BOMB SCARE

Finished with our survival and spring break on Little Corn Island, our group said our goodbyes to the island paradise and flew out of Big Corn to the town of Bluefields on the Atlantic coast of Nicaragua. I love flying into the little airport there in our small 12-passenger plane because it brings back memories from a mission trip I did to Bluefields in high school. When we fly in to the runway I can pick out and see the roofs of the building our group lived in and the church that we built. The airport has a long walkway out to the runway with a bright blue covering that I can remember walking down before.

We landed and hung out in the waiting room of the airport for 3 hours watching dramatic soap operas in Spanish. It is fun to make up our own commentary of what is happening on the shows. Finally our plane arrived to take us to Puerto Cabeza so we gathered our passports and belongings, and stood outside waiting to be allowed to board. We watched them gather all our big bags and start packing them into the back of the plane. Suddenly one of the airport attendants grabbed one of the large army bags, threw it onto a cart, and came booking it up the walkway towards the airport. He ran up to the security scanner and tried to fit it through in a bit of a panic. Wren recognized it as one of our bags and walked over to see what was wrong. She turned to the rest of us confused and said, "It's beeping?" We all gathered closer and could hear a definite "beep.....beep.....beep...."

A group of airport security had gathered by now and had some concerned, fearful looks as the beep started to speed up faster and faster. Beth turned to me and exclaimed, "Sarah! That's your Catchphrase game that Arthur left." We all laughed and tried to explain to the airport security men that it was just a game. They didn't understand and motioned for me to find it. So I opened the bag and dug down to the very bottom and pulled out the round little game that was beeping like crazy. They all looked relieved but then wanted me to turn it off. It turns off on it's own and has no switch to keep it off so we eventually had to get a screwdriver and take the whole back off so that I could pocket the batteries before they were satisfied that it was no longer a threat. We quickly boarded our plane and headed off into the sky, laughing to each other over the scare it gave that young attendant trying to get it to the scanner in time and being glad that it happened at this little airport in Nicaragua instead of a bomb crazy airport in the States.