Early rise yet again; 5.30am this time. Abram was already loading the back of the buggy with plants when we got down stairs. We left as the sun came up out on the bumpy road back to the main highway, giving a lift to another Mennonite en route. As we had become used to we chatted about life and the universe and our very different realities; each with a new understanding of the others, and me with a growing respect for theirs. For breakfast Deborah had prepared home baked eggy bread, freshly squeezed chocolate milk, banana bread and mini bananas.
After some distance we drew up next to an old mine. Keen to explore Jonathan and Abram jumped out, followed shortly by Deborah and myself. The mine was almost perfectly concealed by its high sides but as we walked up the grassy tufts the cavernous glistening white hole came into view, the bottom filled with water and a single black tyre lodged somewhere in the middle. Sat in a river a week before at Lancetilla Jonathan and I had laughed about what always ultimately happens when groups of people are faced with water and rocks….they start aiming and throwing them. Sure as, pretty soon all four of them were stood on the mine side hurling rocks down, aiming for the middle of the tyre. I stood back from the group just to watch it, it was one of the many moments of which I wished I could take a picture. Two bowl haired, bush bearded braced and booted Men, a pale little woman in a floor length dress and head cover, all so serious and stoical looking hurling rocks into a mine with a 6 foot long haired American in jeans and a t shirt. It was great.
They dropped us off on the highway and neither party seemed to want to say goodbye. We talked and talked until the bus arrived and they stayed until they had waved us off down the highway. We hardly spoke for the next 15 minutes but when we started we couldn’t stop, much like two people who had just witnessed something they knew it would take a long time to process.