Goodbye is Not Always Forever (or, Last Days in Nicaragua)

We spent the last day in Nicaragua in Managua, at a beautiful hotel. We went to the big market right outside the city where you can get anything and everything you could think of: automotive stuff, food, hammocks, rocking chairs, clothing... you name it, it’s in there. The evening was spent by the pool, and then up early in the morning for the journey home.

The night before, our last night in Chinandega, there was a concert of sorts in Villa Catalina. It was wonderful to be able to see the children we had become friends with one more time before we left.

I am sad to leave Nicaragua, but I have so many exciting things happening soon, so it is a bittersweet parting. I hope that I will be able to return to Nicaragua soon, but for now, it is time to go home.

The Wrought Iron and Rain of Chinandega (or, Nicaragua, Day Fourteen)

When Lauren and I arrived back at the Amigos house at around 6am Wednesday morning, we went straight back to bed. I woke up around 8, and just relaxed and wrote until around 2pm when we went into Chinandega Centro all by ourselves.

Chinandega is beautiful. I have become completely obsessed with the wrought iron here in Nicaragua, and Chinandega has some wonderful examples. It is interesting: here in Nicaragua, I see wrought iron and ornamental cement block used in house construction all over the place, in both rural and urban areas. In Honduras, they use the same type of construction, but there is not as much decoration, i.e. no wrought iron or ornamental cement blocks.

We had been walking around for maybe a half hour when it started to rain, and we spent a good chunk of time waiting out the downpour under the eves of a building. I was amazed by the amount of water and trash that was on the street. Almost the entire road was under water when it was raining the hardest. And the trash: when it is just lying there on the side of the road, I don't notice it as much (or at least, it has become part of the scenery here). When it is being washed down the road in a river of dark brown water that swirls though drains and around corners, it is mind blowing how much trash there is in this city.

When the rain finally abated a tad, we decided to postpone our market and smoothie plan for tomorrow, before the rain starts. So, we caught a cab back to the house to take a nap before dinner at El Paraiso. Deb, Lauren and I shared a table with Roseanna, and had a wonderful time talking about our grandmothers and families and arts and crafts.

San Cristóbal after the rain

The past 48 hours have been a whirlwind of emotional ups and downs, but they have been really, really wonderful. Even though I am excited to see my friends and family, I am sad I only have a few more days here. Here's to making the best of it all!

Día de Los Niños (or Nicaragua, Day Thirteen)

Tuesday was truly the day of children: I spent the entire day at Villa de Catalina, just playing with the kids and meeting new people.

In the evening, Lauren and I went to the Women and Children's Hospital here in Chinandega. We spent the night there, and were able to observe three C-Sections. The first birth stared at about 9:30pm, and I didn't go to sleep until almost 3am.

This hospital is nothing like what we see in the US. The OR floors are cracked and chipped. There are few lights once you get out of the OR area. After each surgery, a woman comes in and does a quick wipe of the floor and the operating table, and the prep for the next surgery begins. The facilities are just completely shocking. On the other hand, nurses in the US and nurses in Nicaragua are very similar. They all sit and talk and laugh and gossip. For awhile, we were hanging out in their break room, waiting for stuff to start happening, and it was incredibly comforting that it was so much like being at Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington with the nurses my mom works with.

Operating Room

Anyway, all five babies, treize niñas y dos niños (three girls and two boys), and todos las mamitas (all the mommies) made it through, and were okay when Lauren and I left for the Amigos house at 5am on Wednesday morning.

Niña #1

Niño #1

Niña #2

The Day I Saw Honduras (or, Nicaragua, Day Twelve)

On Monday, we had the opportunity to go out with our Nicaraguan doctor and Roberto, the pharmacist/driver, to a little river community right on the Honduran border near the city of Somatillo. We got to practice our pharmacy skills again, and let me tell you: I am a pro at counting out 30 multivitamins and 21 ibuprofens.

That hill in the background is Honduras!

We held the clinic on one side of the river, while the village is on the other, so if we wanted to go into the village, we had to get across somehow. Lauren and I had decided that we wanted to go across at some point, just to see the views, if nothing else. We were planning on wading across, but just before lunchtime, the leader of the town, Antonio, offered us a ride across on his horse! Lauren has been on horses for a long time, but I had never been on a horse in my life before. It was quite an experience, riding behind the saddle, across a river and up a pretty steep hill the first time horseback riding.

The road to the village

Me and Lauren on the horse!

Antonio took us to his house to meet his family, and then his daughter showed us around the village a little bit. His wife showed us how she makes flowers out of paper and plastic, and then fashions them into wreaths to sell in town. They are beautiful in their own way. Once lunch was ready to bring back to the clinic, we hopped on the horse again and headed across the river. This time, I was a little more confident, and so I was able to take some photos of the view.

It is so nice to spend time in the really rural villages, and really connect with the people in them. It is very different from spending time in Villa de Catalina and Chinandega: The children in Villa are very very happy, they are always telling you how much they love you and they want to to interact with them all the time. In the smaller villages, many of the children are less smiley, more wary, and just more reserved. It is interesting to see, because at first, the children look like they come from the same economic class, but if you looke closer, the people in Villa are a little bit better off. They have access to many more resources though Amigos than many people in Nicaragua.

On the way back to Chinandega, there were the most amazing cloud formations. Some people see John the Baptist, some people see God, some people see light and goodness and joy. Whatever you see, the divine is all the same, because all it is, is love.