Leaving Isla Popa

Having finished work by noon on Monday we were pretty much done. We arranged an evening meeting with Ambrosio, Daniel and Ramon to settle the issues of worker pay, reimbursement for unused wood and the communities donation of collected funds. The others in the group went for a hike; I opted to stay back and start getting organized for my departure. One thing I found a bit overwhelming was the fact of being in constant demand. Since I was wearing multiple hats I had almost no down time for myself and I feared I would become disorganized. This was literally the first time in 8 days I was by myself for more than 5 minutes and I reveled in it. I used part of it to try to get a bit cleaner than I had been during the working days. It was also nice and quiet.

The gang came back, we rehearsed for the meeting and got ready for dinner and our last night on the island. There was quite a bit of tension concerning the meeting as we did not have a great gauge of community sentiment for the project. Would Ambrosio balk at handing over the donation or reimbursing us for the unused wood? Would they really put the filters to use? Tough call.

Perhaps not surprisingly, our concerns were unfounded. The meeting went very well;everyone was jovial and in good spirits. The financial issues resolved themselves as they had been agreed to and we were made to understand that there was goodwill in the community toward us and the community looked forward to future work and our return. Not bad. Dinner was the customary rice and beans and fish. I actually got a body this time. We headed back and settled in for the night. It was quite hot and still and Tom (who had replaced Scott as my roommate) and I talked well into the night.

Tuesday morning came and we met our counterparts at the rancho for the last time. Money changed hands, we admired all of our hard work, took final photos, shook hands, hugged and went our separate ways. All except Ramon, Kyle and Me. In one of the most touching gestures of the entire trip, Ramon asked us to come with him to the back part of the village to meet his mother. We walked toward a back part of the village, stood in front of her porch and Ramon called out to her. She is quite elderly and moved slowly but she eventually emerged to see why her son was pestering her. Ramon simply explained who we were and what we had been doing there. She acknowledged us and we exchanged brief pleasantries. I mean, what do you say in circumstance like this? "How's the weather been?" What do you think about the Yankees chances this year?" Anyways, we said goodbye to her and headed back. I explained to Kyle that this was a pretty big honor and showed how high a regard Ramon held for us - family is amazingly important in their culture. We started gathering up our gear and schlepping it down to the dock to await the boat that would take us back home. We were all ready.

As always, Mike helped me haul my heavy bag - God bless him. Once again, Ramon met us and waited patiently at the dock with us. After what was, without doubt, the longest 30 minutes of our journey, the buzz of the boat motor could be heard on the water, screened from our view by the mangroves. And then, it was there, heading for the dock.

Ramon helped us pile our gear into the bow, the team hopped down into the boat, I gave my friend a last embrace and climbed down to join them. We were going home.

Of course, once we were out on the water, it clouded over and started to pour, just like on the way in. But this time it was different. We covered the gear and bags with sheets of plastic, mainly so the moisture wouldn't increase their weight, but the rain didn't bother us. It wasn't as cold and we weren't exhausted. We had done we had set out today and things were good. It's just that feeling you get. You can see it in our faces.