Tuesday Is The Perfect Day For Manual Labor (or, Nicaragua, Day Six)

This morning, I woke up before the sun, and instead of jumping out of bed to grab a shower while they were still open, I lay in bed and watched the sun begin to glow through the window as it rose. It was a beautiful way to greet the day.

I spent the day in Villa Catalina again. This time, the group was filling in the foundation of a house with material selecto (a mix of rock and sand) which is covered with cement to make a floor. All morning until lunch, we shoveled and filled buckets and dumped buckets full of material selecto into the house.

At lunchtime, a million children came out of the woodwork and were talking to us - even though the most exciting thing we can ask them about, and understand their answers to, is "What grade are you in?" and "Do you like school?" Even though we can barely have a conversation, we are definitely finding other ways of communication.

We met a boy named Jose, who invited us to his house to meet his family. We accepted his invitation, and as we were walking to his house, a little girl, probably about five years old, came right up to me and with no introduction, just took my hand and stayed with us until we had to go back to work. She was so shy - She barely said five words to me and I didn't even get to know her name, but she was content to just hang out with us and sit in our laps and play with our cameras.

The kids here love to take photos with our cameras. They love to have their picture taken as well, but the easiest way to make them ridiculously happy is to let them take pictures of anything and everything they see. They get so excited, and they love candid shots of people with funny expressions and of people taking pictures. They laugh so hard and have such big smiles as they show each other the photos they have taken.

There was a scare in the hospital today: A little boy, just two years old came in for surgery for his club feet, and his parents didn't give a complete medical history. The boy was put under anesthesia, the surgery went perfectly, and then the doctors were not able to extubate. They asked the parents if there was anymore information, and then they found out that the boy had had pneumonia recently, and his lungs were probably not strong enough for anesthesia. So, they sent the boy and one of our doctors to the hospital in Leon, where they have the monitoring equipment and staff that is needed to keep him over night. We are all hoping that he will be alright, but won't know until tomorrow.

Too Many Nurses Leads To Not Much To Do (or, Nicaragua, Day Five)

Monday. It's the fifth day I've been here, and the beginning of the surgery. There are too many nurses at the hospital already, so I'm staying out of the way for the most part.

The daytime was pretty low key, but in the evening, Lauren, Alex, Drew, Hollis and I sat around for hours playing cards, talking and laughing.

Even though I feel like I haven't done much, I am really enjoying myself here.

Sundays, Sun Days, and Sundaes (or, Nicaragua, Day Four)

Sunday was a real beach day: no clinics and no medicine, just pure and simple hanging out at the beach!

We left the Amigos house at 11am and drove for about an hour to Lèon and the coast. We set up our home base for the day at a little beachside bar and restaurant called Playa Roca. On Saturday I had burned my shoulders pretty badly, and so I spent most of the day in the shade, sitting in a rocking chair, reading Kurt Vonnegut, and taking periodic walks for pictures.

In the afternoon, we saw a shark fin in the water, which was kind of exciting, to say the least. Hollis, Drew and Alex said they were about 100 feet away from it before they noticed they were swimming with a shark in the Pacific Ocean. Obviously, they got out in a hurry, as did the many surfers who were taking advantage of pretty consistent waves.

After eating lunch at the restaurant at Playa Roca, some of us moseyed on down the street to find the place that makes banana splits. We got to see more of the beach, and s few more locals, but never did find the ice cream shop.

We left the beach at 5pm, which is when the sun starts to set, and my goodness: the sunset over the ocean was just beautiful.

When we got home, we decided to order pizza from a little place down the road from the Amigos house. We were all pretty tired from the day in the sun, so we didn't end up ordering until about 9pm, and then the pizza didn't arrive until almost 10. By the time we had eaten and cleaned up, it was almost 11:30, and so instead of socializing and playing cards, I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Volcan San Cristobal, the biggest volcano in Nicaragua. (It is active, as you can see!) This morning, there was almost no haze, so we all got some clear, clear shots of the peak and the smoke.

Even In Central America, Everyone Loves the Weekend (or, Nicaragua, Day Three)

Saturday was another clinic, though this one was much more attractive to all involved. For one, there was more to do than just hand out vitamins, and two, it was right on the beach. Seriously. I watched Dr. Richard Nut give a little girl a cast for her broken arm, and then walked through a lagoon and jumped in the waves. To be honest, I spent most of my Saturday on the sand or in the waves, rather than in the actual clinic. This is not for lack of interest in the medical side of things, but just because until Wednesday, we have an insanely large number of nurses, and anyone who is not medically trained is really just in the way. So instead, I spent the day trying to to surf and a teeny-tiny board (and failing miserably), collecting shells and walking the beach with Lauren and Alex, and hanging out under a thatch roof reading and enjoying the warmth and peace.

The medical supplies for the day

The beachside clinic

We returned to the Amigos house early in the evening, showered, and got ready for dinner out on the town. Rosanna (one of the staff members here) was celebrating her birthday and performing at El Paraiso, a nice restaurant in Chinandega. It is know for its Coconut Shrimp, which is absolutely deeeee-licious, if anyone was wondering.

As we were arriving at the restaurant, the sky was beginning to cloud over, but we sat down and ordered drinks without it starting to rain. As soon as we recieved our drinks though, it started pouring and thundering like crazy. We moved the tables out of the spray, ordered our dinner, and just as our salads were being served, we heard a huge POP! and all the lights in the entire restaurant went out. We thought that was the end of dinner, but forty-five minutes and four candles later, out came the shrimp and chicken and beans and rice. It was probably one of the most exciting meals I've ever had.

After all of that excitement, the lights came back on and Rosanna got up and sang beautifully, in both Spanish and English. The story on the street is that sometime in the past few years she won a national arts contest and got to record a CD. No one is exactly sure of the details, but everyone at the Amigos house seems to know about it...

All in all, it was an all around satisfying, magical day.

We Have Few Bananas, But Plenty of Plantains (or, Nicaragua, Day Two)

Friday morning we awoke to a delicious breakfast of rice and beans and fruit. (This is what we have every morning, and so far, it is impossible to get sick of.) There were a few options for work to chose from: we could work at another clinic like Thursdays, but in a different village; we could help set up the hospital for the week of surgery ahead of us; or we could go to the Amigos farm for some manual labor. Lauren and I, and two other nurses, Maria and Liz, decided to go to the farm for the morning, and then in the afternoon come back and get a feel for the hospital.

On the farm, they grow plantains, which are banana-like fruit, only starchier; bananas; corn; squash; peppers; chiles; and papaya. They are also raising tilapia, a type of fish, but not for eating. (Because Chinandega is so close to the ocean, there is very little demand for farm grown seafood.) The hope is that it will be possible to to grown plants that float on the surface of the tilapia water. They also raise pigs, cows, goats, chickens and sheep. The sheep down here are not the same as the ones we see in New England with the long curly wool. Those sheep would keel over from the heat down here. In Nicaragua, they raise short-haired sheep, and the animals are still super hot all the time.

During our introductory tour of the farm, Chris (the person from Amigos who does a lot of work with agriculture) showed us the new solar powered water pump that Amigos has been working to instal for the last week or so. The plan for the pump is that it will be able to water some of the plants through irrigation ditches, even when the rainy season is over.

A note on the rainy season: In Nicaragua, it usually rains from May to November. It works like clockwork, so much so that farmers will place bets on the exact day the season will end. Usually, each day during the rainy season works about the same way. It will rain in the early morning, but clear off for late morning/early afternoon. Then, it will start raining again around 3:30 or 4pm and keep raining through most of the night. This year however, the rain all of a sudden just stopped - about a week before we arrived. The farmers were all very worried that the rainy season has ended so early because most of their crops were not ready to be harvested. A short rainy season means a lot of hurting Nicaraguans. Thankfully, the rain has begun again, and every night the air cools off, a breeze blows though the door, and we fall asleep to the sound of torrential downpour upon the roof of the school us outside our window.

After working all morning clearing dead plantain trees, leaves, and stumps from one of the many plantain fields, Maria, Liz, Lauren and I spent a little time with Marco's, the farm caretaker's, family. We were hoping to catch a ride back to the hospital, but the truck didn't arrive until around 3pm. We hung out with his daughter Karin the most, but also helped his wife out with a few tasks around the house.

Karin

I let Karin take a roll of film with my Holga, and she had a blast terrorizing her family taking pictures.

When Chris and the other boys came back from working in the afternoon, we celebrated Marco's birthday with a beautiful cake and incredibly sweet Coca-Cola.

Maria, Liz, Karin's sister, and me

Marco's Cake

Pharmacy School Just Takes Too Long (or, Nicaragua, Day One)

So, here we go! Exciting things from Central America are here!

We (Deb and Hollis, Alex and Lori, Carl and Crista, Jayne, Sue, Drew, Lauren, and I) began our journey in Farmington on Tuesday afternoon at 2:30, when we met to caravan down to Boston and a hotel for the night, since our flight was at 6:45 the next morning.

With all of the donations we had, there were so many extra bags that we couldn't take them all. We also had six or seven pairs of crutches, and a few walkers to bring down with us. Some of the crutches were allowed on, but then, to get the rest of them onto the plane, Drew, Alex, Hollis and I had to pretend we needed them for medical reasons. Our back story, if they asked us what happened, was that we had all been injured in a rock climbing accident. Thankfully, they never asked why four out of eleven people needed crutches.

When we arrived in Nicaragua, a bus from Amigos picked all of us, and all of our luggage, up for the two hour ride from Managua to Chinandega. We stopped alongside Lake Managua on the way up for a photo op with the volcano, and then continued on. Once we arrived in Chinandega, we got settled into our rooms, and went out to a chicken restaurant in town for dinner.

Hollis, Alex and Drew

Our bus and driver, with all the medical stuff on top

The next day, we went to see the new compound Amigos is working on, and the work Amigos has done in La Villa de Catalina. What has happened is this: Amigos bought a bunch of land for a town. They then went to the dump, where there is a large settlement right beside the trash, and told every family there that if they wanted to move, to come now. About 120 families left the dump and moved to the Villa. Once they had moved, Amigos helped them build houses. Amigos has also built two school buildings, a library, a clinic, and a church. To entice children to go to school, every child that attends receives a healthy balanced meal at the end of the day.

The new Amigos dorms, with the volcano

Students from Villa de Catalina

After the tour of La Villa, we continued on to another village, Chunco, right at the base of the volcano. Here, we set up a clinic. I helped distribute medications for about half the time, and occupied children while their mothers were waiting for the other half. It was a successful day. Mostly we gave out vitamins and antibiotics, though we also gave mothers with new babies and those who are pregnant pre- and post-natal vitamins.

Our Head Pharmacist, at our Pharmacy

Once we had seen all the patients, we retuned to the Amigos house in Chinandega for dinner and hanging out and much needed sleep!