Nicaraguan Adventure // Ziplining and Volcanoes

This is my last Nicaragua post! I'm going to tell you all about what we did on our last two days in Central America.

On Thursday morning, after three and a half days of medical clinic, we loaded up the truck and headed back to the mission house. There was a mad rush to the showers, and I am not ashamed to tell you that yours truly didn't wash her hair the entire time we were in the village.

Let's just say that when I took my hair out of my braid and ponytail, it stayed right in the same position. Didn't move an inch. DON'T JUDGE ME. I have my reasons. Okay, one reason, actually. I'm lazy.

Anyhoo, after washing every crevice about eight times with lice shampoo, we all collapsed in our beds for a nap. I don't think I'd ever been so tired in my life, and that's quite possibly not an exaggeration. (Side note: whenever people ask how our "vacation" was, I'm like, "Vacation? Um, no.")

Later that night, Jordan's parents celebrated their 30th anniversary (which had been earlier in the summer) by renewing their vows on the balcony of the mission house. It was Jordan's mom's only request for their anniversary. Our associate pastor was in Nicaragua with us and officiated. It was really sweet.

The next morning was Friday, the day before we flew back to the States. 

This is traditionally "free day," which basically means BMDMI has some kind of group sightseeing outing planned where we finally get to see some of Nicaragua instead of just being in the village.

This year, they did something they'd never done before: they took us ziplining in the jungle! Oh. My. Gosh. Coolest thing ever doesn't even come close to describing the awesomeness. I literally cannot think of the words to describe how fun this was, so I'm just going to do this: 

!!!!!!!

Ahem.

^^^ This is me doing the "super chica." 

(When you do the "superman" pose on your stomach, you have to go with a guide so they can hold your legs and break for you. When you go upside down or regular, you're not with anyone else.)

The best part of the whole thing was that Jordan and I almost didn't go. Just two weeks earlier, we'd actually gone ziplining in Oklahoma City at the new Adventure Park by the Oklahoma River. It had been my birthday request.

When we heard they were going to take us ziplining, I was immediately like HECK YES. And Jordan was like, "Um... we just went ziplining, and it was kind of lame." And I was all, "Yeah, but this is in the jungle." And he was all, "I don't know.... Maybe we should just go to the market."

But logic won out in the end, and we decided to go ziplining.

I probably don't have to tell you that ziplining in Nicaragua compares in no way to ziplining in Oklahoma. Sorry, Oklahoma, but you lose this round. For ease of viewing, I made this handy comparison chart for you:

Again, I really don't mean to hate on Oklahoma, but come on. Most of our time was spent standing in line waiting to zip. In Nicaragua, we were literally up in the trees for a full hour, zipping 17 cables. AND THERE WERE MONKEYS. Like, legit, real-life monkeys in the trees. This is serious.

The best part was that we had to use gloves to break ourselves. In Oklahoma, a spring-loaded stopper thing caught us at the end. In Nicaragua, we were in charge of breaking or running into a tree at the end. To break, you pulled slightly down on the line with your hand. At the end of the line, you had to hold yourself up so a guy could unclip you. Sometimes the cables were hooked to the tree directly, and sometimes we had to walk between the trees on rope ladder bridges. 

ROPE LADDER BRIDGES!!!!!

Sorry I keep all-caps shouting, but seriously. You guys. I so wish I had pictures, but since I didn't bring my camera, I'm lucky someone else got one of Super Chica. The rope bridges looked basically like this (thank you, Google):

Short story long, we were so glad we didn't go to the market with the other half of our group. Ziplining for the win.

After ziplining, we hit up Narcy's Pollo for some fried chicken. This is about the time when I started to feel sick. You see, something I didn't mention was that everyone (and I do mean everyone) on our team caught what we lovingly referred to as the Nicaragua Bug. It didn't hit us all at once, but eventually it got us all. My turn was Friday afternoon and all day Saturday on the trip home. Jordan got it once we got home on Sunday and actually took off work Monday because he still wasn't feeling well. The symptoms were different for everyone. Luckily for me it just caused chills, headache, and some nausea.

Friday afternoon was spent at a touristy site where BMDMI usually takes groups for free day. It's the site of an old volcano, which exploded back in the day and is now a lake inside a valley. The sun was beating down, and it was really hot, but it was gorgeous and fun! Now excuse me for a photo dump.

It was a little strange after being in the medical clinic all week to spend the day just doing fun stuff. Seeing poverty like that and then paying $23 to go ziplining felt kind of ridiculous, to be honest. I think the point is to keep perspective and always be grateful for what we have and realize that everything is a gift given to us from God.

With that said, I am so, so grateful for the opportunity to go on this missions trip with Jordan. We both feel stronger as a couple and as people for taking the time to serve, and I will continue to pray for the people of Nicaragua. We're already planning on going back next year!

I hope through these posts you feel like you got to share in at least a small part of the experience with us. And if you have the opportunity to go on a trip like this, you should definitely consider it. Is it expensive? Yes. Is it time off work? Yes. Is it really hard? Yes.

But I promise: it is so worth it.

Nicaraguan Adventure // The Vet Team and Eye Clinic

In my last post, I shared an overview of our time in the village, but I don't feel like I actually talked about anything that happened in the village. This post is about specifically what Jordan and I spent our time doing, and if you don't read anything else, please know that I am collecting old/outdated prescription glasses to send to the people of Nicaragua. I'm trying to get the word out about donating so BMDMI has more options to offer the people who come to the eye clinic. Donating is as easy as mailing in your old glasses to an address in Mississippi. Email me if you have any pairs of glasses you don't want/need anymore, and I will get you the address.

Okay, so like I mentioned in my last post, we did get to choose which area we worked in during our time in the village. I chose the eye clinic because I am a -5.5 in each eye (if you don't know anything about prescriptions, -5.5 is pretty bad), and I wanted to help some people to see better! Jordan worked on the vet team because the leader of the vet team specifically asked Jordan to help out.

Eye Clinic

Basically what would happen each day at the start of the clinic is people would get registered and then start in the medical room with the actual doctors and nurses, who would talk (via a translator) to the people and ask them what they thought was wrong. Anyone who mentioned anything to do with eyes (burning sensation, seeing spots, blurry, red eyes, etc.) was referred to the eye clinic.

Everyone lined up outside the door, and one at a time we called them into the room to see if we could get them what they needed. Eric, the local optometrist who works full time for BMDMI, would sit the person in a chair and use an eye machine to read their prescription. The computer would then print out a list of all the prescription glasses we had (all labeled by number), and Eric would circle the numbers that were the closest to the person's actual prescription. It was rarely a perfect match. 

Below is a picture of the boxes of glasses. When we arrived in the village on Sunday, we put the shelves together and lined up all the boxes. These are all donated glasses and is where yours will go if you donate!

We would direct the person to sit in a chair by the wall while we looked for the numbers we needed, and then the person would try on the pairs and hopefully find one that worked! 

Here's Monica and I in our little eye room. This is pretty much what we did all day long.

Sometimes we couldn't find a pair that worked, and it was really sad. But it was AWESOME when we were able to fit someone with glasses! Seriously, it was the best to see someone's face light up when they were able to see more clearly. We also gave out a lot of reading glasses and sunglasses. In all, we saw over 500 people in the eye clinic over the 3.5 days.

^^^ This is a picture of what Monica and I called "The God Box." What happened is we ran out of reading glasses by the end of Monday, but we had this random box of reading glasses. We didn't know what prescription they were, but when someone came in who needed reading glasses, we decided to just grab the box and let them see if they could find a pair that worked.

I am not kidding you when I say that usually when we grabbed a random pair of glasses from this box, it worked on the first or second try! Only a few times were we unable to find someone a pair from the God box. By the time the last day of clinic rolled around, we had given away all but maybe four pairs from this box! It's hard for me to describe just how miraculous it was that so many of these pairs fit the people who came in, and I do not for one second think it was just coincidence.

There were many things that stuck out to me during my time in the eye clinic. Here are just a few. I'm writing them down so I don't forget:

• The little boy who was blind in one eye and needed glasses to improve vision in his other eye. We had only 3 pairs in his prescription, and 2 of them were huge old man bifocals that didn't fit his face. The last pair were the cutest little glasses that fit perfectly and helped him see!
• The blind woman who came in. She could barely see to find the chair to sit in and was being led by her 7-year-old daughter. She had 3 kids under the age of 7, and her husband was working far away and didn't come home very often. I helped her get rice and beans and clothes for her children, and we did find a pair of glasses that she said helped her to see a little better.
• The old woman who said she wanted reading glasses so she could see to read La Biblia.
• The old man with gray hair poking out underneath a weathered cowboy hat and a bright smile who, when I stood back and asked him if he could see better with the glasses on, said that I looked "bonita." (beautiful)
• The twenty-something girl who we gave sunglasses to. The next day I saw her back at the clinic with a friend she'd brought. She stopped me and pointed to her sunglasses and said, "Sexy, no?" and smiled the biggest smile.
• The sweet old lady we found reading glasses for. She clapped her hands, smiled, and then kissed my cheek.

What amazed me the most is how grateful the people were for the glasses, even though they were used, donated glasses, some of them old and scratched. We always feel like we need the best, the newest, the most expensive, and instead maybe we should spend more time being grateful for what we already have. 

The Vet Team

While I was in the eye clinic, Jordan worked on the vet team. He and the team left in Dr. Nicaragua's Toyota every day to drive out into the country and vaccinate the farmers' animals. They vaccinated pigs, dogs, horses, cattle, and sheep (and one goat!) for anthrax, B-12, and some other stuff. This is important work, because animals are these people's way to eat and live, and vaccinations keep them healthy.

While they were working with the animals, they also shared the gospel with the farmers. It was hard work, but Jordan had a blast working on the vet team. Every day around noon they came back for lunch, and it was fun to eat lunch together.

What I loved about this trip was being in the clinic and getting to meet all the people who came through. Since they had gone to church before coming to see us in the eye clinic, I tried to be very conscious of the fact that we were living representations of the gospel.

What would it say about God if the people went to church and heard about love and mercy, and then came to the clinic and we were mean to them? Our lives are a testimony just as much as our words, maybe even more. I always try to think of that, not just in Nicaragua.

So that's the end of the recap of the clinic! I have just one more post from Nicaragua, and it will be pictures from our free day on Friday when we got back from clinic. Here's a preview! Can you guess what we did?

Email me if you have glasses to donate! I'll get you the address.
Anyone else have prescription worse than -5.5?

Nicaraguan Adventure // The Medical Clinic

*I didn't take this picture. This was taken by our associate pastor after one of the church services.

When I left off in part 1, it was Sunday morning, July 20, and we were headed from the mission house into the village. I've gotten a few questions about our trip that I'm going to go ahead and answer now so you'll have a better idea of things before I dive into a recap of our week in the village.

I'm really glad some of you are enjoying hearing about our trip! It's hard to condense into just a few posts all that happened and only share a small portion of the pictures I took that week, but it's nice to have a place to write all this down. 

What organization did you go through?
Our church works with an organization called the Baptist Medical and Dental Mission International (BMDMI) to arrange these trips. Currently BMDMI works primarily in Honduras and Nicaragua, and a team from the United States goes every week from I think April to October (although don't quote me on those months). Our church takes a team every year, and this year was actually Jordan's mom's fifth trip to Nicaragua. His dad also went last year. After meeting the missionaries in Nicaragua and seeing how the organization runs, I really can't say enough good things about BMDMI.

Do you have to be a medical person to go with the medical missions? You do not have to be a doctor, nurse, or dentist to go on the trip, although our team did bring a dentist, nurses, a few ER doctors, a pharmacist, and other medical professionals. There are also local medical professionals that BMDMI pays to work in the clinic. If you're a regular person (like Jordan and myself), there are still many ways you can help and areas you can work.

Did you get to choose what area you worked in?
Yes. We signed up for this trip back in January, and we did get a choice. I chose eye care because I have worn glasses since the fourth grade and know what it's like to not be able to see. Jordan wasn't sure where he wanted to work, but then the leader of the vet team asked Jordan to be on his team, so that's how that worked out.

* * *

We left the mission house on Sunday morning around 8:00 and drove to the village of La Pintada. Every group who comes goes to a different village to set up the clinic, and this year we were actually staying relatively close to where the mission house was. It was only about a two-hour bus ride to the village. Last year I think Jordan's mom said they drove eight hours away. 

BMDMI pays a group of translators to go to the village with us, and they were a lot of fun to get to know. I showed you a picture of Miguel, the vet team's translator, in my first recap. Mario was the translator helping us in the eye clinic.

*I left my big camera in the safe at the mission house, so these pictures are all taken with my point-and-shoot. There are a few from Jordan's phone camera in the bunch too.

^^^This is the view of the school where we slept every night and where we set up the medical clinic. Those mattresses leaning up against the outside were what we slept on, and the Toyota to the left is Dr. Nicaragua's truck that the vet team took out every day. They actually still did have school while we were there, but they moved all the desks outside under some tents.

Below are a few pictures inside the school. We slept in some of the classrooms and had the medical clinic in a few other rooms. The eye and dental clinics shared a room, so occasionally we heard the cries of a little kid who was getting a tooth pulled. The dentist pulled over 50 teeth a day!

There wasn't any air conditioning obviously, but we did have some box fans, which we hung from the windows with string so we could circulate some air. At night we put the fans on the ground so they could face our beds.

^^^Lory (Jordan's mom) wrote this on the chalkboard in the main medical room where all the people came through after they had been to church and gotten registered for the clinic.

After the people had gone through the clinic, they went to the hygiene room, where they got rice & beans, a Bible, and clothes for their family. I got really good at telling people in Spanish how to go around the corner for arroz y frijoles.

We arrived in La Pintada and started seeing people in the clinic on Sunday afternoon. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday we held clinic all day, and believe me: it was a full day's work. Breakfast was at 6:30 a.m., and then we always had a short devotional time before we had to start getting things ready for the day. We started clinic around 8:00 in the morning, stopped for a half-hourish lunch, and then worked until dinner.

Everyone who came to the clinic had to go to a church service first. We had three services a day and saw over 2,500 people total that week go through the clinic.

^^^This is a picture of Jordan's dad speaking to a group of people after the church service. Scott is the one is the blue scrub pants and red backpack. His translator is behind him in the green shirt.

People arrived to the clinic on horses, motorcycles, cars, buses, and crammed into the back of carriages.

^^^While in the village, girls were only allowed to either wear scrub pants or long skirts. Boys could wear jeans or khakis. No shorts were allowed, which was unfortunate because it was hot and humid. We're talking like 95% humidity. No joke.

A couple of people actually got dehydrated and needed IVs, which was kind of scary. One of the doctors Macgyvered an IV stand by duct taping crutches to the side of a bucket and draping the IV over the crutch. Legit. Meanwhile, I was in the corner pounding down the water. I did not want that happening to me.

The picture below is the treacherous patch up to the kitchen area.

^^^This was the kitchen setup. We had to wash our hands with the bleach water and then file through the line. Our cooks did a fantastic job with the food. It's a tough job!

Now for the showers and toilets. 

I use those words loosely.

So, the bathrooms were pretty gross; I'm not gonna lie. First of all, they didn't have toilet seats. Luckily, however, my crazy mother-in-law had BROUGHT her own toilet seat. So that happened. 

Secondly, we had to "flush" the toilets ourselves using a bucket of water that we dumped into the toilet after we had gone to the bathroom. Let's just say sometimes it needed three or four buckets to fully flush. Also, there wasn't any light, so I had to wear a headlamp to go to the bathroom. Also x2, there wasn't any toilet paper, so we had to bring our own.

It blows my mind that this is what these people live with every day. It really puts the phrase "first world problems" into a whole new perspective.

The showers were brought in by BMDMI. They put these metal boxes together and throw a hose over the side. Again, no light, so I wore my headlamp in the shower. I didn't take a shower every day, because I was too tired by the end of the day to wait in a long line of people, so I used a lot of baby wipes on myself. Again, legit.

^^^A view of the children's church tent right after dinner as the sun was setting. The sun set pretty early down there. I think maybe around 6:30-7:00 or so it started getting dark.

Okay! So that's a rundown of our time in the village. I've decided that there will be two more Nicaragua posts. Next, I'll talk specifically about what happened in the eye clinic and on the vet team and show pictures of what Jordan and I did during the week. The last recap post will be about our free day on Friday after we returned from the village.

Feel free to ask me any questions you have that I haven't answered already!
What do you think about our trip so far?
Have you ever manually flushed a toilet with a bucket of water?

(If you haven't yet, catch up on Part 1.)

Nicaraguan Adventure // Planes and Automobiles

"We're on an adventure together."

That's what we said to each other all week long. An adventure, we called it, because that's what it was. An adventure to a third-world country with forty other members from our church to set up a medical clinic in a remote village. We passed out medication, pulled teeth, gave out prescription eye glasses and reading glasses. And we shared the gospel.

To be clear: Jordan and I didn't actually do the teeth-pulling and or the eye checking, but we did assist the dentist and doctors we brought with us from the US. Like I said before, Jordan worked on the vet team, and I helped in the eye care clinic.

Our flight to Houston was bright and early Saturday morning. Fifty people wearing matching t-shirts. Kill me. (You guys all know how I feel about matching, right?)

It took so long to get our bags checked in that by the time we started going through security, they were announcing the final boarding call on our flight over the loud speaker. Thankfully, the security line wasn't too long, and after a quick sprint through the airport (and, ahem, a stop to pee for SOMEONE), we made it to our gate. That's the closest I've ever come to missing a flight.

We landed in Houston and then switched to the international terminal for our flight to Managua, Nicaragua! There's really nothing that makes you feel more awesome than heading toward the international terminal.

We arrived in Nicaragua around 11:00 a.m., and this lovely green bus met us at the airport. This is the bus we rode around in to the village and back and on our free day on Friday. Our entire group actually split between two buses. There was a green one and an orange one.

First stop: lunch at Pizza Hut!

You guys. 

I'm not a huge fan of Pizza Hut normally, but Nicaraguan Pizza Hut is no joke. I think they use a different kind of cheese or something. Like, yum. 

From there we headed to the mission house, and I snapped pictures of the scenery and towns we passed as our bus driver fearlessly maneuvered Nicaraguan traffic. Or, what I like to call the highway of death. 

At one point he took a wrong turn and decided it would be a good idea to back up around a corner and through an intersection. That's all I'm going to say about that.

I'd never been to a third-world country like this before. It was pretty crazy seeing the shacks and the dirt roads and the trash piled up along the side of the street. I mean, here in the US we're freaking out over our iPhone screens getting broken, and people in Nicaragua are still pulling carts with horses and washing clothes by hand in a tub. The twenty-first century might as well be the first century in some respects, and it's hard to wrap my mind around.

After a few hours on the bus, we arrived at the mission house. Each week, the mission house hosts a new group from the United States. We stayed here on Saturday night when we arrived in Nicaragua, and then again on Thursday and Friday night once we got back from the village. We spent Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday nights in the village. They have a staff of people to cook and clean for us, and part of the fee we paid to come on the trip pays for upkeep of the mission.

^^^This is Miguel. He was one of our translators in the village and was actually with Jordan on the vet team all week. I think this picture is cool, because when I was creepin' around the mission house at the beginning of the week taking pictures of random stuff, I had no idea who this was. When Jordan and I were looking at my pictures after we got back, we realized I'd taken a picture of Miguel! 

Jordan said Miguel was really awesome to work with, and at the end of the week Jordan gave Miguel the work gloves he'd brought with him because Miguel said he liked them.

Saturday afternoon, we spent some time counting pills that we were going to take to the village the next day. We also filled small bags of fruit loops to give to the people when we gave them their parasite pill. The pills taste really bad, so we wanted to give them something that tasted good to get the taste out of their mouths.

We got to bed early that night, because we knew we had a long, hard week ahead of us.

In my next Nicaragua post, I'll take you into the village of La Pintada!

Um, so despite my best efforts, this post got kind of long.

I'll try to keep the rest of them shorter, but no promises. There's just so much to tell!