Ship Of Fools

So on Saturday Katrina went to a "paperwork meeting," in which the wives of the group gather with our Holt supervisor to ensure that our adoption and visa paperwork is in order. The husbands are of at least normal intelligence, college-educated, in many cases bearing advanced degrees and holding down jobs requiring intricate documentation; nevertheless, there is a consensus among the women that they should handle the paperwork unless they are actively being sick at that moment. They are probably right.

Anyway, Katrina came back from the meeting eagerly reportng that we were scheduled to take a boat tour of the river that night. This was something or a surprise. We are not a seafaring people in my family. Several of the most cherished legends of my clan involve boats capsizing or being knocked out of boats or otherwise using boats for purposes other than staying dry. But I thought what the heck.

We arrived at the dock area adjacent to the hotel at the appointed hour that night. Elaina was safely ensconsed in her carrier.



The carrier is not designed with hot and humid environments in mind. It raises the respective body temperatures of the carrier and caryee precipitously.

Fortunately it was raining too hard to get really hot. Not a mild rain, not a tentative rain, a very deliberate hard pounding rain. And there was lightening. And thunder. Elaina looked up at me as if to say "surely you aren't serious." Several mothers, Katrina among them, politely asked our guide if it is safe to take a small craft into a river in a thunderstorm. The guide replied that the captain had assured her it was remarkably safe.

We walked to the boat. Katrina and I were wearing Crocs; just as well, as feet were soaked. The boat did have a canopy and cabin:



We awkwardly furled our umbrellas to climb the gangplank and crammed into the small space under the canopy at the back of the boat. I elected not to mention to Katrina that the captain looked uncannily like an Asian version of Quint from "Jaws." We sat wiping our camera lenses, illuminated by lightening flashes, stoically ignoring the rain driving sideways at us, wondering when we would embark.

Suddenly there was the closest and loudest peal of thunder yet. It was a thunderCLAP, the sound of God clapping His hands quite sharply and impatiently, as if to catch the attention of some wayward and inattentive element of His creation, such as a group of adults that had elected to take a group of nervous infants for a sightseeking cruise on a small boat during a lightening storm. The clap set off several car alarms along the waterfront. The mothers in our group stood up as one, as a flock of migratory birds will change direction together without apparent communication, and led us off the boat. We squelched back through violent puddles, drippng water through the marble floors of the lobby and attracting the politely incredulous gazes of the staff, who were not, I should point out, standing around outside in a lightening storm. Their gazes seemed to convey, in the most polite and non-judgmental way possible, the question don't they SCREEN these people?

It might not rain tomorrow.