Nogales and Nester's Falls

Abby from Nester's camera as we
fly by "The Falls".

Even in this jungle outpost, these people still went to church on a Sunday. At the other end of town was a church that was built by some missionaries about ten years ago. They made the circuit, showing up here in Nogales the last Sunday of each month. They could have spent the money on something this village really needed, like water purification, but that would come later. Salvation for their sinning souls would have to come first. Sinning souls… these people were the most peaceable people I have ever seen. They didn’t need church, but they do need a school, and that is what the building is used for when they didn’t have service.
“What the hell.” Jerry flipped the switch on the radio on and off a couple of times. It didn’t turn on. He traces the wiring, checks the connections, then walks outside and I follow with the case of beer.
Up on the roof, the solar panel is covered by foliage from the encroaching jungle. “I wonder how long that has been that way?”
I set the case in the back of the jeep and pull the machete from behind the seat, “Lets fix it.”
We make short work of the frond and its host branch while standing on the roll bar of the repositioned jeep. “That’ll do it.” I jump down as Jerry steps back into the store and returned with his Tupperware full of marinated meat.
“Lunch.” He tosses it to me and I wedge it into the back alongside the beer.
“So what is on for today?” This couldn’t be it.
“You fix that down-lock problem on Abigail, and then we go make a supply run.” Jerry started the jeep.
“Supply run?”
“Yeah, we need to make a pick up from the bank of Nogales, and then we go.” Jerry pulled onto the dirt path and up toward the Church at the other end of town.

Services had just let out as we pull up. The town’s children gather around the jeep as we jump out. Jerry reaches behind his seat and pulls a plastic bag of hard candy and throws a few handfuls out and away from where we parked. The kids flock to it like pigeons to seed. Kind of a one man parade route.
“Jerry!” The padre calls over the departing crowd. Jerry goes to pay his respects, making sure he stops Nester Orinda on the way. Nester is the man he came to see.
A couple of handshakes later Jerry is walking with Nester over toward his shack across from the church. He and his family had claim to land that was ten minutes walk back into the jungle. It is a pool at the base of a waterfall and the surrounding land up to the tree-line. Nester’s group pulled gold from the soil at the edges of the pool, a lot of gold. That was just with crude panning. If you were to ever get the right equipment in there to really harvest the shoreline this town would have hi-rises instead of clapboard shacks.
Nester is the unofficial mayor of Nogales. He owns the little store and organized the building of the church. It is his family’s gold that barters for supplies and things that are not normally found out here in the jungle.
Jerry rattles off something in Spanish and Nester waves us both into this shack. Inside the ambience is third world Motel 6, with a bed, a wash basin, and a camp lantern. This is his in-town home. His wife and four children, two brothers and an uncle were out at the falls living in a much larger “home”.
Nester looks out the window and then turns to the both of us and nods. Jerry grabs one end of the metal bed-frame and moves it over. He pulls a moss covered tarp from the ground and beneath it is the top of a drop safe, the kind you might find in the floor of a service station. Jerry had helped him sink it into a block of concrete a couple of years ago. No one knew it was there, and if they did it would not be breached, moved, or opened without the special key that only Nester possessed.
The transaction takes several minutes, and when the bed was is back into place, Nester looks out of the window once again to make sure that this little dance wasn’t being watched. Once satisfied, he pulls a piece of paper from his pocket, a list… a shopping list.
Jerry looks it over while I stand by like some idiot. I should have paid attention in Spanish class in High School. I know enough Spanish to get my face slapped and that is about it.
A quick exchange between Nester and Jerry, a laugh, a smile, and a pat on the back and we are out of there.
“What was that all about?”
Jerry hands me the list, all in Spanish. It might as well have been written in Klingon. “Number five.”
“Yes, don’t keep it a mystery.”
“He wants some fancy underwear for his wife. Those thongs.” Jerry says, climbing into the Jeep.
“For Consuela? That is an image that I don’t need”
Nestor’s wife was a good cook, and a hearty eater, and she didn’t wear it well.
“I told him I would pick up his list, and two full wings of fuel, plus a little something for the run.” Jerry starts back down the dirt trail toward our jungle passage. “Beer.”
I reach behind the seat and pull two cold ones and yank the caps. Life is good.