Post 10 Settling in - Belongings finally arrived!

On 24th September, just two months after our arrival in San Joaquin, the first commercial flight to come through after the revolution was a cargo plane, and on it were all our boxes. This caused much rejoicing, and we thanked the Lord for His protecting care over our goods. 

We hurried to get everything unpacked and the house in order, because with the approach of the wet season we needed to have everything up off the earth floor because of mildew, snakes and large venomous spiders.

Packing cases draped with curtains became furniture after Jim had nailed legs onto them to keep them at least 18" off the floor. 

For the shelves in the kitchen/living room, Jim built a dresser made from "wood" split from the trunk of palm trees—the Spanish name for this "wood" means "splinters" and literally that is its texture! Curtains covered up the rough exterior. In our bedroom 

Jim made a frame for the corner wardrobe from the same material, and a curtain was hung from the front of it. In this wardrobe we hung our few warm garments, which we had used to travel down from the Andes, and of course our hot-climate clothing as well. 

Jim attached four wooden posts to our bed frame, and from these hung a mosquito net with a calico roof and a wide calico bank around the lower edge. The roof was to protect us from the bats' urine, and the calico band was tucked in under the mattress to keep out mosquitoes and everything else!

Washing

The usual way to dry washing was to hang it on the bamboo fence or spread it out on the grass, but I had looked forward to having a good clothesline. So, on unpacking the galvanised-wire clothesline we had brought from home, it was strung from the verandah post to one of the mango trees, only to be stolen during the service that same evening. We went back to using the piece of rope which was strung up when needed and taken down immediately afterwards. 

I did the washing by hand in a small, galvanised iron tub with a wooden scrubbing board, drawing buckets of water from the well in the patio. Before going to bed at night, we drew some buckets of water from the well, closed the house up and used a large galvanised iron tub to have our bath. For lighting in our rooms at night we had a pressure lantern and also kerosene wick lamps.

Transport

On arrival in San Joaquin we were told there were good roads about the district and that a motor truck travelled along one of them. 

Finally our curiosity was satisfied when one morning it drove into town from Puerto Siles. It was a very old Model T Ford, with no bonnet on the engine except for three narrow wooden boards along the side. The driver's cabin consisted of four poles with calico across the top, flapping in the breeze. When it came to town it was quite a novelty, and the back was always full of yelling kids! 

The trip of 33 miles to the port on the River Mamore was made in four hours (sometimes!). The only other conveyance for the journey was the bullock wagon (oxcart), which took two days, so old Lizzie was some bus and quite respected. 

However, the so-called roads turned out to be oxcart tracks and once the rains started no other vehicles could possibly travel along them. Eventually, with the flooding of the pampas, most travel was done by canoe.

The captain of the regiment was a proud man and hard to engage in conversation, even though he was a neighbour and lived in a room of the same building and shared the same yard. One night, while under the influence of alcohol, he staggered into our meeting and said that he had come to pay respects to a friend of his, a protestant he knew in Roburé (eastern Bolivia).  

He said "I am a Christian, he was a protestant, but he died for his religion." He then told something of the expedition of the New Tribes Mission some six years previously, when five missionaries were killed by jungle indigenous tribesmen. 

The captain, as an army lieutenant, had been stationed in that area doing exploration work and knew something of these jungle indigenous people. He said "I told Mr. Dye not to go, as I had not been able to tame the indigenous with bullets, but he went with only a Bible and a gramophone; he was a fool, but all foreigners are fools! However, I have come to pay respects to him as a good man who died for his religion". 

On saying this he went, and we were only able to have one short conversation with him soon afterwards.

A few weeks later Jim had an interesting talk when the captain told him that he had had 15 years’ experience in the jungles of Bolivia and on one occasion had walked for 25 days through the jungles along the Itenez River without once seeing the sun because of the dense canopy. He estimated that there were 100,000 jungle indigenous tribes in Bolivia, but this was very high compared with other reports we had heard. 

Although a heavy drinker and proud, he was quite liberal in his outlook and had read a Bible. He bought another Bible from us, having left the other one in his barracks at a previous location. It was encouraging to us that the captain did not prohibit the soldiers from attending our meetings.

The captain's batman, Esteban Ichu, was one who came regularly, and as he spent most of his days living near us, drawing water from the same well, we became friendly.  Esteban bought a Bible and often had good talks with Jim about the things of the Lord, finally making a decision. 

A few months later he completed his year of military service and went back to his home in the south of the Beni. Many years later, in conversation with a missionary of the New Tribes Mission who worked in the southern Beni region, we enquired if he had ever met a lad named Esteban Ichu. Great was our joy when he replied that he knew him well—he was one of their faithful national pastors!