October 19, 2008 Search for Jiquaque Tribe

Today, along with two men helping the Texas team, we went to look for the Jiquaque tribal people in the mountains behind El Progreso. (Pronounced to the best of our understanding "He ka kay"). Apparently their community was devastated by an earthquake several years ago and they are still trying to recover. We wanted to investigate to see if it was a place we could help. The instructions from our lawyer, Hector (who also serves many times as a good information source) was to drive to the town of Morazón and then ask for directions. He also mentioned we needed a good map. Hum??? Don't have that. But, we headed off anyway. Drove to El Progreso, turned right at the Burger King (yep, we have em here), and headed for Santa Rita. The instructions were at Santa Rita to look for a sign to El Negrito or Morazón.

Didn't see any such sign. So, after passing through Santa Rita we turned around and went back to the gas station to ask for directions. Fortunately the conversation wasn't too complicated. We asked, in Spanish, "Where is Morazón?" The gentleman pointed to the road beside the gas station and off we went. About an hour later we found ourselves in Morazón and stopped at another gas station to ask for directions to the Jiquaque people. It was apparent the man had no idea who we were talking about. Not looking too good. We then asked for directions to Montaña de Flor. He seemed to have some idea of where that was and told us to continue straight and then turn left. We asked where to turn left but didn't seem to be communicating so we took off and turned at the first left. It did appear to be taking us toward the town.

We saw a tuk-tuk (moto-taxi) driver parked on the side of the road and asked him for directions. Ah. He acted like he knew what we were talking about and gave us pretty specific directions. We followed the directions and managed to get the truck stuck in the mud - eventually we were able to work it free. And the road we found ourselves on ended short of mountains.

So, we drove around and tried several different roads all with the same dead end results. Ok, new plan. We will go back through the town and ask for more directions. We asked several people and nobody seemed to know what we were talking about. Finally we passed a church and asked one of the gentleman outside. He appeared to know what we were talking about and gave us directions. Only problem was the directions were somewhat long and we only understood about 25%. But, they were better than what we had.

Off we went again. After a few more turns onto dead end streets and several turn arounds we decided to follow the gravel road out of town. Hey, this might be getting us somewhere. It took a 90 degree turn to the left and headed toward the mountain. We followed the road up the mountain for probably 30 minutes thinking the next turn will be it. Nada! Then we decided we would follow the road to the crest of the mountain and hopefully be able to see the community we were looking for.

We did see a few houses scattered over the mountain but nothing definite. We were getting ready to turn around and head back down the mountain when we passed three guys and a bulldozer. They were changing the blade on the bulldozer. So, we stopped and asked them if they new where the people lived. One of the gentleman told us go straight just a little further and then left. Oh great. The ole' straight and then left directions. So we went straight and there was a left but it didn't look passable for a vehicle.

We parked the truck and started out on foot. First following the road and then we took a detour onto a small dirt path. We met some guys walking on the path and asked them for directions. They pointed over there and said it was about a 10 minute walk. (Remember, time is very relative in this culture). We were also frequently hearing "cat-calls" (for no better term) in front of us and behind us while we were walking. Cindy had on sandals that made it difficult to walk on the sloped paths. So we decided to turn back and head for the truck because the 10 minute walk could turn out to be 30 minutes or more and we had left the truck back at the road with nobody to watch it.

On our walk back we met some more guys on the foot path and talked with them as we walked back to the truck. We didn't find the people we were looking for but it was fun exploring.