Chapter 12 - By Martin Thomas

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 then sprayed inside the cabin, after which I signalled to Roger to make a second attempt to land. Juan could not work out what all the fuss was about. ‘Ajenes!’ (‘a-haynays’) he grinned at me; ‘We no have no ajenes at de Blue House. Too moch weend …’

Juan was an interesting character of mixed Spanish and Creole blood, lean and very dark-skinned. I sometimes called him the ‘witchdoctor’. He seemed to have the ability to sniff out a storm days before it arrived. He would often gaze skyward, then look at me, grinning widely, and say, ‘Rayan comming’. He was full of stories, gossip and ‘worldly wisdom’, but it was the sort of wisdom I had no time for, as it was usually negative in nature. Given the opportunity, he would regale me with stories of huge alligators in the rivers nearby, and of crabs big enough to catch a chicken and devour it in an evening. However, he also had a very loyal side to his nature, and took the care of the island and its inhabitants very seriously.

It was true that there were almost never any sandflies at the ‘Blue House’, which was where Juan lived in very basic accommodation with his wife Santa, daughter Demaris, and father-in-law Daniel, who also acted as assistant caretaker. The Blue House was sited on a promontory at the other end of the island, where there was an almost constant breeze. We had originally planned to build a large house of glass there and upgrade the cabin, but as our budget was more restricted than we had first hoped we had decided to build the smaller villa and leave the cabin as it was. An added attraction of the villa site was that there was a large area with no palm trees, meaning we would need to cut down very few trees, which fitted in with the eco-friendly approach we wanted to take.

As we unpacked and settled back into the cabin, we silently considered our options. We had certainly not expected the sandflies to be there to greet us on our return, and particularly with such a vengeance. They clearly were not happy to have been so rudely displaced, and were out for blood - ours. We protected ourselves as best we could while we ate dinner, then we put the children to bed under their little tents and Jenifer and I discussed the situation.

It appeared we had no option but to spray the island, in an attempt to conquer the ‘enemy’ once and for all. It was pointless to continue otherwise. Once again we would have to leave, and arrange for the island to be thoroughly sprayed in our absence. As we still needed to look for various items for the house we were to build, such as bathroom fittings and accessories, we decided the best thing to do was to go to Managua and spend a week there. That should be plenty of time for the spraying to be done, and for it to take effect.

At dawn the next day we were in the boat once again, heading for Bluefields and the airport. Although disappointed, we had not given up … not yet. We knew that Christian Billard had successfully sprayed his island, and it was now sandfly free, so we were confident that we could do the same. Then, finally, we would be able to start to enjoy our island. When we reached Bluefields I met with Peter, who agreed to organise a team of workers to spray the island. We would at least be able to use a natural spray, which would not harm any other wildlife. Then, gathering up the children, we boarded the little plane for the one-hour flight to Managua, where an air-conditioned van was waiting to take us to our hotel. I had negotiated a special rate at the Intercontinental in Managua, and we were looking forward to taking luxurious baths and pretending that we were not ‘island outcasts’ for a few nights. We were dressed in our shorts and sandals, as we had dressed for the boat trip, and we all looked fairly scruffy as we arrived at the hotel, even Jenifer. After our first gruelling trip out to the island she had abandoned glamorous dresses in favour of more practical attire.

However, we were not going to miss the opportunity to wear some of our more elegant clothes now that we were not on the island, so we delved into our suitcases and pulled out dresses for the girls and smart pants and shirts for the boys. An hour later, bathed, scrubbed, coiffed, scented and immaculately attired, we left our rooms and headed down to the restaurant for dinner. We were in high spirits, feeling that we had won half the battle to claim the island as our own, and that it was only a matter of time before we would vanquish the last enemy and resume our plans to create our own personal paradise.

Filed under: Islanders