Through Fire and Water: A Novel Set in the Río San Juan Region of Nicaragua: A Novel Set in the Rio San Juan Region of Nicaragua - Softcover

Frist, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1475952260 ISBN 13: 9781475952261

Verlag: iUniverse, 2012

Inhaltsangabe

It is 1980 when Tennessean Stan Hollins and his family arrive in Nicaragua, where the government has just been overthrown. Seeking to make amends for the 1854 destruction of a Nicaraguan town by his U.S. Navy captain ancestor, Stan founds Acción, an organization that provides medical services to poor rural communities. Proud of the good he is doing, Stan thinks that he has finally attained his life's ambition. Unfortunately he could not be more wrong. Four years later, on a visit to one of Acción's health centers on the Río San Juan, Stan and his group are asleep when explosions suddenly rock the farm where they are staying. Stan is caught in the middle of a vicious surprise attack by Contra rebels and his life is changed forever. Wounded and hailed as a hero, Stan soon makes choices that lead to loss and humiliation. To escape his pain, he starts life anew in the tiny, isolated costal town once destroyed by his ancestor. In this adventurous tale set in one of the wildest, most beautiful, and historic regions of Nicaragua, a man struggles to redeem himself and his family name as both he and his adopted country fight for their futures.

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THROUGH FIRE AND WATER

A NOVEL SET IN THE RÍO SAN JUAN REGION OF NICARAGUABy Tom Frist

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2012 Tom Frist
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-5226-1

Chapter One

Like a child's stick thrown into a muddy stream, a long, narrow passenger boat slowly made its way down Nicaragua's Río San Juan, oblivious to the upcoming rapids. A sudden burst of rain had broken the heavy heat and humidity of this April midafternoon, but now the sun reappeared from behind the clouds above the giant Guanacaste trees that bordered the river.

The boat carried six passengers—two Americans and four Nicaraguans—all heading to the Roberto Romero State Farm to spend the night before devoting two days to treating patients at the small medical clinic in the nearby river town of La Esperanza. In the middle of the boat, beneath the craft's wooden canopy, dozens of cardboard boxes of medical supplies were stacked. Clear plastic sheeting protected them from the downpour and from the spray of water from the river.

From the back of the boat, Nicaraguan music blared from a shortwave radio hanging by a frayed chord from a support beam. The radio belonged to the boat's owner and pilot—a burly, unshaven man in his late thirties nicknamed Chino. Gripping the control handle of the two-stroke outboard motor, Chino guided the boat around fallen branches and other hazards floating downstream to the Atlantic. Sitting right in front of him, a young Sandinista soldier in uniform named Benito cradled an AK-47 assault rifle on his lap and stared at the far riverbank looking for signs of Contra rebels.

When the music stopped and a familiar drumroll announced the Sandinista anthem and afternoon newscast, the older of the two Americans perked up and emerged from his long silence. With an ironic grin and a flourish of his hand, Stan Hollins took off his red and black baseball cap, put it over his heart, and sang in an off-key voice his favorite verse of the anthem, "Luchamos contra el Yankee, enemigo de la humanidad—We are fighting against the Yankee, the enemy of humanity."

"Good thing they're no Yankees on this boat," Stan said, "just us good old Southern boys!" Stan, a six feet tall, athletic, handsome man in his mid-forties with thick brown hair, directed his joke to his new son-in-law, Clay Danforth, who sat on the bench beside him and was also from Nashville. Clay, who was a little shorter than Stan and wore a floppy L.L. Bean hat to cover his small bald spot and to shade his pale, scholarly face, smiled back politely, although he didn't seem to understand the joke.

On the bench behind them, Stan's friend Luis Romero, now a high-ranking official in the Foreign Ministry of Nicaragua's new revolutionary government, however, laughed out loud. His own great-grandfather had Southern roots, and Luis could easily be confused for a white Southerner because of his light skin, sandy hair, and European facial features. Only his slightly accented English and his guayabera shirts gave him away as a Nicaraguan.

Stan and Luis had been friends now for eleven years, since January of 1973 when Stan drove to Nicaragua a twenty-six foot truck packed with relief supplies that he had personally collected from Nashville for the victims of the disastrous Christmas Eve earthquake in Managua. For the three weeks that he was in Nicaragua to distribute the supplies, Stan had stayed with Luis's family in their Granada home, and Luis had served as Stan's translator. In the following years, their friendship had deepened as Stan returned often to Nicaragua to help in some of Luis's community development projects. Usually when Stan came, he brought with him small groups of volunteers from his church and from the elite boy's preparatory school in Nashville where he taught history.

In 1980, after the overthrow of Somoza and his government, Luis invited Stan to move to Nicaragua permanently to help him and his political party, the Sandinistas, create in the country what he called "a model society of equality and justice." Fascinated with this new challenge and bored with his life in Nashville, Stan quickly accepted the invitation despite the strong protests of his daughter Laura who didn't want to miss her senior year of high school with her friends. Within six months, Stan quit his job, sold their house, raised some support from his church and friends, and moved with his wife Elizabeth and Laura to Managua. That same year, with Luis's help, Stan founded Acción para la Paz, the small international relief and development organization based in Managua that sponsored the health clinic on the Río San Juan to which they were now heading.

"How much farther is it?" Clay asked. Stan noticed that his usually cheerful son-in-law had a new weary tone in his voice. This was Clay's first time outside of the U.S. and Canada, and his initial enthusiasm for the adventure had been deflated by the long trip and the heat and humidity of the day.

"Not more than ten minutes," Luis answered. "We pass by an island on the left, and then you'll see the farm on the right bank. Actually, you can see its radio antenna now." Luis leaned out from under the boat's blue wooden canopy and pointed to what looked like a silver pin sticking up from a hill in the far distance.

Clay let out a sigh of relief, took a sip from his canteen, and put it back into his leather knapsack. He then zipped open another pocket and pulled out an expensive Nikon camera. With one hand grasping its strap, he clumsily moved forward to the bow. There he positioned himself so that he could get a full picture of the boat, its passengers and supplies, as well as the wake in the river behind them.

Stan figured that, during the last hour of their boat ride from San Carlos, Clay had already used his zoom lens to shoot some three rolls of pictures of river shacks on stilts, women washing clothes in the river, dugout canoes, majestic jungle trees, white egrets, a snoozing alligator, and several turtles sunbathing on limbs sticking out of the water. Everything on the river was new and exotic to him, and he wanted to share his adventure with his parents, his medical intern friends at Vanderbilt University Hospital in Nashville where he worked, and most of all with his new wife, Laura.

Laura, who was now a junior at Vanderbilt, had stayed in Managua with her mother, Elizabeth. Her original plan had been to come with Clay and her father to help out in the Acción clinic, but when she found out she was pregnant, she changed that plan on her doctor's advice.

As Clay returned to his seat, Stan noticed a barge in the distance filled with people leaving the right bank of the river and heading downstream. He pointed it out to Luis and asked who they were.

"Day laborers at the state farm heading home to La Esperanza about five kilometers downstream," Luis explained. "They come each morning and leave each evening." Luis then turned to the young Nicaraguan woman sitting beside him. "If you look up at the top of the hill behind the barge, you can see the house where we will stay tonight."

Sandra Espinoza, the sixth person and the only woman in the boat, shaded her eyes with her hand and looked. Her face and eyes reflected the intensity of her strong personality. Thirty-two years old and a reporter and photographer for La Barricada, the official newspaper of the Sandinistas, she was known in Nicaragua for her dark beauty, her combative feminism, her bravery, and her guile. Now dressed in loose-fitting khaki pants and shirt that hid her shapely...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: iUniverse
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2012
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 1475952260
• ISBN 13: 9781475952261
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 248
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: KreGa Onlinehandel GmbH; 4950000000000; info@krega-onlinehandel.de; ; Birkenweg 31; Brakel; 33034; Deutschland