Border Crossings: Experiencing Latin America "The National Way"
by Kersten Rogers
When I was fourteen years old, my family and I moved into our dream house, built with our own hands, on three acres of land on a river. One month after we moved into that house, my dad went on a mission trip to Nicaragua, Central America. My dad’s uncle, Howard, was the missionary leading the team. Before my dad left, my mom told him to open his heart and listen to the Lord. My mom and I already knew that this trip was going to change our lives forever.
When my dad came back from Nicaragua, he was unsure about how we would feel about moving to Central America as missionaries. As a matter of fact, he was scared to talk to us about it, so my mom just said “We’re going on the mission field, aren’t we?” Before my parents made a firm decision to go on the field, they decided that the whole family should spend some time in Central America, to make sure that everyone could be comfortable there. So Dad, Mom, my eight year old brother, John, and I decided to spend two weeks, in the summer of 1999, working with Howard and his wife Melanie in Honduras. Although we came away from that trip with many stories, the one story that showed the largest difference between the Northern American culture and the Latin culture was crossing the border from Honduras to Nicaragua.
Our trip began with a rough landing in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. When the plane finally stopped, everyone clapped! As we were going through customs, the official kept asking us for the address of where we were staying. Not only did we not speak Spanish, but we did not know the address! After finally getting through all the questions, the officials decided to search through every one of our bags. It is a very scary feeling being in a foreign place unable to understand anything people are saying. We finally found my uncle and aunt, who took us to the house we would stay in for a few days.
Since my dad had worked in Nicaragua and wanted us to move there, we decided to cross the border from Honduras to Nicaragua Howard, being “tight” with money the way he is, decided that we should cross the border the way the nationals do because it would be cheap. So instead of crossing the border in a comfortable, air conditioned Ticabus, we would go on an adventure.
Our journey to the border started in a missionary’s car, but because it was not our car, we could not take it across the border. We would have to leave it someplace in Honduras while we were in Nicaragua The scenery during the drive was beautiful, very mountainous, but because Hurricane Mitch had made landfall just a few months prior to our visit, many of the roads were either damaged or destroyed. Even though the roads were dangerous, cars were passing each other on the two lane road around curves. Not only was this a major shock, but so was the fact that there were no guard rails!
Since we could not cross the border in the car, Howard decided to leave it in Choluteca, the small town where we would be working. So Howard, the only one with us that spoke Spanish, dropped the rest of us off at a bus stop while he went to park the car. Melanie told us to keep the luggage close because people would come steal it if we did not. The bus stop was small and scary. I think that my heart was beating harder than it ever had before. We kept waiting for Howard to come back, but he did not come. I got a sinking feeling in my stomach. Then someone drove up in a truck and had two very mean looking dogs with him. He took the dogs and put them in the fence near us. He was yelling something at them. We decided that he was saying “stay,” but the dogs did not seem to listen very well. I just knew they were going to come and attack us.
I was praying very hard. Howard still had not come back; it felt like hours since he had dropped us off, but in reality it had only been a few minutes. Then two guys came running up to the bus stop and, all of the sudden, one pulled out a gun and held it to the other’s head. This was it; I knew we were going to die. Then the guy with the gun began to laugh. The gun was not real, and, from nowhere, Howard appeared. We boarded the small microbus and soon, every seat was filled with sweaty men. Of course there was no air conditioner-- I was grateful that it did not take long to get to the border.
At the border, we discovered that we would have to sit on something looking like a bench on the front of a bike and be peddled across the border. We sat two people to a bike and put our luggage on the area underneath our feet. Mom had our passports and was riding with Melanie. Since I was so scared, I insisted on sitting with Dad. As we got closer to the border, Mom and Melanie’s driver took off peddling fast. People began to yell at them, and we were left behind. I was almost in tears because Mom had my passport, and I was afraid I would not get across the border plus I did not know where my mom was. After some time, we caught up with the women. Later we found out that their driver was not supposed to cross the border. After getting our passports stamped, we had to walk in the rain down a muddy road lined with semi-trucks.
The men kept whistling and hollering at me, so I ran to keep up with Dad. We finally got to the place where the bikes were waiting for us and rode to the bus stop. Everyone except for Howard boarded the old school bus that would take us to the town where we would be staying. Howard was busy arguing with the bike drivers, not wanting to pay them as much as they had asked for. The people on the bus began to scream and holler. We thought that they were yelling about us, but we found out that they were yelling at the bike drivers.
It was still raining while we were in the bus, so we were unable to open the windows. There was a strong odor, body odor. The Nicaraguan countryside was beautiful, with many mountains and volcanoes. Dad and Howard were sitting toward the back of the bus near some women who seemed to be flirting with them. Howard said that the women were proposing to them, but I am still not sure if this is true.
It was night when we finally arrived in Chinendega. Howard hailed two old taxicabs, even though there were two new cabs waiting nearby. I was in a cab with Howard and mom. When we were driving, we came to a place where we would have to make a U turn, or go into head on traffic. So the driver began turning the steering wheel, but the car did not turn. I have never seen a steering wheel go around so many times! We ended up not making the first turn, but the car finally made the second turn. When we arrived at the hotel, everyone got out of the cab except for me, I could not get out. There was no door handle, and no one would let me out. Eventually I got out, and we settled into our hotel rooms, but before the night was over, I had shed many tears.
It is now almost five years later and looking back I can see how much we learned on that trip. A lot of “what not to do” type of things, but we also learned much about mission work, as well as the Latin American culture. Ever since this trip, Latin America has not been far from my heart or mind. This trip inspired my family and one year later we moved to Central America as missionaries, but we never again crossed borders into other countries the “national way.”
