After a well deserved meal, we headed back to move to the beach. Most of us were looking forward to the beach, it meant not being so hot and sweaty, and of course swimming. We had things that we had to get done while on the beach, but they seemed like more fun, catching fish with either fishing line or a spear, making a sand shelter, and things like that. Our first day on the beach most of us swam the whole day away, and ended up paying for that with pretty bad sunburns, I was no exception, I had bad burns too, I wasn’t too thrilled about the situation, but I knew full well that it was totally my fault. The next few days and nights were uncomfortable, but I survived.
The first day I was the first one to get a fish on a spear and one of the first ones to bring one in on fishing line to, thanks dad for teaching me to fish. It was a good thing someone got a fish early because we needed fish bait.
Our last night of coastline survival a huge storm blew in, it brought with it heavy winds and huge waves. None of us were too thrilled about it, our next course would take us right out in the middle of the waves. We spent most of Sabbath and Sabbath night trying to keep tents up. I quickly remembered what I had been taught about quartering your tent into the wind, in other words pointing the least sloped side into the wind. Most of the tents did really well, a few we had to move around to keep up, my bug hut did amazingly well, I was quite surprised that it performed as well as it did.
After we finished our ocean survival time we headed back to our “home base” in little corn, a quaint little place called “Carlito’s”. I would highly recommend it if you are planning a trip to the little corn island area. $20 a night and food is around $5 a meal. Getting there is probably the expensive part. The next 7 days kind of run together, it was our spring break week. It was a very unstructured week, one of the most frustrating and nice things at the same time. We were responsible for ourselves; we were actually aloud to be adults, a concept…...but a good thing.
I had a total of 4 dives throughout the week of spring break. My first dive was a night dive on a rock called turtle rock and true to the name, we saw a pair of turtles, I have never been that close to a turtle before, it was really amazing. I have to say I think the highlights to the spring break was the diving, all but one was really cool, the one that wasn’t really cool was just some random fish, nothing too big or exciting, I did get to work on my buoyancy control, which was very needed. Now I must say that I think I'm pretty decent at it now.
The trip back from Corn was, like it always is, eventful. I don't think we have ever taken a big trip where everything worked out the way it should have. This time some of our baggage never left Corn, they took our carry on baggage away, and they had 3 of our group switch flights, so their luggage didn't arrive on time either. I'd say it’s the curse of flying with a big group and tons of luggage, but I learned later on that it really isn't that.
I think the highlight of going to Port is going to pizza at the oasis. It never ceases to amaze me how much I love the pizza there. I think its just because its very special and we don't get it very often. We were all bummed that we couldn't have it before, so it was much better, a nice artery clogging meal, its soooooo oily, its terrible.
The next day we finally left Port to head to Francia much later than we wanted to, but WE DIDN'T HAVE ANY PROBLEMS!!!! I think it took us about 5.5 hours which is a good time. Everything of course takes longer here, its just what it does. We got "home" at 12:15, a much better time than our last trip here, but still late. We were supposed to have class the next morning, but Jeff said get your stuff cleaned out and put away, so that’s what we did, I think most of us caught up on sleep too.
The short week was very short, we got back on Wednesday morning and SAU came in on Saturday morning, it was amazing having them here. I don't know how they got the gods to smile on them, but they made all their connecting flights and were able to get all their luggage on the same flights, I wish the gods would smile on our group sometime and allow all of our group and luggage to arrive on time together for once…….oh well, I guess we'll see about our trip out of here. Its not that I was getting tired of our group totally, but kind of yes, they brought a whole new dimension to the group here. I made some good friends of their group too. We took a group of them out to the Rio WaWa on Sabbath afternoon, it was quite fun, I didn't swim, but I did have fun showing people how to "shoot" rapids that had never done it before. You could tell a major difference between the IRR majors of UC and the nursing majors of SAU, it was kind of funny to be honest, but they had fun and we had fun, so it was good.
SAU was here for a week and did clinics everyday, so we couldn't do any of ours. That just meant that we had class all week. I wasn't to thrilled, but what it meant was that we are nearly done with one of our classes, this coming Friday we will be done with public health and the week after or so we will be done with travel and tropical health, you don't know how happy that makes all of us here feel. I don't know what we will do with the extra time when we don't have anything to do, but I'm sure we'll find something productive to do with our time. The other nice thing about having SAU here is the fact that we got to send letters back with them to friends. That is the nice thing about having any group come down here, its just a general courtesy that you take letters back and bring them down if you have collected any for the group down here.
I will put a warning at the beginning of this paragraph, if you have a weak stomach, please skip this paragraph. Yesterday was Sabbath and my body wasn't to thrilled with me. I apparently found some sort of GI bug and was throwing up and having diarrhea most of the day until my GI track was all cleared out. Now its been over 24 hours since anything has been in my gut, about 15 minutes ago I had my first Ritz cracker since my episodes yesterday and so far it seems ok. We'll see how it continues for the rest of the day.
Everyone this week is living for Thursday. Thursday four people from UC come to do OBGYN clinics. They'll be here for a while, but they are bringing stuff down for all of us. I'm hoping that 3rd time's the charm for getting my glasses out of not only the Nebraska, but the US as well. They will hopefully be bringing my glasses down, I've gone in my contacts for nearly 2 months straight, not what I like to do, but hey, I do what I need to do.
Today we were supposedly going to hike into Kapri, but we were able to drive the whole way, I was pretty excited about it, however I was kind of looking forward to a hike, but we wouldn't have had all the time to see patients. As it was we didn't get to see everyone that was there to be seen, we will be going back there our last week we are in country, either Tuesday or Thursday.
Friday and Sunday the group from UC did woman's clinics in the MENSA clinic, they had quite the turn out from what I hear, I of course wasn't there, but that’s what they tell me. Guys don't really get to help at all, I know a few of our girls have gotten to go in and assist with the operations, but other than that, I've gotten to set up their room a few times, but that’s the extent of my helping with the OBGYN clinics.
Monday and Tuesday were both clinic days for us. We restarted the rotation with heading back to Santa Claira. That was our first clinic we did down here and the first time we were there, we got swamped with patients, but this time we really didn't see that many people. That has kind of been a trend, I'm glad that is the case, some people are mad, but the less people we see means the less that are sick hopefully. In Santa Claira I worked with Jeff, I always like working with him, he's a teacher at heart and really reminds me of my dad, they have some similar mannerisms. The second clinic was back to Espiransa, that clinic is always fun, we have a clinic that has broken boards in the floor that are big enough to fall in and the Rio WaWa right next-door. At the end of the clinic day we always go swimming in the river, no everyone goes, but after a hot day in the clinic, its pretty much amazing.
We were supposed to have clinic on Wednesday too, but it ended up that we couldn't, so it was going to be a catch up day. I was doing a bit of relaxing when Jeff asked me if I wanted to go into Waspam and help with getting groceries. It sounded like an adventure, so I said yes. We got down to our clinic to pick up the doctor and realized they had someone with a hot appendix that needed transported to Waspam. It took some time to get him loaded up, but we finally got loaded up and on the road. Waspam is on the Hondurian boarder, and right on the Rio CoCo. It took us nearly 2.5 hours to get there. When we got there we dropped the guy off at the hospital and went to go get groceries. We picked up everything we needed and still had some time, so we went and searched out the internet café. After not having internet for nearly 3 weeks, its nice to catch up on everything. Email's from family and friends, comments on fb, emails to write, when you only get internet very infrequently, you learn not to take a ton of time on the internet, but thank you to all who sent me emails and notes on either email or fb. When we were ready to leave Waspam, we stopped at the hospital to see how the guy we had brought was doing. He had just come out of surgery, he had a ruptured appendix, and if we hadn't brought him, he would have died, it was pretty cool that we were at the right place to take him, and to save his life.
Yesterday was our last regular class period this semester. Not to brag to all of you guys that will continue to have school for the next 1.5 months, but our last final is today and when we get back to Union, we don't have any classes, we are all pretty psyched about it. I'm not totally sure I'm ready for the test, but I'll have to be if I'm going to get a good grade on it, it will be in about 4 hours. So plenty of time to brush up on the information.
Well, its getting to be about time for group worship. I'll give you guys a brief rundown on the next few weeks. On Sunday of next week we head back to Waspam, where I'll post this, to head up the Rio CoCo for the week. We spend Monday through Friday on the river doing clinics up at a village called Krinkrin. Friday we head back to Waspam for the night and head back here to Francia on Sabbath morning. We'll get to Francia sometime mid afternoon on Sabbath. Sunday will be our catch up/dry out day. Monday and Friday, I'm not sure, we don't have classes anymore, so not classes, but we'll find something. Tuesday and Thursday we'll be doing clinics, one at Kapri and maybe one at Wisconsin, Wednesday is project development, so we'll try to get everything we can done on the building before leaving. The Sunday (4 April) after that we are leaving very early from Francia to drive to Port, we'll get on a plane and head to Managua and get on a bus to go up to Leon. We'll spend Monday (5 April) in Leon volcano sledding. Tuesday (6 April) we head back to Managua for the next couple of days of recoup and shopping. On Thursday (8 April) at 7a we are sitting on an airplane heading to Houston, arriving there at 11:18a. At 3:00p we are sitting on another airplane heading to Omaha, arriving at 5:12p. Then I'll be back in Lincoln. I hope this just goes to show how close it really is. I love and miss you all.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Half one of Nicaragua
Ok, so I thought I'd be updating this blog a lot more frequently, but finally during our spring break week I'm able to get time to gather my thoughts and make an update. For those asking the question whether or not i'm still alive, i'll say yes, for those wondering if i'm healthy I'll say yes other than the sunburn that I'm healing from, but thats a story that deserves to be told a bit later. So we'll see if I can start from the beginning, well, nearly the beginning and those who enjoy long reads can grab your favorite choice of drink and sit in a comfortable chair ;)
I think I updated when we were in Managua, so I'm not going to start there, our flight to Port was postponed and we got there a day late, we were planning on staying the night anyway, but hoping against all hope that we could drive out that day. It didn't happen, things over here are on a much slower schedule than we in the western world would like. After a day and a half in Port we finally hit the road at 6 pm. They had said we couldn't leave in the dark the night before, but I guess they changed their minds and let us leave. The trip to Francia is only 100 kliks (Km), but it took us nearly 8 hours to do it. We had a tie rod break on the way there and the second truck get stuck. Our truck is a 1948 Duce and a half. For those not privy to the military names, duce is 2 tons, so a duce and a half is 6000 lb. I know we haul more than that in it, which is probably why they break down, well that and the age of the vehicle. After the break down and the other truck getting stuck, we didn't make as good of time and we made it to Francia just before 3 am. We all just sunk into our beds and waited until morning to do much of anything. I woke up at about 11 and did not much of anything in the first few days, we were told that we could go to church, but most didn't, between the international travel, the intranational travel, and the duce ride. It took most of 2 days for all of us to get acclimated to the new weather, new abode and new schedule.
We spent the next week or so cleaning up the clinic in Francia and getting things done on the hill (where we live). The UC building wasn't as finished as they had let on to believe, so we are in the bunk houses that the mission has for SM's. Most of us had minor diherea the first week of being there, our guts were getting a whole new set of flora and we were having oh so much fun with it.
The second week we actually started our normal schedule. Monday and friday are class days where we are quizzed and tested over jungle health care and public health, Tuesday's and Thursday's we leave the hill around 7:30 or 8 and head out to the various villages and work in clinics there and do village health care. We rotate through the different stations, receptions, vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So far in my rotations I've done all but reception. We work in teams of 3-4 in receptions, vitals, and pharmacy and in pairs for consultations. For consultations we work with either Jeff Joiner (our group leader and division chair), Dr. Lineres (sp), or Mrs. Lineres (Nurse).
So far we have been to 4 of the 9 villages we wanted to; we have been to St. Claira, Wisconsin, Espiransa, and TiCamp. In most of these villages we see anywhere from 20-30 families. That doesn't mean we've seen 20-30 people thought, sometimes the family includes all extended and cousins and everyone you call family regardless of whether or not they are family, but our usual is no more than 5 in each group to keep things going in the vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So on a good day we might see anywhere between 70 and 150 people. I don't think we've ever seen the latter, but in most villages we do max the village out, we see everyone there is to see.
Most of the complaints are due to worms and not drinking enough water. Everyone has a fever, everyone has pain, everyone has worms. Even if they don't say they have worms we still treat them for worms, one 400 mg tablet of Albendazol and nine 100 mg tablets of Mebendezol should cure them of worms for the next three months. The other major drug we give out by what seems like the case is Amoxicillin, we have it in 4 different forms for your taking pleasure......har har har. I've mixed up way more than I wanted to in my life, but hey down here, it still kills off most of what ails people. Some people remember times when Penicillin could do that, I don't, it would kill off me if I took it, but there was a time when it killed everything, UTI, URI and everything else.
Monday in addition to our classes we also have 2 fun white tablets that are such great tasting things, NOT!!!! Monday is Chloroquine day (for those that don't know, chloroquine is a drug for malaria). Chloroquine is a drug that is taken weekly starting a week before you leave and lasting 2-4 weeks after you get back. As Jeff told us, “the chances of you getting malaria is pretty high, chloroquine won't keep you from getting it, it will just diminish the effects of the illness.” So far I'm not sure whether any of us have contracted the illness, I don't think I have, and I hope I don't ever, its not a fun illness to have from what I've heard.
I left out what happens on Wednesday's. On Wednesday's we work on projects that need to be done, both in Francia and on the hill. We haven't been doing a lot for those, but we have only had 3 of those days, mostly we don't have enough jobs to do, so we don't do much, its just a catch up day, which seems to be needed every week.
The weeks kind of run together now, in Francia and going out to the villages is all we really do. Don't get me wrong, it is fun, and if I was writing this every night or so I'd probably have quite a bit more to say about it. So that much sums up the first 3 or so weeks that we've been here in Nicaragua, now the next part will be about our adventures going to and being on Little Corn Island.
We left bright and early on Sunday morning, in fact earlier than we had thought we were going to. It ended up being about 6 am when we left. When we left it wasn't raining, but not to long after we started out it started, we've gotten pretty used to the rain, its something that just happens, you get the bag out of your pack and cover it, you'll dry out eventually, most of us don't even put on rain coats. About an hour into our drive we all had breakfast, well all it was, we each had a grapefruit and a bit of bread, then later on we had crackers and chips. We were all amazed when the sun came out, we started to dry out and actually got warm. We were all ok with not eating much for breakfast or lunch for that matter, we knew that pizza was waiting for us when evening came in Francia. We got to Francia in record time, 4.75 hours, not the 8 it had taken the last time. We all got checked into our hotel, we pretty much fill up one hotel there, they are called the twins or thats what I call them, two separate hotels, but owned by the same person, the guys get the ocean, the girls get the wireless internet. I don't think its quite fair, but its ok, both are good places to stay. We all got loaded onto the duce and went over to the pizza place to find out that its owned by a Catholic family and its not open on Sunday's. We were all very bummed about that. We found another place, but it was way overpriced and not very good food, we ate there anyway, they kind of roll up the sidewalks at night there. After a very disappointing supper we all headed back to head to bed Monday morning was going to come very fast and early.
Monday morning was a quite early morning, we had to be at the airport by 7 am. The airplane that goes to Bluefields wasn't big enough to take our whole group, so half of us (the guys) ended up flying back through Managua. We got through check in and such and were pretty happy our dive gear bags didn't cost us any extra, that was a blessing in itself. So our trip was going to be from Port to Managua to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island, whereas the girls were going to go from Port to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island. Well we arrived in Managua and were on the ground just long enough to refuel the plane and to go back through security. Maybe a 15 minute turn around time. It was one of the shortest turnaround times I've ever experienced. We were told that the girls would arrive about the same time we did to Bluefields, but they ended up being 4 hours later than us.
When we arrived at Bluefields and realized that we were stuck there for quite some time we rechecked our bags so that we didn't have to carry them around the city looking for stuff. We found some lunch, it was amazing, a couple of us had “sandwich con amerillo cheese” (sandwich with yellow cheese), it was thee first yellow cheese we had seen since leaving the States. They have cheese down here, but its not so good, its sour and just gross. We went back to the airport and just waited for the girls to come in. We waited for what seemed like forever, but they finally came in. They were told that our flight would be in 45 minutes, so all of them went and scarfed food and came back. In all actuality we were waiting there for like 2 more hours. About 5 pm we finally got on an airplane to make the 35 minute flight out to Big Corn.
We arrived on Big Corn and made it through everything and headed down to the dock to get on the “panga” (little boat) that was going to take us to Little Corn. We waited for a while for the rest of our group. We found out soon that they weren't coming, apparently neither Big Corn neither Bluefields had runway lights, so they had to suspend the flights. This was just one of the fun things we had to deal with. So we left and headed to Little Corn. We got to Little Corn about 7, well after sundown, and lugged all our stuff over to the “resort” where we would be staying that night and the rest of our “spring break” week. We got there and a good meal was waiting for us and soft beds.
The next morning came and so did the rest of our group and the rest of our luggage. We were happy to see both believe me. When the rest of our group got there we searched around for a suitable place for our jungle survival course, we found one without to much trouble and got the whole group to that location.
The Jungle survival course was pretty fun. We got to build a shelter that one person could stay in, we got to prove that we could still make fire using our metal match, we got to break open coconuts without breaking open the nut and letting all the milk/water out, we got to build snares to try and catch things, but overall it was a very cool experience. Since it was a survival exercise we didn't get to eat anything we didn't find in the jungle, I mostly ate coconuts, some people boiled water and had crabs, but I figured that I know I could eat them but since they are “unclean” meat I didn't want to. I also ate a few, very sour, oranges, let me tell you, think the most sour lime you have ever eaten and then go about 10 steps further sour, thats about where these sit.
I can't finish this now, I need to get this uploaded before internet goes down again. I'll upload the rest later.
Love
SB
I think I updated when we were in Managua, so I'm not going to start there, our flight to Port was postponed and we got there a day late, we were planning on staying the night anyway, but hoping against all hope that we could drive out that day. It didn't happen, things over here are on a much slower schedule than we in the western world would like. After a day and a half in Port we finally hit the road at 6 pm. They had said we couldn't leave in the dark the night before, but I guess they changed their minds and let us leave. The trip to Francia is only 100 kliks (Km), but it took us nearly 8 hours to do it. We had a tie rod break on the way there and the second truck get stuck. Our truck is a 1948 Duce and a half. For those not privy to the military names, duce is 2 tons, so a duce and a half is 6000 lb. I know we haul more than that in it, which is probably why they break down, well that and the age of the vehicle. After the break down and the other truck getting stuck, we didn't make as good of time and we made it to Francia just before 3 am. We all just sunk into our beds and waited until morning to do much of anything. I woke up at about 11 and did not much of anything in the first few days, we were told that we could go to church, but most didn't, between the international travel, the intranational travel, and the duce ride. It took most of 2 days for all of us to get acclimated to the new weather, new abode and new schedule.
We spent the next week or so cleaning up the clinic in Francia and getting things done on the hill (where we live). The UC building wasn't as finished as they had let on to believe, so we are in the bunk houses that the mission has for SM's. Most of us had minor diherea the first week of being there, our guts were getting a whole new set of flora and we were having oh so much fun with it.
The second week we actually started our normal schedule. Monday and friday are class days where we are quizzed and tested over jungle health care and public health, Tuesday's and Thursday's we leave the hill around 7:30 or 8 and head out to the various villages and work in clinics there and do village health care. We rotate through the different stations, receptions, vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So far in my rotations I've done all but reception. We work in teams of 3-4 in receptions, vitals, and pharmacy and in pairs for consultations. For consultations we work with either Jeff Joiner (our group leader and division chair), Dr. Lineres (sp), or Mrs. Lineres (Nurse).
So far we have been to 4 of the 9 villages we wanted to; we have been to St. Claira, Wisconsin, Espiransa, and TiCamp. In most of these villages we see anywhere from 20-30 families. That doesn't mean we've seen 20-30 people thought, sometimes the family includes all extended and cousins and everyone you call family regardless of whether or not they are family, but our usual is no more than 5 in each group to keep things going in the vitals, consultations, and pharmacy. So on a good day we might see anywhere between 70 and 150 people. I don't think we've ever seen the latter, but in most villages we do max the village out, we see everyone there is to see.
Most of the complaints are due to worms and not drinking enough water. Everyone has a fever, everyone has pain, everyone has worms. Even if they don't say they have worms we still treat them for worms, one 400 mg tablet of Albendazol and nine 100 mg tablets of Mebendezol should cure them of worms for the next three months. The other major drug we give out by what seems like the case is Amoxicillin, we have it in 4 different forms for your taking pleasure......har har har. I've mixed up way more than I wanted to in my life, but hey down here, it still kills off most of what ails people. Some people remember times when Penicillin could do that, I don't, it would kill off me if I took it, but there was a time when it killed everything, UTI, URI and everything else.
Monday in addition to our classes we also have 2 fun white tablets that are such great tasting things, NOT!!!! Monday is Chloroquine day (for those that don't know, chloroquine is a drug for malaria). Chloroquine is a drug that is taken weekly starting a week before you leave and lasting 2-4 weeks after you get back. As Jeff told us, “the chances of you getting malaria is pretty high, chloroquine won't keep you from getting it, it will just diminish the effects of the illness.” So far I'm not sure whether any of us have contracted the illness, I don't think I have, and I hope I don't ever, its not a fun illness to have from what I've heard.
I left out what happens on Wednesday's. On Wednesday's we work on projects that need to be done, both in Francia and on the hill. We haven't been doing a lot for those, but we have only had 3 of those days, mostly we don't have enough jobs to do, so we don't do much, its just a catch up day, which seems to be needed every week.
The weeks kind of run together now, in Francia and going out to the villages is all we really do. Don't get me wrong, it is fun, and if I was writing this every night or so I'd probably have quite a bit more to say about it. So that much sums up the first 3 or so weeks that we've been here in Nicaragua, now the next part will be about our adventures going to and being on Little Corn Island.
We left bright and early on Sunday morning, in fact earlier than we had thought we were going to. It ended up being about 6 am when we left. When we left it wasn't raining, but not to long after we started out it started, we've gotten pretty used to the rain, its something that just happens, you get the bag out of your pack and cover it, you'll dry out eventually, most of us don't even put on rain coats. About an hour into our drive we all had breakfast, well all it was, we each had a grapefruit and a bit of bread, then later on we had crackers and chips. We were all amazed when the sun came out, we started to dry out and actually got warm. We were all ok with not eating much for breakfast or lunch for that matter, we knew that pizza was waiting for us when evening came in Francia. We got to Francia in record time, 4.75 hours, not the 8 it had taken the last time. We all got checked into our hotel, we pretty much fill up one hotel there, they are called the twins or thats what I call them, two separate hotels, but owned by the same person, the guys get the ocean, the girls get the wireless internet. I don't think its quite fair, but its ok, both are good places to stay. We all got loaded onto the duce and went over to the pizza place to find out that its owned by a Catholic family and its not open on Sunday's. We were all very bummed about that. We found another place, but it was way overpriced and not very good food, we ate there anyway, they kind of roll up the sidewalks at night there. After a very disappointing supper we all headed back to head to bed Monday morning was going to come very fast and early.
Monday morning was a quite early morning, we had to be at the airport by 7 am. The airplane that goes to Bluefields wasn't big enough to take our whole group, so half of us (the guys) ended up flying back through Managua. We got through check in and such and were pretty happy our dive gear bags didn't cost us any extra, that was a blessing in itself. So our trip was going to be from Port to Managua to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island, whereas the girls were going to go from Port to Bluefields to Big Corn Island to Little Corn Island. Well we arrived in Managua and were on the ground just long enough to refuel the plane and to go back through security. Maybe a 15 minute turn around time. It was one of the shortest turnaround times I've ever experienced. We were told that the girls would arrive about the same time we did to Bluefields, but they ended up being 4 hours later than us.
When we arrived at Bluefields and realized that we were stuck there for quite some time we rechecked our bags so that we didn't have to carry them around the city looking for stuff. We found some lunch, it was amazing, a couple of us had “sandwich con amerillo cheese” (sandwich with yellow cheese), it was thee first yellow cheese we had seen since leaving the States. They have cheese down here, but its not so good, its sour and just gross. We went back to the airport and just waited for the girls to come in. We waited for what seemed like forever, but they finally came in. They were told that our flight would be in 45 minutes, so all of them went and scarfed food and came back. In all actuality we were waiting there for like 2 more hours. About 5 pm we finally got on an airplane to make the 35 minute flight out to Big Corn.
We arrived on Big Corn and made it through everything and headed down to the dock to get on the “panga” (little boat) that was going to take us to Little Corn. We waited for a while for the rest of our group. We found out soon that they weren't coming, apparently neither Big Corn neither Bluefields had runway lights, so they had to suspend the flights. This was just one of the fun things we had to deal with. So we left and headed to Little Corn. We got to Little Corn about 7, well after sundown, and lugged all our stuff over to the “resort” where we would be staying that night and the rest of our “spring break” week. We got there and a good meal was waiting for us and soft beds.
The next morning came and so did the rest of our group and the rest of our luggage. We were happy to see both believe me. When the rest of our group got there we searched around for a suitable place for our jungle survival course, we found one without to much trouble and got the whole group to that location.
The Jungle survival course was pretty fun. We got to build a shelter that one person could stay in, we got to prove that we could still make fire using our metal match, we got to break open coconuts without breaking open the nut and letting all the milk/water out, we got to build snares to try and catch things, but overall it was a very cool experience. Since it was a survival exercise we didn't get to eat anything we didn't find in the jungle, I mostly ate coconuts, some people boiled water and had crabs, but I figured that I know I could eat them but since they are “unclean” meat I didn't want to. I also ate a few, very sour, oranges, let me tell you, think the most sour lime you have ever eaten and then go about 10 steps further sour, thats about where these sit.
I can't finish this now, I need to get this uploaded before internet goes down again. I'll upload the rest later.
Love
SB
Friday, February 19, 2010
IRR Update - Feb 19, 2010
A message from Linda Becker, VP for Student Services
Dear Parents of IRR Students in Nicaragua:
I have just returned from visiting the IRR Students on Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. They had just completed their jungle survival and their water raft survival exercises. They had great appetites and were pretty excited to complete their test and be on spring break. I took this picture and several others that we will post as soon as we can. As you can see they are all doing well!
We will let you know where more pictures are posted as soon as time permits.
Have a great day!
Dear Parents of IRR Students in Nicaragua:
I have just returned from visiting the IRR Students on Little Corn Island in Nicaragua. They had just completed their jungle survival and their water raft survival exercises. They had great appetites and were pretty excited to complete their test and be on spring break. I took this picture and several others that we will post as soon as we can. As you can see they are all doing well!
We will let you know where more pictures are posted as soon as time permits.
Have a great day!
Thursday, February 4, 2010
IRR Update - Feb 4, 2010
We are just beginning our third week at the Tasba Raya Adventist Mission in Francia Sirpi, Nicaragua. Our dorm/school building continues to progress. They should start laying the second floor this week and then begin framing the second story. We have been busy - we have now had four outreach medical clinics the last two weeks. Two clinics were held in Francia and one each
in Santa Clara and Wisconsin. Students have been busy working with Dr. Linares and the two nurses. So far, our students have assisted with several minor surgical procedures, splinted a few broken limbs, given several injections, filled hundreds of prescriptions and have improved their Spanish and are learning Miskito. We have assisted in the stabilization and transport of a villager who was bitten by a bushmaster, the patient lived!
We are settling into our routine at the clinic and our classes. One more week in Francia and then we change locations as we transit to Little Corn Island for a week of Jungle, Ocean & Shoreline Survival training with Mike Lowe. That week will be followed by a week of spring break on Little Corn for relaxation, scuba diving & snorkeling, and maybe some deep sea fishing! At least there will be no homework! All students wish to tell their families hello and we love you all. We anxiously await reports from our fellow IRR students who are responding to the earthquake in Haiti - they remain in our prayers also.
in Santa Clara and Wisconsin. Students have been busy working with Dr. Linares and the two nurses. So far, our students have assisted with several minor surgical procedures, splinted a few broken limbs, given several injections, filled hundreds of prescriptions and have improved their Spanish and are learning Miskito. We have assisted in the stabilization and transport of a villager who was bitten by a bushmaster, the patient lived!
We are settling into our routine at the clinic and our classes. One more week in Francia and then we change locations as we transit to Little Corn Island for a week of Jungle, Ocean & Shoreline Survival training with Mike Lowe. That week will be followed by a week of spring break on Little Corn for relaxation, scuba diving & snorkeling, and maybe some deep sea fishing! At least there will be no homework! All students wish to tell their families hello and we love you all. We anxiously await reports from our fellow IRR students who are responding to the earthquake in Haiti - they remain in our prayers also.
IRR Update - Feb 2, 2010
This is a note from Jeff that was sent on Tuesday:
Well we finally made it to Francia at 0300 Sabbath AM. Nice cool ride in the deuce at night. There was a lot to do in Port so we left late Friday afternoon. The duece only broke down one time, but they were able to get it going. The Milky Way was just jumping out of the night sky, very pretty.
Every one is safe, a few have started having some GI upset, but it appears to only be lasting a day or so. Our dorm is not finished yet so we will be doing quite a bit of construction work the first three weeks or longer. We are also painting the clinic in the village and doing lots of odd-jobs on the hill. we are hoping to have our first clinic Tuesday the 19th.
Everyone is working hard and spirits are high. The weather has been mild and no rain yet. We are still in the dry season - we need rain or we will be rationing showers - never good for a group. Everyone says Hello to their family and friends - keep us in your prayers.
Well we finally made it to Francia at 0300 Sabbath AM. Nice cool ride in the deuce at night. There was a lot to do in Port so we left late Friday afternoon. The duece only broke down one time, but they were able to get it going. The Milky Way was just jumping out of the night sky, very pretty.
Every one is safe, a few have started having some GI upset, but it appears to only be lasting a day or so. Our dorm is not finished yet so we will be doing quite a bit of construction work the first three weeks or longer. We are also painting the clinic in the village and doing lots of odd-jobs on the hill. we are hoping to have our first clinic Tuesday the 19th.
Everyone is working hard and spirits are high. The weather has been mild and no rain yet. We are still in the dry season - we need rain or we will be rationing showers - never good for a group. Everyone says Hello to their family and friends - keep us in your prayers.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Travel can be fun.......
I have internet again......well maybe its still. We got all packed up this morning, checked out of the motel, over to the airport in plenty of time for our flight. We stood in line for hours waiting then got told eventually that our flight to port had been canceled because of strong winds. So we are back at the same motel again. its pretty nice, for the first time in quite some time I'm acting like a tourist in a tourist area......amazing I know. Our flight was rescheduled for 615 tomorrow morning, this means that we have to be up extremely early. Even earlier than I was up this morning.
Being back in this climate is sure amazing. I don't know if its the climate specifically or if its the "I know I really don't have any classes to weigh me down" mentality, but whatever it is I'm loving it. I don't know for sure, but it feels like the start of something coming back that I haven't felt since I left the Marshall Islands. Today has been really nice, after we found out that we weren't leaving today, we were given the day just to do what we wanted to. So far today I've eaten 2x, swam in the pool, sat by the pool, walked around the very nice compound here at the "resort", and now gotten on the internet. Its a pretty relaxing day, or I think so.
I know I'm not in a totally immersed scenario, but learning spanish, I'm learning is way easier when that is mostly what you hear. I have picked up and remembered quite a bit more spanish than I thought I remembered or knew, its really cool.
Well, I think I'm going to go for my next activity, a nap. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but it could be quite some time (3 weeks) before I get internet again.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Day of travel 1
Hey guys, I didn't get to update this before now, but I thought I'd update now. We just arrived in Nicaragua, it was a bit arduous getting to the hotel, but we made it. The country from what I can tell is very beautiful, or the compound we are in right now is, maybe its that. So far everything is going really well. Tomorrow we fly back across the country to Puerto Cobezos then we take a 6-8 hour truck ride up to where we will be making our home for the next 3 months. I have to keep this short, I'll catch you guys up the next time I have internet.
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