AVON Takes on Angel Falls

I didn’t mean to make trouble.  I really didn’t.  I figure when you visit Arizona, you go see the Grand Canyon.  Going to Paris?  See the Eiffel Tower.  When we were invited to Venezuela, it seemed natural to ask if we would get to see Angel Falls, right?

For six years, my family placed foreign exchange students into homes in southern Illinois, and during the last five of those, we had four students live with us.  The students would come and stay for an academic year and go back to their home country.  One stayed with us three years.  It was unusual, since we were restricted from asking him to stay, or assisting him with college plans that would keep him in the U.S.  Being the high school guidance counselor at the time, I also had the duty to disseminate college information to all high school seniors, and Rafael was one of them.

The circumstances surrounding Rafael coming to stay with us were downright bizarre.  We had committed to hosting a German student, and picked him up at the airport a few days before school was to begin.  Two or three days later, one of our sons and his girlfriend were home while my husband and I were out.  When we returned, the girlfriend told us she had taken a call from someone who didn’t speak native English.  She made enough out of the conversation to believe he said he was coming to our house, tomorrow.  We immediately called the exchange agency, and they confirmed we were to be his exchange coordinators, and were to find him a home.  It was customary to request to be someone specific’s coordinator, and then the agency, student, and coordinator would all be in contact, long before a placement. Rafael called again the next day.  He said he had e-mailed us a couple of times in the last month, but had no response—the crazy thing was, we never received a single e-mail from him!  He was to fly out of his country that same day, and wanted to make sure we would be meeting him at the airport.  My husband explained we would be his exchange coordinators, rather than his host family, and we would of course pick him up and find him a nice home.  He sounded deflated he didn’t have a host family, but he and his family consented he would fly to the U.S. and trust us to get him in a home as soon as possible.  We went to work immediately, contacting friends and acquaintances about possible living arrangements.

My husband, Jim, picked Rafael up at the airport and brought him to our house that night.  He was going to share bunk beds in the bedroom of our German student, Ben, for a few days.  Because it was time for school to start, we needed to enroll him in our own school as soon as possible, but kept praying we would soon find a family for him.

We recognized Rafael to be really sad.  He was obviously feeling unwanted.  We were doing everything we could do to make him feel a part of our family, but it must have been very awkward to be in a home where one exchange student was welcome and the other had to move on.  We were not having any luck finding an acceptable home.  Within a week, we couldn’t stand it anymore–we just had to keep him–we wanted to keep him.  He was such a great young man.

We didn’t have an extra bedroom.  Would Ben be willing to share his bedroom permanently with him?  Would everyone in the family be okay with it?  Would he be okay with it?

Ben and Rafael were both more than okay with the new arrangement because they were fast becoming buddies.  The rest of the family thought it was exactly what we needed to do, as well. We knew it was a “God” thing anyway—not being notified by the exchange organization was just weird; not receiving Raf’s e-mails was equally strange.  There was no question—it was “meant to be.”

Raf became our son, and teasingly became the “exchange student who never left.”  He received a two-year scholarship to our community college upon graduation from our local high school, and he continued to live with us a total of three years.  After receiving his associate’s degree, he enrolled at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, and moved into his own apartment.

When Raf graduated with a bachelor’s degree in microbiology, his parents and siblings came to southern Illinois.  We all had brunch together as one big extended family, following the graduation ceremony, even though we couldn’t speak Spanish and they couldn’t speak English (except for the usual dirty words).  We wore Rafael and his sister Adrianna out, making them interpret for the other seven of us.  Then, his parents laid everything out on the table.  They wanted Jim and me to come to Venezuela that summer.  We were touched by their generosity and compassion. They were grateful we had taken their son into our family for the last five years, and we were grateful they trusted strangers enough, to share him with us.  Now they wanted us to meet our son’s entire extended family.

Between hugs and kisses in the restaurant parking lot, I offhandedly asked if we would get to see Angel Falls.  His parents looked at each other, and said maybe.  I was just curious.  Visitors come to southern Illinois, and we take them the short jaunt to Garden of the Gods.  Rafael had always told us Venezuela was a small South American country, so it seemed logical to me, that we could jump into the car and drive to a lookout above the falls, and say we had been to the largest waterfall in the world.  Cool.

We packed for Venezuela a few weeks later, and caught a flight out of St. Louis, to Miami.  On a connecting flight from Miami to Caracas, as we were flying over Cuba, Raf told us the exciting news that we were indeed, going to Angel Falls, in two days.  Alright!  He nonchalantly added we should bring things like sturdy shoes, insect repellant, and a day pack.  He again casually added there would be a flight from Caracas to Ciudad Bolivar on a smaller plane, and then a puddle jumper to Canaima.  I bolted upright in my seat, and inquired why it would be another flight to Angel Falls—can’t we just drive?  I got, “Ah, no, Carlucha, it is because it is in the south of my country.  It is about 750 miles from my home.”  Uh oh.  What had I done?  So much for a short drive to the falls.  I had inadvertently asked his family to send us on another major excursion once they had graciously brought us to South America–like traveling to Venezuela and staying in their home eleven or twelve days was not enough.  ”No, no, no. Let me fix this,” I pleaded.  “We cannot possibly let them send us to Angel Falls.”  I had Raf call them and see if the trip could be cancelled.   I must have sounded like an ungrateful American—1) for asking to go to the falls in the first place, and 2) then for trying to refuse the trip they so generously planned.  I found out the family had never been there themselves, and only Jim, Raf, and I were going.  The trip was set in stone, and they would not or could not change the plans.  Man, I felt terrible.  That trip surely cost more than the initial trip to their country did.  I was embarrassed.  All I could do was thank them and tell them how very much we appreciated everything they had done for us.  And figuratively kick my own butt.

In the next two days, I would learn more about our trip.  After the two flights to reach Canaima, we would board a dugout canoe and be led by native guides to the waterfall.  I packed a small backpack for three days, based on this information.  Raf left out a few pertinent details, but heck, he hadn’t made the trek before, either.

We woke early in Canaima and hiked a few short miles across a savannah, to reach the dugout canoe.  Once in the canoe, we traveled about 30 miles upstream on a river that reminded me of the Colorado or Columbia Rivers of the western US.  The country was breathtaking—dense, plush jungle, with incredible rock formations jutting into the sky.  The luxury was that our canoe, holding seven Chileans and the three of us, was navigated by natives who would guide us up the falls.  The way they maneuvered the treacherous rocks and rapids, was amazing.  June is part of the rainy season (their winter), and the weather was warm (90+ degrees Farenheit), wet, and green.  With rain squalls occurring sporadically in the rainforest, my canoe attire was swimsuit, shorts, and flip-flops.  Rather than pull rain gear on and off as our Chilean counterparts did, I chose to enjoy the warm downpours, interchangeably getting soaked and then drying out in the hot sunshine—when would I ever experience this again? The first day was full of wonderful sights, no other travelers, sounds of wildlife foreign to us, and wonderful mini-waterfalls where we ate, swam, and sunned ourselves.

When we reached the mountain we were to climb, we were told it was a short, easy walk to our first campsite.  That wasn’t too far from the truth.  We made it to our campsite, to find a nice pollo dinner and hammocks waiting for us in the middle of the jungle.  I still had my flip-flops on, because the two canoe guides had taken our canoe with my hiking shoes in it.

I have read and played in hammocks; maybe even dozed in one, but sleeping an entire night in one, would be a new adventure.  It was an adventure, but it wasn’t a pleasant one.  I could find no way to get comfortable more than ten minutes, in one position. This scenario continued all night.  It was, therefore, a long night, and I’d had no idea my body could contort into so many configurations—each one more uncomfortable than the previous. Morning came just as I was dozing from exhaustion.  It was time to hike to the falls.

While the canoe guides had come back to cook our meals, they brought nothing of ours with them.  My hiking shoes remained in the canoe and there was no way to access them. I had no choice, but climb the mountainous trail with two-inch, wedgy flip-flops. How tough could it be–our native guide was barefoot (did I really say that)?  I stayed right behind the goat-like man-boy for the first hour.  Over huge roots, through streams, and clamoring over rocks, I held my own.  The closer I stayed to him, the better I liked it.  Not only did I pretend to be in shape, but I didn’t embarrass myself by being the last hiker on the trail.  The two women bringing up the rear were much older than I, anyway.  It was motivating, to be second in line.  The second hour of hiking was coming upon us, and the slope of the trail had been getting increasingly steeper. I began falling more and more behind.  I looked around and duly noted I had become the very last hiker on the trail, and would never again regain my position as second.  My poor husband, who is quite the hiker, and can walk circles around me even when I am in great shape, obviously felt it was his responsibility to babysit me.  Maybe it was the pretty, metallic gold, wedgy, size six flip-flops that made him feel sorry for me; maybe it was the fact I hadn’t backpacked in years, and was grossly out of shape; maybe it was the fact he wanted to see Angel Falls before sunset—or at all.  This was a new predicament for both of us.  He wasn’t in the habit of babying me, and I wasn’t in the habit of letting him.  Maybe with a little resentment on both our parts, we each gave in, and completed the climb together.

Angel Falls was the most spectacular sight.  It is most often covered by low-lying clouds beneath an overcast sky, but for a few minutes, once our entire party reached our destination, the sky opened up and the sun shone, giving us an incredible sight.  The drenched sandstone backdrop was every color of the spectrum–turquoise, magenta, tangerine, violet–breathtaking–a geological wonder.  The falls was monumental–a beautiful, sacred, spiritual place that only Venezuelan natives had experienced, prior to the 1930′s, and we did not take its beauty and significance lightly.

Our trip down the mountain took a lot less time.  I still had to take up the rear and Jim had to continuously serve as a backstop, to keep me from crashing down the trail when I picked up too much momentum.  Going in this opposite direction, there were many more wet roots and rocks to slip on, and I was still wearing my wedgy flip-flops.  The amazing thing was, they stayed intact the whole trip.

Hiking back across the savannah, I walked in step with a 17-year-old Chilean, and we struck up a conversation about his schooling, future plans, and the falls.  He asked if I worked at IHOP.  I told him no, I was a school teacher.  I chatted about my school, as a perplexed look grew across his face.  In a very frustrated tone and broken English, he asked, “What that have to do with IHOP?”  I became as perplexed, as it hit me he was talking about the International House of Pancakes!  I tried to explain it had nothing to do with my being a teacher.  In slaughtered English, and no Spanish, we bantered back and forth about why he thought I worked at IHOP.  This was the first conversation in which I wished I was something other than a high school teacher.  He seemed to lose interest in me, and possibly even respect, over the fact I was not a server at IHOP.  I don’t know why he held such a fascination for that career, but if I’d had the good sense to affirm I did indeed work at IHOP, I believe our conversation would have continued to evolve.  As it was, it ended abruptly, and we hiked on in silence.  Go figure.

The only regret I have about going to Angel Falls, is not taking pictures of my delicate AVON hiking “boots” during the trip.  I could surely have become a spokesperson for AVON’s quality footwear.  I could see their slogan changing from: AVON, The Company for Women, to AVON, The Company for Women’s Rainforest Travels.  They lasted another year before I had to finally throw them in the trash.  The best part of our trip?  The love and hospitality we experienced from every Venezuelan we met; particularly our Venezuelan family.  They will forever be part of our hearts.

Within this next year, Rafael is going to graduate with his master’s degree in microbiology.  He will no longer have an excuse to stay in southern Illinois.  He will be off in a lab in Germany or some other country, continuing to research viruses, while working on his PhD.  That “exchange student who never left” will take a big part of our hearts with him, wherever he ends up.  Hey, isn’t The Black Forest in Germany?

 

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