direct in the face of crisis. He had been engaged in boating, from marine mechanics to sailing the Caribbean for many years. I was new at the game and had a lot to learn.

I met Nat, Phyllis and family over 45 years ago, when my husband and I moved next door and into the best neighborhood I’ve known. Their daughter Tamy became our first and best babysitter (along with her mom) as our family grew. Our families remained close friends through the years though we both moved away from Ormond Beach. –It was one of the few relationships that lasted a lifetime. The years passed. Nat lost his wife to cancer and I lost my husband to divorce. I’d always dreamed of sailing and finally got the chance. Nat bought a new boat and needed a first mate to fill out the crew. After taking deep-sea sailing lessons and getting on-the-job training from a great and patient teacher, we were ready to go.

First Mate Jill

The 38 ft. Krogen sloop with a nice shallow draft was fitted out like a queen for the week. We left Key Largo during the spring equinox on a perfect wind. After learning to work together as a team and getting a few kinks out, Nat gave me the wheel, “Give it a try. Lady Luck’s with us and the weather’s perfect.”

“I’m ready to fly!” I pulled in on the sail and laughed as the Blue Moon leapt ahead. We sailed smoothly through the Long Key Bridge, north along the West Coast and spent our first night anchored under a clear starry sky.

We established a daily ritual. I made breakfast, washed dishes with the salt water hose and shaped up the ship. Nat puttered in the cockpit preparing for the daily sail, first through Florida Bay. Being new to the modern technology, I marveled at the accuracy of our GPS and automatic pilot maneuvering the boat through the narrow channels. We took turns sailing, one carefully navigating the Florida Straits, while the other took care of the daily chores. The weather remained beautiful, cool but sunny, windy, with a few fluffy clouds.

After attending to sailing duties there was plenty of time for all those leisurely pursuits one is always interrupted from doing at home. I read books, wrote and listened to music on the fancy sound system. Nat was an excellent captain. I respected his deeper knowledge and he delighted in the exuberance I showed for my newfound sport. We worked things out together, gave each other space, and had fun. Best of all was the sailing; the wind filling the sails and my face, the boat heeled and running fast. I liked trimming the sails for that extra spurt of speed, the boat a spirited filly shivering in excitement to be released.

“ I love it out here!” I sang out hauling in the line an extra inch for that extra bit of speed.

“You’re a natural,” Nat observed as the boat leaned into the wind.

“I couldn’t be doing this if it hadn’t been for the sailing lessons you made me take. You’re a great teacher – and eternally patient.”

“Let’s hope the winds of fortune remain with us.”

We anchored off the beach of East Cape, the most eastern point of Cape Sable where Florida Bay ends and the Gulf of Mexico begins. Appreciating the east wind on this unprotected shore, we boarded the dinghy to explore the isolated beaches. The setting sun bathed the thin strip of beach in its golden light. Ours were the first human footsteps to grace the shore, dancing in and out with those of the raccoons, shore birds, and trailings of myriad mollusks. Behind the beach was Glade. Dry saw and wire grass stretched in all shades of brown to the eastern horizon,  interspersed with yucca in bloom, cactus, sabal palms. The gumbo limbo trees’ bark, shining red gold in the sweet light, lent substance to the legend that pirates buried treasure under their roots. A baby coon sauntered playfully downwind until it detected our scent. Scampering up the closest tree, it shook with fear, surprised by us giant predators invading its space.

We rambled on careful to watch for dangerous plants or animals, seeing visions of crocodiles and pythons hiding in the grass. “This might be the only place left that humans rarely tread,” I sighed.

“We haven’t seen any yet. Probably won’t either, the only way to get here is a long boat ride.”

When the blood red sun leaked empty into the sea we returned to the sloop to enjoy a simple gourmet meal of grilled lobsters and vegetables, the gentle rocking of the waves and the cool breeze rippling across our skin. As the night darkened the shore and the stars peered through the giant sieve of a sky, my thoughts turned from the peacefulness of our first day to the past when civilization was just arriving. I fell asleep dreaming of being a biologist, catching a ride on a pirate ship, surveying all types of weird and wondrous species on these inhospitable shores and praying that if we encountered wild Calusa Indians, they would be friendly.

We spent the next day sailing the Ten Thousand Islands up the West Coast with the best winds one could ever want. Reaching the Little Shark River, we motored up river and anchored at Oyster Bay.  Mangroves and water surrounded us in a green silence. We found a small canopied waterway into the giant mangroves and followed it as far as the roots and mosquitoes would allow. I could see only outlaws, the likes of P. Matthieson’s Mr. Watson or explorers like DeSoto’s conquistadors braving such a harsh environment. We were neither, and gladly returned to the sloop and the Gulf winds. At dusk flocks of ibis in tight formation, filled the evening sky on their way to roost in the swamp. The wind and our luck held. Our evening was bug free.

At first light the disturbed surface of the sea gave me an inkling of the drama occurring beneath it. Schools of fish surfaced and arcked over the water escaping some larger threat. Cool mist softened everything to gray. Flocks of white dots glinted over the Seurat sea. The sun leaped above the gumbo limbos and a breeze picked up so lovely, damp it gentled my sun-parched skin. As we neared the Keys, we followed a procession of sailboats heading south for home. Anchored on our last night, dense grey clouds adorned the bright giant red sun dissolving into the ocean, marking the end of our pristine and peaceful dream trip sailing on the edge of the Everglades – one place in Florida left as a reminder of the uncivilized past.

Thank you dear friend Nat, for making this adventure possible and sharing it with me. I love you and will miss you terribly.

Scooter

Today my husband and I sit with the audiologist and otologist at the Shands Speech and Hearing Clinic in Gainesville. Our 1 ½ year old baby boy, Scooter is on my lap, happy to be out of the sound and stimulation proof cell; happy to have the headset off. The doctor tries to exchange pleasantries but we’re not concentrating, sad little smiles plastered on our faces. He clears his throat and tells us, “ your son is profoundly deaf.” The nagging suspicion we’ve had is confirmed. The shock of the present blocks the past and the future. First there’s a feeling of relief – of knowing something definite. Next we get commiserations – “I’m so sorry. With Rubella it could have been much worse; blindness, brain damage.” We try to listen to results – “90dB loss, both ears, a little residual hearing that can be amplified.” Advice – “Get a hearing aid on him right away. Learn all you can about deafness. There are many options. I’ll give you the address and phone number of the St. Augustine School for the Deaf and Blind.” Oh my God, not an institution! “And last but not least think about having another baby. Another child in the house will probably be the best teacher your son could have.”

Any questions? “Yes. No. Lots. None.” We can’t assess any of this yet. We ride home in outward stillness, our minds running crazy inside, with our bouncing beautiful, unbothered baby boy. He hasn’t changed. Only we have. We bring him home to our new house in Ormond Beach. I feed him, play with him, tuck him into bed and burst into tears.

I go through all the emotions of the stages of grief:

• Denial. He’s fine.
• Pity. It’s not fair. Why me? It’s too hard. Where do I start? This creeping dreadful possibility of the last two years has finally manifested itself upon us, no matter how intensely I denied it and shoved it away.
• Guilt. I needed to wallow. If I hadn’t been teaching with a bunch of sick kids.
• Anger. The kid I got rubella from – why did his incompetent doctor-grandfather allow him to go to school during a rubella epidemic?
• Bargaining. Please God I’ll do anything.  Don’t let this be true.
• Depression. Why me? nothing’s going to be okay. What have I done to my child?
• Acceptance, “I can’t fight it, I’d better prepare.”

Then comes a raging drive to fix him, to help him make it in a world he can’t hear. How can he learn to talk if he can’t hear? Infants learn by imitation. A picture forms in my mind – a little boy holding a tin cup with a sign around his neck “deaf and dumb”. A horrible stereotype. Never! Not my son!

Now I have a mission. First the audiologist fits him for a single hearing aid in the ear with a little residual hearing. He’s a baby. He’s irritated with all the fussing and poking. When the aid, about the size of a playing card only thicker and heavier, is finally “attached” with a harness that looks like a bra except there’s only one “cup” for the aid, all he wants to do is rip the whole contraption off. He’s young enough not to be embarrassed, but too young to understand the importance of this uncomfortable gadget. While he’s getting used to the aid and the new sounds he’s hearing I start researching and studying.

Next time: Choices.

Postcard mailed to me during elections

I  posted this letter in the Sarasota Herald Tribune on Oct. 14, 2012

“I live in the Sapphire Shores neighborhood on the north end of the county. I finally made it down to the Democratic Headquarters to pick up my Obama and Fitzgerald yard signs that I proudly displayed on the corner of Bay Shore Rd., a well traveled thoroughfare. As I pounded them in I remembered what happened four years ago. Several days after their appearance they were ripped to shreds, stuffed in my mailbox and burned. That’s vandalism, but I didn’t call the police. It surely wouldn’t happen again, I thought, as a friend and neighbor drove by waving and calling,” They’re too close to the road . Somebody’s gonna steal em.” I laughed and waved her on.

Two days later she proved right. They were gone, as were most of the Democratic signs in the neighborhood. It was a raid. Okay. First I called the Democratic headquarters and they told me to call the police dept. This time I did. I was directed from place to place and finally told I needed the front desk. After holding for 20 min. I called back to the non-emergency number. The woman was pleasant, but said keep trying. I did for almost an hour, when I called her back again just to let her know I couldn’t get through, she took all my information about the theft and said she’d pass it on. “Did you leave a message?” she asked.

“That wasn’t an option.”

‘Try again later. They must be awful busy.”

“No. Why don’t you try to get through?”

She actually called later and left a message saying she couldn’t get through either and why didn’t I try the next day.

What? This is really a non-emergency number. I sat down and picked up the Sarasota Herald Tribune and began reading Tom Lyons article, A non-emergency and phone etiquette. What a coincidence! I never called the police back, and they never called me or came to my door; the options she gave me.

You’re right, this was no emergency, but it is a sad state of affairs. Tom Lyons, things are getting worse.”

Creepy postcard - back

The day after my letter came out in the paper, I went down to Keith Fitzgerald’s U.S. Senate campaign headquarters to pick up more signs, this time placing them closer to my front door. Alas! Gone again. I was getting nervous, but I forgot about it in the frenzy of last minute politics and packing for a trip to Costa Rica. I whistled down to the mailbox the next day and found another political postcard. This one was different and scared the shit out of me.

Because of the creepy and threatening nature of some nut calling himself Bat Masterson, and me inane and too stupid to get out of the rain, I figured it was time to get the press involved.

Sarasota Patch a local online newspaper broke the story which was then picked up by ABC Channel 7 News, and headlined the evening news the night before and day of the election. Both stories went pretty viral because of the odd and scary possibilities.

I believe I played a small but crucial part in re-electing Barack Obama President of the United States of America. Yea!!!!!

I’d like to apologize for my costajill website being down for awhile, but it’s all fixed now. Please check back to my last post – the next episode of my memoir Life and Deaf. And keep reading.

Scooter's 1st Birthday

I’m rummaging through journals for information to supplement and stimulate my memories of beginning a family forty-five years ago. I open a grubby three-ring notebook. Lots of looseleaf stuff falls out. I recognize my mother’s handwriting and squint at the title, I Saw a Miracle faintly penciled in. A coincidence? It’s her take on my Rubella story.

The sharp ring of the telephone broke the quiet evening. The call was from my daughter in El Paso. Her husband was stationed at the Ft. Bliss army base. I knew she’d been crying by her tear-strained voice. ‘Mother, have I ever had German Measles?’

A cold chill ran down my spine. I knew what was coming. Jill was in the 12^th week of her first pregnancy. She’d called Easter ecstatic with the good news, after two years of waiting.

That’s her waiting not mine. I wasn’t sure I wanted a baby yet, but had stopped taking birth control.

Jill had consulted several physicians. Some advised wait-and-hope, some abortion.

No physician suggested abortion; that was my idea. In fact no legal abortions were available until 1968, after the big epidemic was running its course. She continues, putting my name in place of hers.

Abortion was a horrible word, not permitted by my daughter’s religion or her personal feelings. She would not consider it. To her it meant taking a life, perhaps a perfect life. She carried her unborn baby very bravely for the next six months, never complaining, but I knew how deeply concerned she was and how hard she must have prayed. We all prayed with her.

What? It’s my mother’s god coming out all over the place. Did I tell her that to pacify her? Or have I taken the godless views I now hold, reversed time and infiltrated them into my past? What is the truth? My memory weaves through it with a thin silver thread, periodically blinding me with its reflection.

Ray, Jill and Scooter 4 mo. Venice, Fl

Little Ray or Scooter, as his family now called him, grew more beautiful each day – golden red fuzz, eyes as blue as the ocean where he lived, white skin, pink cheeks – an exceptionally beautiful child. However, we were all watching him carefully. I had taught speech therapy before my marriage and I began to suspect that he was not hearing.

We all suspected. From early on we were banging pot lids together behind Scooter’s back. No response. I brought up our concerns to the pediatrician. He placed his watch behind his head on one side or the other and when he turned his head correctly he said, “See. He’s fine.” This was no dumb kid. He could see the hand behind him. Scooter was a year old, but wasn’t babbling or saying those first dada, mama words although he was looking intently at our faces when we spoke. With great trepidation we made an appointment for Scooter at the Shands Speech and Hearing Clinic in Gainesville, Florida.

The nurse holds up my first child, “It’s a boy!” Raymond Lewis Hines, III. What a moniker for such an innocent little tyke, but again I follow the “Father Knows Best” 50’s crowd and my husband’s request, naming son after father after grandfather.  “He’s beautiful. Perfect.” she says. I’ve missed the miracle. I smile stupidly, still out of it. Too many miracle drugs.

Next thing I know I’m in my room, the nurse is shaking me and dropping a bundle into my arms. I’ve opted to breastfeed, and have slept off enough of the drugs to focus. I see a lovely pink bald head, intense blue eyes, the perfectly formed ears. Will they be able to channel sound? All I want to do is rip off the swaddling, and explore him all over, but before I can check every inch of him he begins to whimper. I fumble about while the nurse makes gooing sounds trying to situate the baby’s already sucking mouth somewhere close to my breast. “Don’t worry. This is just a dry run, your milk isn’t in yet,” she says redundantly as she leaves me finally alone with my son.

I gaze at this wonder resting in my arms as the heat from his body seeps into mine both of us remembering that safe inner cavern from which he’s been expelled. I try to forget the past and the future and begin to relax in the moment. He knows nothing but. It works and I lose track of time. I touch, squeeze, explore this little extension of myself, unswaddling him bit by bit. He’s perfect. I can’t explain the communion of our two bodies, souls, whatever that I feel. We are joined. It is the most intense and comforting experience of my 24-year life.

We both are rudely awakened to cries of the nurse, “Thank God. He’s here!”

“What?” I jerk us both awake.

“The baby. We’d lost one in the nursery.”

I didn’t get it. “Huh?’

“You’re the only nursing mother of the dozen babies in here. We forgot he was with you.”

20 Tourists Assaulted in Tikal

“Veinte turistas extranjeros que viajaban al Parque Nacional Tikal en un microbús colectivo fueron asaltados ayer en la mañana, en el kilómetro 36 de la carretera a Ciudad Flores, Petén, informó la Policía Nacional Civil (PNC).” (From the Prensa Libre, Guatemala)

Also a Global Heritage Site, The nearby temples of Yaxha, is our destination the day after Tikal. As we drive through Remate, the gateway city to the ruins, we see a huge police presence. The Guatemalan  PNC (national police) and their trucks line the streets all displaying firearms of one kind or another. I’m scared. Bob, my resident political analyst, has been warning me about the isolated northern border of Guatemala and Mexico, “It’s the stomping ground of the drug cartels. A few years ago three dozen people were murdered up here for interfering.” Moya’s son Jason, a man of few words, when asked about it, just shrugs. “There hasn’t been any trouble lately, but we don’t keep up with the news. No TV, poor internet.” Hard economic times in a true third world country have taken a toll, aided and abetted by the drug wars and the death squads. I hold my breath as we drive through without being stopped.

Yaxha - from the temple top

Even less people are in attendance at the more remote and less excavated Yaxha. We walk through a surrounding jungle complete with a large population of howler monkeys calling and communicating with each other. It’s like we’ve discovered this place and have it to ourselves.  Standing atop a temple we follow a huge lake to another temple top in the far distance. Remnants of the extensive causeway system link the numerous ancient cities. I revel in what a magnificent and intelligent society thrived here some 3000 years ago.

Temple at Yaxha

On the way home, past the cops still on guard, we stop for a late lunch and pick up a newspaper, La Prensa LIbre, while we wait.

Here’s a translation of today’s news: “Twenty foreign tourists traveling to Tikal in a microbus were assaulted yesterday morning 36 k. from Flores, Petén, Guatemala according to the PNC (National Civil Police). Total: 60 tourists assaulted in the last 15 días in Petén. Oh My God! We skirted disaster.

Next time: Back to my memoir Life and Deaf