Since we had been sick, we were looking for things to eat, that seemed a little more mild and resembled stuff from back home a little more. So we’ve been pretty much eating sandwiches and taking it easy. Finally Josue had a craving for some cereal - so of course we looked for his favorite kind - “Frosted Flakes”… and we were so happy to have found them yesterday. So for breakfast today, we enjoyed some “Zucaritas” with bananas! They were delicious, tasted exactly the same and had the same picture on the box, but here they call him “Tigre Toño”!
After breakfast we get back to what we’ve been doing lately - just hanging out with the little cousins & nephews around here. We’ve really just been having a lot of fun trying to figure out just how far we can push this rope as we swing on the trees. Well, I haven’t really been swinging, I just help out with the engineering of it, when they want to swing over the “posa” (a holding tank for water for the plants).
We haven’t always been taking pictures because we are so wrapped up in playing that we forget. Anyway, Josue promised the kids a swing a couple weeks ago, and brought out this rope we had (a no big deal, sort of thin rope actually) and hung it on a branch in between the two properties and have been swinging daily with the kids. Each kid has their own style, everyone keeps trying to up the anty, and do better tricks or spin more times in one turn… you name it. Since then, a new rope has been brought out - a thicker tow rope with two metal hooks on the end - how different can we swing from this rope? Well, everyone’s finally started getting bored with it, after almost two weeks of it. So, they start looking for a new tree, a new obstacle to conquer! So back behind Tia Prima’s house his cousin has a “posa” there, that isn’t always full of water, but usually has some. Off to one corner of the well is a very large tree that is dead now, it’s the same one they were taking down branches from the other day. Well, now they’re wanting to find a way to tie the rope to that tree but swing over the posa. Well that’s a little difficult to do, since it’s in the corner and there aren’t really any long strong branches that hang over.
So, yesterday, we decide to come up with a way to rig it so that they could swing from one end of the well across to the other side! So I come up with a plan, since the rope is so long, what we needed to do, was to split the rope. Tie off a knot that would end up right above the middle of the well. And from there someone would swing across using one end of the rope. With the other end, someone off to the side would hold it, so that the rope would stay tight and keep tension on it, so the point the person is actually swinging from would be right above the center of the well. In theory - this sounded so great. Good enough to convince Josue and all the little ones, that it would work. So we go about hanging the rope from the tree, doing our rough measurements on where we should tie the knot. We tie it, then stretch it out, and figure the knot was too far over, we take it down & re-do it. Aaah, perfect. It’s right where we need it to be, it should work. We decide Emmanuel (15) should go first. He’s the most willing and daring at this point, but he’s also a little guy so he seems light enough. So he grabs one end of the rope and starts making his knots and loops to hold on to. I grab the other end to make a looped knot to hold on to, so I have a good grip and just incase he turns out to be heavier than I can handle, I call for reinforcements. I’m the anchor, then Josue’s holding onto the knot of my loop, and in front of him are Gloria and Alejandra …. So here goes the big trial swing…. And who knows just how Emmanuel landed because none of us holding on the rope saw - as soon as he jumped the inertia of the jump, made him weigh a lot more than we calculated (I guess this is why we aren’t engineers!) and we all got yanked into the ground. We weren’t able to hold on at all! The tension was lost and we all fell to the ground, Josue and the girls on top of me (but yet Josue’s yelling “SARAH” - as if it was all my fault!) - we couldn’t even see Emmanuel - all we knew was he ended up in the well, who knows how hard he landed! We were all laughing so much and we’re trying to scramble up to our feet to check on Emmanuel and pull him up out of the well! Once we can stop laughing we ask him if he’s ok - he’s fine just all wet now!
We decide the problem wasn’t us not being strong enough - it’s that even though Emmanuel is little for 15 - he still weighed too much!! So we decide to try it again this time with someone smaller still. So we all nominate Julio (9 years old) to be the next Tarzan. All willing, and so trusting of us, he gets to the jumping point and this time to take better precaution, we decide that since Josue is stronger he should be anchor man this time. So, here we go - test run 2: He jumps…. And we all fall to the ground AGAIN! Same exact result! How could this be?!! We don’t know what went wrong, but this time we’re all laughing even harder! Now Josue knew for sure it’s not the anchor’s fault, since this time he was the anchor man! So, once we get to our feet again, we check on Julio, since he’s smaller, he’s even more wet, since the water came up to his chest. We ask him if he’s ok, and luckily he is. But now… we all know this plan is flawed, it’s just not going to work! We now know that instead of us holding the tension end - we need to anchor it to something heavy - we even think to try tying it to one of Charlena’s axles - but then we think, incase this goes wrong, we don’t want to hurt our car! How nice of us, huh?!! We worry about our car, but just send those kids across the well, without a second thought! For now, nobody else wants to jump - I wonder why?!!
We take down the ropes and leave it for another day. We’re going to have to dream up a better solution!
So, that was yesterday… today’s a new day.
And I tell Josue - I came up with the solution! Instead of us holding it or tying it to the car, we need to also use the tow rope, and tie that to a tree directly at the opposite corner of the original tree and use it to connect to the tension end of the rope, so that now, the ropes tension is being held up by another tree. This should surely work to hold one’s weight as they swing across! Josue decides it sounds good, we get to work. Except this time, what I didn’t notice was that they put the original rope at a lower spot on the original tree. Anyhow - it being a new day, didn’t change the fact that we already sent Emmanuel and Julio into the well and this time around the kids weren’t so willing to be first! We tried convincing Gerardo and Chucho, but both wimped out! Gloria was fine just watching. So Josue decides he’s going to have to set the tone and be the first to try. He gets up to the jump point and gets a little nervous, but finally jumps. This time, I’m playing camera girl, but was a little late to take the shots, because I was too busy watching to see how it was going to work. Anyway, it all happens so fast, but he jumps and he seems to make it across to the other side, but very low, like he skimmed the water, so where he reaches the other side is inside the well. He kicks off and waits for his cousins to grab the end of his rope to help pull him up. They get it, and help him up as he’s laughing, if it had been me, I would’ve fallen in from laughing. So sure enough he skimmed his feet and butt on the water, we all had a good laugh, and he made it back up to the other side! It basically worked so - who’s next?! We decide the only reason he went so low was because he’s heavy, so if a little person went, they’d have to make across all the way. We try to talk little Tiffany (7) into it, because she’s little and super light and so far has been pretty brave when it comes to swinging. So she gets to the jump point and gets nervous. It doesn’t seem she’s going to jump, she’s telling us no, she’s nervous. And then all of a sudden she just jumps, without letting anybody know she’s going to. Poor little Tiffany goes sailing right into the side of the wall of the well. Well, we were right, since she was lighter she didn’t swing as low as Josue did, but still too low to make across completely. Good thing she’s so light, they all pulled her up and out quick and easy, while Gloria and I cheered “Bravo, Bravo”… so she wouldn’t get too scared or cry! And just like that works with little ones over there, so did it here. She quickly forgot she was scared and got all proud that she did it! But she didn’t want to try it again!
Soo funny! We kept laughing about these attempts at swinging like Tarzan all night! That's little Tiffany getting dragged up after her surprise jump!
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