So I know it's been a while since I've had any contact with you all - even email contact - so I think it's time I catch you up on just a few of the highlights / headlines from last week.
One of the reasons we haven't been able to contact ya'll is that we've had incredibly cool weather lately; no solar power. We haven't had a lot of rain, but it's been overcast in the day and slightly chilly at night. We all broke out our sweatshirts for the first time! It's been so nice just to feel like I don't NEED to shower every night and not feel sticky all the time. Unfortunately, along with our cooler temperatures, our shower water temperature has nose-dived to the point where I think I might emerge from the shower with a mild case of hypothermia.
Also, ya'll might have seen pictures of guys' haircuts. Much to all the girls' dismay, the boys have not only decided to grow their beards out for the extent of our mission here, but now they also got into a macho-man mood and on a testosterone whim, they decided to shave their heads. I feel like they look more like hardcore motorcycle dudes or missionary skin-heads instead of missionary boys. . .
On Monday, Jerrica, Kaileen and I were working away in the MINSA clinic when suddenly we heard a crowd start to form outside and a huge wave of people came in the door shouting "Emergencia! Emergencia!" Behind them two guys walked in the door with their hands wrapped in bloody, dirty clothes. I guess they'd been working on their plantation and somehow cut themselves pretty badly with machetes. We worked on the guy who looked the most serious first and gingerly peeled back his dressing. He had stuffed a bunch of grass and leaves in his wound to use as a pressure dressing. Highly unsanitary, but effective. The guy bled pretty bad. While we were stitching him up blood actually started shooting out from the artery. Craziness! We got them all stitched up and it looks like the healing process is going pretty well now.
Oh, in other news, we got a pet tarantula. Yes.... I never thought it would come to this but, yes... We tried to feed him grasshoppers and geckos and cockroaches, but our tarantula didn't seem to be in a killing mood even after 3 days. Finally, Mgee got a little angry at him for not fulfilling his expectations of a "hunt and kill" tarantula and his fate ended up the same as all the other tarantulas we find. We machete murdered him.
On Sabbath morning, we were met with a wave of fire ants washing towards our mission. I have no idea what they were doing coming in a huge swarm like that but I kinda felt like I was in the McGyver Episode where they combat the killer ants... Only our case was a little less extreme - we all survived.
The twin's and my "get-in-shape plan" is a work in progress. Every time we go running through the village, people STILL stare at us. One time this kid decided to make us his goal net and continually kicked his soccer ball at us every time we jogged by. Chickens cluck and flutter up in front of us. And all the kids yell continually: "Mereki! Mereki!" ("American!") and announce our obvious presence to the entire village.
We have a village "ugly duckling" in the form of a chicken. Honestly, we have some of the ugliest, malnourished animals I've ever seen here, but this chicken takes the cake. She has patchy feathers and her red, leathery neck is completely void of feathers and fluff. The rest of her is very mangy looking and all her feathers poof out in all directions. We call her "feather-duster".
Oh, something else... definitely not a highlight, but something worth noting. There is a never-ending plague of bugs here: albino-looking ladybugs, horseflies, knats, fleas, bed bugs, blood-sucking beetles, mosquitoes, grass lice... and many others I'm sure I have yet to discover. In the meantime, I'm pretty much one big itch. I am the essence of the word "itch." I think I'm destined to spend the rest of my time here in Nicaragua covered in a combination of bug-spray and constantly be scratching myself like a dog ridden with fleas.
Other notable things that happened last week... Uh... we cleaned the outhouse. (Believe me, that was a notable experience.); Mgee went bowling with rotten coconuts; and I definitely moved up a level in the school of "killing tarantulas." Two just met their fate by ME stomping on them. Yes, That's right. I was pretty proud of myself too.
We definitely killed another snake a few days back. Unfortunately for us girls, the village children have discovered our acute phobia of poisonous snakes. They realized that using sticks to pick up dead snakes and chase us with them elicits shrieks of terror and mad dashes to the safety of the mission. Of course, like any other slight activity that goes on in the village, everyone came out of their huts to see the commotion. They just roared with laughter as they saw us gringas bolting for the hill being chased by a crowd of half-naked village kids.
So there's a little snippet of our life here in Francia Sirpi. Not always the best, but usually entertaining, at least in retrospect. The mission is changing a lot right now as we are beginning to come up with new ideas and new projects are materializing. It's such a blessing to have such a large and strong group here because we actually can expand our ministries instead of just maintaining them. I'll have to tell you more about it later. I'm kinda getting bored with my own writing and, since you're still reading this, I'll grant you a little mercy and wrap it up.
Just so ya'll know, I keep you in my prayers. I hope you're all safe and doing well. I love you!
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Friday, November 4, 2011
Overdue Post!
Hey Everyone,
This is Camrie's Mom, Cynthia. I just returned from a two week vacation and am now just getting around to posting this blog that Camrie sent me October 20 (while I was away with very little internet availability). Sorry it's so long in coming. I already have another blog that I'll add sometime this weekend. Enjoy reading!
One of Our Trips Home from Port - October 20
Usually about once a month we all head into Port to restock our groceries, pick up mail, and connect to the outside world via the internet. It usually takes at least four hours to drive one way and usually our road-trips are very bumpy, and very unorthodox. This is what happened on our last return trip from Port.
After buying all our last minute fresh vegetable purchases in the Port street market, we finally finished loading up the trailer and got ready to leave the Adventist school at 3:30 PM. We busted out of there pretty fast because suddenly a political propaganda parade started filling the streets and crowds of people flowed out from houses and buildings to see the excitement. The school staff started getting really nervous and told us that the same thing happened last week and the people road-blocked the street for three days! All these huge trucks overflowing with people started honking their way down the street. The Sandinistas were yelling, chanting, and waving flags and posters. Their enthusiasm energized the onlookers and the street suddenly felt really chaotic. We all rushed to the ambulance and loaded up - hoping to make it out fast just in case something took place. Thankfully the pandemonium followed the trucks and the street began to settle back into the normal pace. Praise God for safety.
About an hour out of town we noticed something funky about the trailer. It seemed like one tire was stuck in a rut and couldn't quite get out. It turns out we had a flat tire. Immediately we halted our voyage and we all piled out to assess the damage. Jared started to take out the spare and Tom started jacking up the trailer. We hunted around the area to find some makeshift block to set the trailer on. While some of us were working away, the rest of us entertained ourselves: Mgee inspected his many mysterious rashes, we girls chased chickens like they were pigeons, Eda and Mgee squabbled about which one of them was more "gresy," (or "crazy" in English), and Paula (the twins' mom) documented the whole experience with her camera.
The way we gauge how far away from Port we are is by the road conditions. When the road is fairly smooth gravel, we are near port; when we start hitting crater-sized potholes and mud lakes, we are definitely getting close to Francia Sirpi. Well, later on in our journey, the ruts seemed to be extra bad due to the fact that earlier it had rained quite a bit. We started ascending and descending into potholes like they were snow moguls. Unfortunately we misjudged the depth of the water and the extent of the mud in one 15 foot diameter pothole and suddenly we started spinning. Great! Once again, Jared and Mgee stuck on their rain boots and climbed out to assess the damage. Thankfully after a few readjustments and new strategies, we were able to gain some traction and power-out.
When we finally arrived back at the mission it was around 8:30 PM. We were pretty exhausted and we all pitched in to unload the trailer and unpack groceries. In the process we found a dead rat that had drowned in our filtered water drip-bucket, and two tarantulas scurrying across the kitchen floor. They no longer exist thanks to Mgee's machete, and they're now drying out in our tarantula graveyard. RIP tarantulas.
As soon as we thought our night was winding down, some villagers climbed up the hill, begging us to come examine their daughter who was nine months pregant. As soon as we grabbed our medical supplies a tropical downpour started, so we suited up in our rain gear and plodded out to find the woman's hut. We hiked off the road for about 10 minutes and finally found it. We took her vitals, did a short examination, talked/translated with the family, and determined that she would be able to last through the night in time to see the MINSA nurse, and if not, they were to come back and get us. We trekked back to the main road again and finally arrived back at the mission around 10:30 PM. We all decided that as a rule of thumb, we can always plan on our days going exactly how we DID NOT plan. I really don't think this is a good place for Type A personalities - or maybe it IS a good place for them to work on their character. Haha! Who knows? Although even though we have a very simple life here in Francia, it seems like everyday we always have some sort of adventure ~ it's not necessarily fun, but an adventure none the less.
I hope ya'll are doing great back in the USA. Hopefully I'll get to talk to you all soon whenever we have our NEXT road-trip to Port (whenever that will be...) Praying for you! God Bless - Dawan Bles Mayumbia
This is Camrie's Mom, Cynthia. I just returned from a two week vacation and am now just getting around to posting this blog that Camrie sent me October 20 (while I was away with very little internet availability). Sorry it's so long in coming. I already have another blog that I'll add sometime this weekend. Enjoy reading!
One of Our Trips Home from Port - October 20
Usually about once a month we all head into Port to restock our groceries, pick up mail, and connect to the outside world via the internet. It usually takes at least four hours to drive one way and usually our road-trips are very bumpy, and very unorthodox. This is what happened on our last return trip from Port.
After buying all our last minute fresh vegetable purchases in the Port street market, we finally finished loading up the trailer and got ready to leave the Adventist school at 3:30 PM. We busted out of there pretty fast because suddenly a political propaganda parade started filling the streets and crowds of people flowed out from houses and buildings to see the excitement. The school staff started getting really nervous and told us that the same thing happened last week and the people road-blocked the street for three days! All these huge trucks overflowing with people started honking their way down the street. The Sandinistas were yelling, chanting, and waving flags and posters. Their enthusiasm energized the onlookers and the street suddenly felt really chaotic. We all rushed to the ambulance and loaded up - hoping to make it out fast just in case something took place. Thankfully the pandemonium followed the trucks and the street began to settle back into the normal pace. Praise God for safety.
About an hour out of town we noticed something funky about the trailer. It seemed like one tire was stuck in a rut and couldn't quite get out. It turns out we had a flat tire. Immediately we halted our voyage and we all piled out to assess the damage. Jared started to take out the spare and Tom started jacking up the trailer. We hunted around the area to find some makeshift block to set the trailer on. While some of us were working away, the rest of us entertained ourselves: Mgee inspected his many mysterious rashes, we girls chased chickens like they were pigeons, Eda and Mgee squabbled about which one of them was more "gresy," (or "crazy" in English), and Paula (the twins' mom) documented the whole experience with her camera.
The way we gauge how far away from Port we are is by the road conditions. When the road is fairly smooth gravel, we are near port; when we start hitting crater-sized potholes and mud lakes, we are definitely getting close to Francia Sirpi. Well, later on in our journey, the ruts seemed to be extra bad due to the fact that earlier it had rained quite a bit. We started ascending and descending into potholes like they were snow moguls. Unfortunately we misjudged the depth of the water and the extent of the mud in one 15 foot diameter pothole and suddenly we started spinning. Great! Once again, Jared and Mgee stuck on their rain boots and climbed out to assess the damage. Thankfully after a few readjustments and new strategies, we were able to gain some traction and power-out.
When we finally arrived back at the mission it was around 8:30 PM. We were pretty exhausted and we all pitched in to unload the trailer and unpack groceries. In the process we found a dead rat that had drowned in our filtered water drip-bucket, and two tarantulas scurrying across the kitchen floor. They no longer exist thanks to Mgee's machete, and they're now drying out in our tarantula graveyard. RIP tarantulas.
As soon as we thought our night was winding down, some villagers climbed up the hill, begging us to come examine their daughter who was nine months pregant. As soon as we grabbed our medical supplies a tropical downpour started, so we suited up in our rain gear and plodded out to find the woman's hut. We hiked off the road for about 10 minutes and finally found it. We took her vitals, did a short examination, talked/translated with the family, and determined that she would be able to last through the night in time to see the MINSA nurse, and if not, they were to come back and get us. We trekked back to the main road again and finally arrived back at the mission around 10:30 PM. We all decided that as a rule of thumb, we can always plan on our days going exactly how we DID NOT plan. I really don't think this is a good place for Type A personalities - or maybe it IS a good place for them to work on their character. Haha! Who knows? Although even though we have a very simple life here in Francia, it seems like everyday we always have some sort of adventure ~ it's not necessarily fun, but an adventure none the less.
I hope ya'll are doing great back in the USA. Hopefully I'll get to talk to you all soon whenever we have our NEXT road-trip to Port (whenever that will be...) Praying for you! God Bless - Dawan Bles Mayumbia
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