Pure Paradise!

23 Feb 2013

Well, today didn’t turn out as planned either.  The guy at church that we were going to work with didn’t answer his phone when “Louise” (she wants me to use another name for her) called him this morning to arrange our workday.  Louise, bless her heart, took it as a sign from God that we weren’t supposed to go hang doors at church.  Instead, Kory looked at one of the windows on her car that wouldn’t roll down, and fixed that, lickety split.  Then he fixed another car she uses that the horn didn’t honk (it just needed a fuse). 

Around these parts, the horn is an integral part of the vehicle.  One honk means “Pull on out of there”, two honks means “Thanks” and one long blare means, “What the heck are you doing?”  They communicate with their horns more than anywhere I’ve ever been, so getting the horn and widow fixed put Kory in a near god-like status as both those things were a big deal to Louise.  She cracked me up today when she said, “Thank you Jesus, for Kory!” 

So, by 9:30am Kory had fixed things that were broken around here for years and we were wondering what to do with the rest of the day.  Then Sheila, next door, called and asked if we wanted to go out on their boat.  That was a no-brainer.  So we spent all day cruising around Paradise Island!  We even stopped on a secluded beach to go beachcombing (they call it “shelling” here) and Sheila loaned Kaleb a metal detector to look for real treasures.  Kaleb was full of anticipation thinking he actually might find some buried treasure, since this used to be pirate territory.  He found a lot of pop cans and just as we were ready to leave, he got a strong reading so Sheila and I started digging and the beep got louder, but then a huge wave came in and undid all our digging so we just had to give up.  I told Kaleb it was his “biggest fish that got away” story, only it’s the buried treasure that never got revealed.  We had a blast.

We ate lunch on the boat as we motored around the big resorts and houses that cost 30 million dollars.  We got the royal treatment… it was so decadent I just felt downright guilty we were having so much fun when we were here to work!  Kaleb’s decided he’ll take this kind of missionary work anytime.  Ha.

Late in the afternoon when we pulled back into the marina, they took us to a local’s place right by the water’s edge where all the fishermen were selling and gutting their fresh fish of the day.  There were also several conch (pronounced “conk”) stands there as that is the traditional food that feeds the Bahamians.  Those gorgeous pink shells get conked with an ax, which loosens the critter inside, then the guy pulls at the foot sticking out and sucks this giant blob of a creature out of his comfy little home.

While the critter is still tossing and turning, the guy skins him and starts pulling different body parts off.  Locals gather around and see if they can be the first to grab this one part that looks like a clear plastic straw, limp as a pasta noodle, and they tilt their head back and let it slip down their throat.  It’s thought to be an aphrodisiac but it just looks gross to me. I couldn’t believe it when Kory ate one!  So much for being vegan.

We stood there spellbound watching one conch after another get the ax – literally.  And two women next to the guy were chopping up all kinds of fresh produce, pineapple, mango, red peppers, onions, tomatoes and squeezing lemon and lime juice over it then mixing in the little bits of fresh chopped conch and that is the local’s favorite meal – conch salad.  Kory bought a bowl full of it and ate the whole darn thing.  Neither Kaleb nor I wanted any of it, but Louise and Sheila were licking their lips as they shared one, too.  Can’t get any fresher, or more Bahamian than that.  Kory thought it was delicious and it was pretty fat free and I looked it up later on the internet and while it’s high in cholesterol it is very low in fat.  He deserved a splurge, I guess.  When in Rome….

So the whole day was about as “local” as a person could get and we’re all a little darker to prove it.  We got sun and sand and surf now we’re beat.  What a day it was.  We feel so blessed – and here we came to be a blessing.  What goes around, comes around, I guess.