The Antenna Disaster

Remember when I told you a few entries back that Shalom was going to have high-speed Internet access? That is going to be made possible by a missionary here named Tom Jones (every time I hear his name, a few songs pop into my head,) who is starting up an Internet café across the street from Shalom and broadcasting the Internet wirelessly with a powerful antenna that will create a hotspot with a 3 mile radius in all directions. The only problem, was that we needed to mount the antenna to the roof of the building on a pole that stretches 20 feet into the sky to get over the power lines and trees and other things that would hinder the signal. So on Tuesday, Tom came over to the class I was teaching and asked me if I would like to help him set up the antenna to shoot over Internet access to Shalom after school. I excitedly accepted the offer and let out a big “woohoo!” in front of the class.

When we got onto the roof of the building, Tom had already mounted the first section of the pole, standing about 8 feet high. The next step was to mount the second section of the pole (about 12 feet long) to the top of the first section, thus making a joint and then heave the second section up with a rope to make it stand erect, then screw in another bolt to secure it in place. Sounds simple enough. Once Tom climbed up on a latter to mount the joint into place, we started to heave the second part up with me on the other end with a rope, pulling with all my might to heave the massive pole upward. As we did so, we noticed that the screws that held the base of the structure in place were coming loose, and badly. The whole structure could easily wiggle. After thinking about it for a little while, Tom decided to move on with the mission.

As we finally got the second section erect, Tom (who was at the joint of the structure) was holding the pole in place while he went for another bolt. Suddenly, I noticed my rope getting a little more slack… and then some more… and some more, until my rope was on the ground. As I looked up, there was a massive pole falling 20 feet from the sky directly into my direction. I heard Tom say, “Catch it! Catch it!” Well, there are some instructions I am willing to follow, but when those instructions include sacrificing my body for a $250 antenna, I draw a line. I jet out from underneath the toppling structure looking back just in time to see the antenna hit the ground first with a resounding “crash!” and the outer shell splitting into many pieces thus spilling the insides of the antenna in powder form onto the ground. My heart sank as I saw Shalom’s Internet access delayed at least another month while we try to get another antenna down here. But that is something I have had to get used to down here in Guatemala. Everything takes more time to get done here than you want it to. As we lifted the pole from ground zero, there was a gash in the concrete where it hit. I was thinking in my head, “If I had tried to catch this thing, that could have been my face!”

I got really sick yesterday with a high fever, really sore throat, and muscle aches. I NEVER get sick in the states. I use to get sick as a kid, but these days, it’s quite the rarity. I was at school, and Antonio had to do all the teaching while I stood at the back of the class occasionally telling kids to stop banging on the keyboards or stop talking. During the 20 minute break, I lined up four chairs and made another line of four chairs directly in front of the others making a little bed I could lay on. After the school day was over, I was more than happy to leave and head straight to bed, but as I went over to the Shalom house where all the teachers are supposed to park their cars, the kids had busted the big main swinging door to the entrance of the house, thus locking all of us teachers in. Having barely enough energy to stand up, and desperately needing to rest, the thought of being locked in at Shalom was probably my least favorite idea. But, God helped me to laugh it off and say, “Well, that’s Guatemala for you!” After a few minutes of wrestling with the massive swinging door, Tom finally got the door open enough for cars to get through.

As I made my way to Mark’s house, Guatemalan traffic was about normal – congested. After going through the traffic, wanting to sleep every second of it, I finally made it to Mark’s house where I needed to eat something to get some strength before I went to bed. Well, just my luck, the electricity for the whole neighborhood was out, thus I couldn’t heat anything up. So, I pulled some mac-n-cheese out from the dead refrigerator, and ate the bowl of cold noodles. After drinking a lot of water and eating an apple, I laid down in Mark’s bed (they said I could.) I woke up a few hours later feeling REALLY hot and barely able to swallow. Just to move positions in bed made me out-of-breath like I had climbed a volcano or something. Today, I am pretty drugged-up on expensive medicine thanks to Andrea’s sister who is a doctor and just happened to be in, and am now feeling a whole lot better.

I am so happy I am feeling better already, because tonight I am going to the Infected Mushroom concert! For those of you who don’t know Infected Mushroom, it is a group of two guys who make techno music, one of my favorite genres of music. If any of you bought the Fall Retreat Videos DVD from church, in the special features section you can play Mark and Andrea’s farewell video and the techno music I used in that video was all Infected Mushroom.

I will try and add some pictures later with the antenna we destroyed and the Infected Mushroom concert.

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