Nicaragua Day 6: Thursday

Devotional was at 6:30 as usual.  Again Adrian asked if anyone prepared something, and again he was met with silence.  Jorge then turned to me and asked if I had something I'd like to share.  He must have seen the fear in my eyes because he moved on quickly! 

We are a bit early to the drill site, so Ernesto drives us to see the school.  This is it:  one big building with bars on the windows, divided into maybe 4-6 big rooms.

 This is the well Living Water put in at the school.

 This is the first well we've seen by Living Water, and we're surprised at how close it is to the well we are currently drilling.  I guess it makes more sense to put in plenty now than to come back later and have to fill in the gaps.  And 1/4 mile is still a long way to carry a bucket of water!
The children are waiting for us when we return from the school.  Rosa and Katarin have already had their bath but are already filthy.  It's a losing battle with those girls and all the dust!  Several boys play soccer and frisbee in the road with the men drillers.  The drillers don't get too much time with the kids, so this is special for them.  Juan Carlo asks me to be on his team; luckily it was a short game because I think I might have been a disappointing teammate.
We head to the class area and allow the kids to carry our stuff only after instructions to be very careful.  Estabana, one of the moms, is with us from the very beginning today, maybe to make sure all the kids behave.
We start with Karen's Bible story, Fish for breakfast.  She does a great job and the kids love the story, the goldfish crackers Theresa brought to share, and the craft.  Theresa asks Estabana to have kids come up row by row to do the stations of the craft.  Estebana has her own plans and sends them up one at a time; that woman knows how to keep the chaos at a minimum!  The glitter fish looked great; even a mom made one, and I can imagine it hanging in a special place in her home.  This was my favorite craft of the week!

We take a break from the lessons since the drillers have a minute to play.  The kids love the change of routine and the new faces!  I help Karen teach her "care of the pump" lesson to the moms.  This is another really important lesson since the well is useless if they don't know how to care for it and keep it uncontaminated.  Thankfully there's still some time for me to play with the kids too.  I play soccer with some, and then play frisbee with Daniela for a long time.  She is one of my favorites; she seems so respectful, thoughtful, and caring.  We don't talk while we play but that feels okay.  My spanish has vastly improved since being here, but I'm still not good at extended conversations.  Eventually we give up frisbee for jumproping.  I give it a try and make it 14 jumps; the kids are so impressed that I have to try again.  That jumproping is hard work!  Kristin and Kent also give it a try.
We head back for lunch.  A big moment came for me when I was asked to pray for lunch and actually did it!  I am TERRIFIED of praying out loud!  Peanut butter and jelly for lunch.  At some point on Thursday, we found out that this would not be our last day in the village.  We will have to come back on Friday morning to put a few more pieces on the well and do the dedication.  I'm excited to have a little more time with these people I have come to love so so much.  Dan gets bit by a dog in the village, and much discussion happens about rabies possibilities and treatments.  He handles it so well; I would be freaking out!
After lunch, several kids gather at the fence around us.  Theresa can no longer resist the urge to feed them and gives each child 4 goldfish.  The rest of us worry that suddenly there will be more kids and not enough crackers to go around.  It all works out, though, and the kids were so excited!
The cows wander by, and we know it's time to head back to class.  After lunch, I hand out name tags to the kids who weren't there in the morning.  In the process, some kids take off their name tags from the morning, just so they can have a new one.  Who knew a masking tape nametag would be so exciting!
Theresa reviews the Good Samaritan and has the kids act it out.  They love the Bible stories and have even requested them!  It's so exciting that we can share them with them.

For her craft, she has the children color the injured man, and we tape it to their shoulder as if they're carrying him.  My kids would've removed him immediately, but he hung on to most shoulders all day!  Then we let them have some free-coloring time.  They enjoyed the markers and did some great artwork!

I took lots of pictures of the kids as they colored.  I just wanted these faces to always be with me; I don't ever want to forget.

 This little girl (who alternated between 2 different names) was very sweet and participated in crafts but would not play any of the games.  Her mom died earlier in the year.  She was also a little mother and loved taking care of the babies and blowing bubbles for the younger kids.

 I spent a lot of time playing frisbee with Guadalupe.

 Jason Antonio.

 Brando.  His fancy shoes with shorts crack me up, but he is lucky to have such sturdy, protective shoes.  Several kids had only plastic slippers.

 After the coloring, we make bead bracelets from my original Bible story, the ones where red is for the blood, black is for sin, etc.  The kids don't listen very well to each description, but the bracelets turn out better than I expected!  Then it's playtime again!  The drillers are working later than usual, so this a longer day for us, and I am feeling it.  But the kids are so excited when Theresa's "sports bag" (a white trash bag) comes out.  JUGAMOS! JUGAMOS!  (Let's play!)  PELOTAS!  PELOTAS! (Balls!)  POPITAS! (Bubbles!)
While the kids play, the moms look through one of the children's Bibles that we brought.  It bilingual and has lots of pictures.  They were poring over it, drinking it in.  I did NOT want to take it away from them; it just seemed wrong.  After some discussion, we let them keep it and the mom agreed to return it to the church when she was done.  How many opportunities do you get to share the Word with people and see them soak it in like that?  It's something I will always remember. 

After a LONG day with the kids, it's finally time to go home.  This is what the well looks like so far.

 

This is the plaque that will be on the well.

The cows coming home.  It was a daily event.  They went out at 1:30 and came home at 4:30.

Setting the plaque.  On Friday, the finishing touches will be put on!

Back at the compound, it's grilled chicken for dinner.  It was sooo good, probably the best food so far!

Kristin and I discuss our favorite kids, ones that will stick in our minds forever.  We also talk about how we hope to be changed by this trip.  Our common list included less materialism, more quality time spent with our own kids, and more time spent on things that are really important.  It's been such a blessing to experience this trip with such a good friend; it's the first mission trip for both of us!

 

As far as my "meanwhile in San Antonio" segment goes, I didn't receive anymore pictures from Troy.  I know he had his hands full with our crew and was doing a great job getting school done!  On Thursday, he took 2 boys to preschool and Reef to soccer. 

Nicaragua Day 5: Wednesday

The one day I was sleeping past 5:30 we were awakened by sudden silence.  Our AC had turned off on it's own. Uh oh!  Moments later we learned that the water was off too.  It turns out that the water pump went out, and, since our AC was on the same breaker, they had to turn it off too.  Much of the morning was spent stressing about the water being fixed so we could flush the toilet!  We got just a small glimpse of what the families in the village go through each day to get clean water.  And, at least in the village, you don't have to worry about flushing!

The devotional was good; Jorge wasn't there, so we spent the time sharing our thoughts so far.  There was bacon for breakfast, and it was good!

Today was my first time to teach the women, and I'm suddenly nervous.  My lesson was very geared toward the kids, so I'm worried it will be too juvenile for the moms.  When we arrive at the village, we sit in the van for a few extra mintues, soaking in the air conditioning and gathering energy for the children.  We have new women at the classes today; they have come because they want a well closer to their house, about a 1/4 mile away. 

While Theresa and I teach our lessons, Kristin and Karen set the kids up with coloring.  They enjoy it but are losing interest fast as the week goes on.  Several are really wild today!  The toothbrushing lessons goes ok; I think they already knew the basics.  One mom says that toothpaste is very expensive, and most of the time there's not enough money for that.  Buying food takes priority.  Theresa's lesson on nutrition went great, even though most of the example foods are foreign to these people.  She is just really great at engaging both the women and the children.

After a rousing game of pato, pato, pollo, we decide I will teach the toothbrushing lesson to the kids before lunch.  They just too much energy for us, and we can't keep playing that game!  The kids enjoyed the lesson with the giant teeth and were excited to make Super Tooth puppets.  We decide to hold onto them and use them to hold all other crafts for the day.

While we're making puppets, a child steals water from Santo's water bucket at his home (it's right behind where we teach).  Daniela (his daughter)  sees this and immediately cleans the cup.  She brings out a jug for the children to share but only one cup.  We are touched by her thoughtfulness, but tell the children they can't all share one cup because of the germs.  Poor Daniela looks like her feelings are hurt; she was really trying to be helpful but protect her family's clean water at the same time.  It was such a hard situation because the reality is that most families may not have enough cups for each person to have their own.

Lunch was hot dogs; a little scary but I eat one anyway.

Here's what was going on at the drill site:

At 1 the kids trickle back to the drill site to find us.  There are several new faces this afternoon, even Dante from church.  For the past couple of days, Katarin insists on holding my hand as we walk back and makes sure her little sister, Rosa, has the other.  She calls me her "hermanita" (sister).  The kids love to help us carry our things to and from the "classroom".  Today 2 boys fight over who will carry a chair and it breaks.  We will have to take a trip into town to replace it. 
Theresa teaches her nutrition lesson to the kids.  Look at the crowd we had!  Close to 50 kids!

 The kids' attention spans were short today, and some were quite wild.  Theresa's craft took a long time, and there was chaos while handing out supplies.  One of the moms, Estebana, has been spending most of the day with us.  She is great at wrangling the kids into submission!  I do wish my Spanish was better so that I could visit with the women more.

We let the kids play with play doh today.  They loved it!

We let them each take their ball of play doh home at the end of the day because it was so filthy that we would've just thrown it away.

We decided to skip the Bible lesson for today and let the kids play.  They really needed to get some energy out!  It ended up being short-lived, though, because the air compressor went out at the drill site, so they packed up early.

Thankfully there is running water back at the compound!  Because it was a short day, there is some time to relax.  Theresa and Kristin convince Ernesto to take them into town for a new chair and some soccer balls.  Apparently it was quite the adventure; hopefully Kristin writes about it in her blog.  I read a little and enjoy some time to visit with the rest of the team.  We all agree that after 3 days, the scariness of the latrine is gone!

Dinner is taco salad and pineapple juice.  It was good, but I am so missing dessert!  How spoiled am I!

We spend the evening packing goody bags with toothbrushes and shampoos for the kids to give their moms.  It's frustrating to find that there isn't enough for everyone to get one of everything.  I wish we had done a supply drive sooner. 

I hit the sack about 9:40 and enjoy the best sleep I've had so far.  It's hard to believe that we have only one more day with the village.

 

Meanwhile, in San Antonio:

Poppy's "baby" came for a visit.  She loves Eli!

 Our friend, Wee, was kind enough to invite the whole gang over for some real Thai food before church.  This may have been the highlight of Troy's week!
Jonas enjoyed their tire swing.

 Reef ejoyed the frisbee.  I was so excited to see this since I've been playing frisbee all week.  Maybe I'll get him one, and we can play together when I get home.

 The spread of food Wee prepared.  Troy was in heaven!

 Poppy was also in heaven with all the girl toys.  That doll is as big as she is!

 For church, Reef's age group went caroling at a nursing home.  Poppy fit right in with the big girls.  Reef said he really enjoyed it because he felt like it showed the "sick" people that God loved them and so did we.

Nicaragua Day 4: Tuesday

After a night of rough sleep, I awake wondering if there's any hope for these families in the village to get a "better life."  But then I am convincted; who am I to decide that my life is better than theirs?  Yes, I have clean water and a ton of healthy food to choose from, but does all my "stuff" make my life better?  I realize that the answer is "no".  My God is the same as theirs.  They seem genuinely happy, and find joy in the simple things of life, instead of being distracted by the new big thing.  They also seem to love their families and have a strong sense of community.  I can see how God has been working here long before the Americans arrived, which shows me that He loves and cares for us, regardless of economic status.

 

A nice surprise this morning: pancakes for breakfast!  They were much-needed after the soup the night before.

As we arrive in the village, the kids seem to come out of nowhere.  It's like we put out some kind of invisible radar that alerts them to our presence!

Theresa has the first lesson this morning and realizes her supplies have been forgotten.  She decides to improvise, and it turns out even better than she planned, I think. Her first lesson was on germ transmission; there was much talk of flies and poop.  The kids thought it was hilarious and enjoyed making pipe cleaner "mozquas" (flies).  I actually saw several kids bring their creation to class every day after that.

Seven moms showed up for the classes today.  We're pretty sure the threat of "come to class or we stop drilling" scared them.

After Theresa's lesson, Karen sat with the women for a lesson on diarrhea and oral rehydration.  We played another rousing game of "pato, pato, pollo" to keep the kids occupied.

 Karen finished her lesson at 11, and Scarleth sent the kids home for lunch, telling them to return at 1:30.  Big mistake!  They were done with lunch before we had even started and came to find us at the drill site.  We hated sending them away but felt more awful about eating our abundant lunch in front of them.  Lunch, by the way was tuna, which is so not on my list of "okay" foods.

Obviously, the children couldn't stay away for the full 2 1/2 hours!  They loved having their pictures taken!

Little Eric was famous for this green shirt.  I think he wore it 4 out of 5 days, with the name tag still attached.  He always sported the matching undies too, never pants.

After lunch Theresa reviewed the "poop" lesson.

Then we did Bible stories and crafts.  The kids were so well-behaved on Monday but became more restless today.  The number of them also doubled!  Word must've spread about how fun we were. 

As they became more restless, we decided to get out the toys earlier today.  Surprisingly, they were more excited to see the jump ropes and frisbess again than the soccer balls.  At one point, there were 4 frisbees coming at me from 4 different throwers.  At one point a boy even complimented me on a catch, saying "Muy bonita!"  I'll have to show Reef and Jonas my new skills.

The littlest kids spent the whole time with the bubbles, and we have to start rationing them to make sure we have enough to get through the week!

Kristin and I are exhausted after 2 hours of frisbee-playing!  We talk about feeling guilty because we'd never spend two hours playing frisbee non-stop with our children at home.  I hope to may a bigger effort when I get home.

Here's one of the very few pictures I have of the actual well-digging.  From what we were told, the team made great progress the first couple of days!  We are covering the process in prayer because I know I'd be disappointed if we didn't leave a finished well.

 

The ride home is a rough one; I feel very nauseous, probably from eating a small lunch.  Kristin and Karen took a ride to the store when we got home.  I wanted to go but could NOT stay in that van any longer!  I feel better after a cool shower.  The cold water isn't so bad anymore since we're all so hot after the day's work!

We experience a quick thunderstorm, which I always love.  Dinner is fried chicken, so I was happy!  I skyped briefly with the family, but the boys seemed more interested in looking at themselves on the screen than me!  We had to sign off when Poppy started getting upset. 

The evening is spent preparing crafts for Wednesday.  We are all frustrated when we hear that the copier is out of ink.  It was just another curveball we didn't anticipate.  While it was annoying and we complained a lot, I think those moments when things didn't go quite as planned were important for me.  They reminded me that life in the mission field isn't always easy and probably rarely goes exactly as we plan.  But it always goes according to God's plan.  And, we found out later that Jorge was actually able to make the majority of our copies!

While we're cutting 60 copies of Senor Diente (Mr. Tooth) and pages for the Good Samaritan, Rob comments that while he would've loved for Troy to be on the trip, it's been good to see me without him.  Everyone agrees that I've come out of my shell.  It makes me feel worthwhile, I guess.  Troy (and God who prevented us from finding babysitters) knew that I needed this opportunity to test the waters on my own.  I'm thankful I had the chance to make that happen.

Meanwhile, in San Antonio:

This girl decided to dress herself in an outfit only she would put together.  She's wearing not one, but 2, tutu's (one from her birthday and one from Halloween), with her Christmas tree shirt and pants printed with oranges on them.  You'd wear that out, right?

Reef was hard at work on his schoolwork.  I was happy to see that it was getting done since Troy wasn't too sure it was going to happen.

 For science, they were supposed to make a bird house.

 Reef was very involved.

 The finished product:

 They took Opa to Orange Leaf, and all loved it!

Nicaragua Day 3: Monday

Again, I was shocked by how early I woke up while we were in Nicaragua!  It was always well before I needed to be awake.  This morning I spent that extra time praying for the day ahead, as I knew it would possibly be the most challenging. 

Our devotional time was at 6:30.  I really enjoyed the singing each morning; it was a great to focus my mind for the day.  Jorge read an excerpt from A Hole in the Gospel.  It talked about the author's wife deciding to get water from a nearby lake and how hard it was for her to carry her bucket of water the mile back.  He also talked about how this well we are digging could be a real turning point for these families.  They will soon be able to spend less time gathering water and more time working, more time at school.  Hopefully they will also have fewer sick days since the water will be clean.  I really hadn't thought about the benefits this well could provide these families!

At breakfast, they served a fried cheese.  I actually thought it might be French toast.  It was not something I wanted to try!  As we waited for the van, we triple-checked our backpacks.  Snacks-check!  Water bottle-check!  Antibacterial wipes-check!  Toilet paper just in case-check!  There was much discussion (and anxiety on my part) about the village "banos".

Here is what it looked like:

That definitely took some getting used to!  We had to go in pairs the first day, so one could hold the sheet closed.  By the second day, it had been "remodeled" with a "door" that stayed closed on its own.  Oh, the adventures!  Deanna has pictures of every team member leaving the "facility".  Theresa was kind of obsessed with taking those, and we're thinking of making her a collage.
The first thing on the agenda was a Community Walk.  Scarleth said that the moms usually met us in the meeting spot on the first day and showed us around the community.  When we arrived, there were no moms but plenty of kids waiting for us.  Scarleth seemed confused by this and said the pastor usually informs all the women of the time and place.  We decided to head out door-to-door and invite the women to join our classes.
I was so thankful for Scarleth's translating abilities!  I was relatively confident in my ability to get by with my minimal Spanish, but these people talk fast!  If ever I go on a trip like this again, I will definitely make more of an effort to practice the language in advance.
We passed by a chicken coop.

We spent about an hour walking through the village.  We didn't get to go to all the houses and invite all the women.  It made me sad that we couldn't reach them all.

Our walk through the village showed us that, while all the people are poor, there was a definite gap between classes.  On one side of the road, near where our classes were, the houses were nicer and better kept.  The children were cleaner as well.  On the other, it was the opposite.  The well is going in closer to the poor side, with the poorest family being right next to it.  God knew what He was doing when He set the well location!  I don't know why I am surprised by this.

As we are walking through the village, we come across a truck loaded with peanuts, and people are bringing sacks of them from their houses to be weighed.  It turns out that this was the illegal peanut trade.  The villagers would glean in the fields after the machines went through but before the fieldowners hired workers and sell the peanuts on the "black market" for pennies.  So sad.

After our community walk, we return to our class spot and find no moms.  Actually, there was one; her house was right by our location, and her husband was in charge of watching over the drilling equipment while we weren't there.  Her children were AMAZING; you'll hear more about them later. We decided to dive into our lessons anyway.  Since no other moms came, we moved right into the children's version, which was the one I was most comfortable with anyway.  The first thing we did was make nametags.  The kids had a blast coloring.  It's amazing the simple things that my own kids take for granted.

  My lesson was first, mostly an introduction to us and Living Water and Jesus as the "Living Water".  Kristin was the actress in my skit: 

 That cup in her hand was supposed to be empty when she pretended to drink out of it.  It wasn't.  She almost threw up when the dirty water hit her lips!  The kids thought it was hilarious!  I think it was a good ice breaker.
Kristin's lesson on handwashing was next.  Karen helped out by being Ana, the puppet Theresa whipped up the night before.

 This is Katarin, a child who is forever imbedded in my mind.  This picture doesn't even begin to show you how filthy she was.  At 3 years old, she and her sister Rosa (2 years old) wander the village while their mother works in the city and their father in the field.  They were filthy, barefoot, and crawling with lice.  My heart broke for them.  But, they both loved being with us, and Katarin battled hard for our attention!

 Scarleth and Kristin helped each child wash his/her hands individually.  This may have been the first time for them to learn this!

 While they worked on that, Theresa and I introduced the kids to the Hokey Pokey.  Throughout the week, I'd hear random kids singing the Hokey Pokey to themselves as we played.  After they tired of that we, we tried duck, duck, goose.  This may have been their favorite game of the week.  It was actually "duck, duck, chicken" (pato, pato, pollo) since Theresa was unsure of the word for goose.  It was a hit!  They loved tagging the Americans to be it, so it was quite the workout!

After the handwashing lesson, it was time for a lunch break.  We were excited to head back and see how the drillers were progressing.  Man, were they dirty!  Lunch was ham or PBJ sandwiches, so I was happy. 

Before we were done with lunch, the kids had all found us at the drill site.  It was hard to eat knowing that some of them may have had no food for lunch or clean water to drink.  We headed back for the afternoon's Bible lesson.  Before the lesson, Scarleth asked us to wipe each child down with an antibacterial wipe.  Part of our job was to help teach them to be clean all the time.  Rosa and Katarin took 5 wipes each and were still dirty!  I was teaching one called "Clean Hands, Clean Heart."  It wasn't my favorite lesson and I'm not sure the kids got it, but they listened well and enjoyed the craft after. 

 We let them use markers this time, which was a novelty to them.This is Juan Carlo above, one of Santo's sons.  Such a sweet kid.
After the Bible lesson, it was time for the much-anticipated playtime.  We opened up our magic trunk and handed out jump ropes, balls, and frisbees.
The best part of that time for me was the bubbles.  I have never seen such joy on a child's face!  One little boy squealed every single time a bubble was blown!  This picture doesn't do it justice.

 Limbo was also quite a popular game with those jump ropes!

I am sad that I don't have many pictures of the free play time.  It seemed everytime I turned around another child was asking, "Jugamos? (We play?), which is one word I understood and could not say "no" to.  I wanted no regrets and knew I'd regret missing out on the chance to play because I was behind the camera.

 We ended a long day at 4:30.  Jorge said that the week would fly by, but that day felt very long.  I remember being unsure that the week would fly by.

Back at the house, there was time for a quick dip in the pool before dinner.  Dinner was flank steak with a chimichurri sauce; very yummy!  I find myself really missing dessert and wishing I'd packed more candy.

The night is spent reorganizing the craft trunk (again) and helping Theresa get her craft stuff together for Tuesday.  I definitely thought there'd be more free time in the evenings but am also thankful that I can be useful.

Meanwhile, this is what happened in SA on Monday:

 Troy said she carried this old phone around yelling, "MOMMY!!"  Apparently, she was having a hard time with my absence.

 These guys, on the other hand, are loving their time with Opa!

 As I finish this post, I realize, I don't have much to say about the actual drilling.  I guess since Troy wasn't on the team with me, I was kind of removed from that aspect of the trip.  If you want more info on the drilling side of things, you can check out Karen's blog at itsadeepsubject.blogspot.com.

Nicaragua Day 2

I'm back to tell you about Day 2 in Nicaragua.  I'm still afraid these posts will be too long, too jumbled, but I also need to get it all out there as a way of processing it all.  I don't want the trip to be a 1-week journey; I'd like it to be life-changing for me, for my family, maybe even for you.

Sunday began bright and early.  The sun comes up early here and I was awake at 5:15!  Those of you who know how much I love to stay in bed until at least 7 am can tell that this is early!

I headed out to the porch area and met up with some early AM coffee drinkers.  The porch was really nice; I wish we could've spent more time there.

Breakfast was fine: cereal, toast, fruit, eggs (not for me).
Then we were off to the village.  I was nervous about what awaited us there.  This would be our first exposure to the people we would be pouring our lives into for the next 5 days.  It was about a 20 minute drive to village of San Blas.  As we left the main road, the dirt roads became narrower and bumpier  as we went.  The houses became smaller and less sturdy as we went.  Finally we stopped at the village.  As we exited the van, we could hear singing and followed the voices up a trail.  The church service was held at one house, under a tarp roof, with plastic chairs.  We were immediately ushered in, as women, men, and children gave up their chairs for us.  I ended up on the front row, definitely not a place I'm comfortable!  There were several hymns in Spanish and we were invited up to introduce ourselves.  We did lots of handshaking and nodding.  I was definitely getting nervous about my lack of Spanish! 
When it was time for the sermon, the kids left for their class.  Kristin, Theresa, Karen, and I joined them.

Theresa read them a story from their Spanish bible and then we headed back to the main service.

Here's a view of the church from the back.

After the sermon and children's class, they invited the children to come forward to read or sing.  Almost all of them took a turn!  This is sweet, little Erlinda singing.  It made me think we should have our kids more involved in our church services.

Just before the service was over, Adrian gave us the signal that it was time to leave.  We felt a little awkward leaving before they were done, but did as we were told.  Perhaps, they would've kept adding songs until we left, thinking we expected more.
This is what I emailed to Troy after church: It was good.  Really got rid of a lot of legality and celebrated the root of the Gospel.
When we got back to the van, we checked out the drill site while we waited for the villagers to catch this guy:

Yep, that's our dinner for Sunday night!
Lunch back at the compound was grilled chicken on a bed of lettuce.  The food here so far has been right up my alley!  We had passionfruit juice to drink, which was amazing!
After lunch came the much-antipated meeting with Scarleth.  We all were looking to her to ease anxieties and answer questions.  What we got was our first curveball of the week!  Pretty much all we had been told about her was wrong, except that she was new.  Scarleth is very young, and this job as hygeine coordinator is her first, ever.  We were told she would be happy to teach the lessons with us as assistants or to let us do all the teaching while she translated.  To make a lot of complaining very short, I will say that not only was she not happy to teach the lessons, but she also told us that all the lessons and crafts we had prepared were not going to be done because the kids had already done those at other wells.  WHAT?!?!  Oh, and we should come up with crafts for the moms, too because we'd be teaching only them in the mornings. WHAT?!?  When she showed up the supply cabinet (which was a total mess), we also learned that all the supplies we were told would be available in-country (puppets, diarrhea doll, tippy tap) weren't actually available.
I left that meeting feeling very confused, discouraged, and frustrated.  I had 2 lessons to teach on Monday, so I knew Sunday evening would be full of scrambling to come up with something.
After our meeting, we headed out for some sightseeing and shopping in town.  The market was pretty similar to those I've seen in other countries, but I found the vendors less pushy, which was nice.

 

After sightseeing, while we waited for dinner, we re-organized the craft closet, hoping to get a clearer view of what was available to us.  Also, hoping to make Scarleth's job easier.

Dinner wasn't good.  I wish I had a picture!  It was a soup with a chicken leg sticking out plus some chicken/rice/cheese meatballs and some vegetables that I didn't recognize.  I did taste it (you should be proud!), but ended up having a Clif bar instead.

After helping clean the kitchen with Jim, I worked on coloring pages and a puppet for my lessons.  I can tell you that the complaining about Scarleth continued until Deanna said, "Have you guys prayed aboutt this?  Because you should."  We finally listened to her and felt much better about what was to come.

 

So, that's Day 2.  Meanwhile, in San Antonio, this was going on:

I really enjoyed getting daily pictures from Troy!  Helped me not miss my babies too much!

 

Nicaragua day1: Saturday

I am finally getting around to blogging about my Nicaragua trip.  I'm a little hesitant since I'm not sure how much of myself and my feelings I plan to share.  The posts will be long, full of details you probably don't care about but are important to me.  Bear with me...
After months of planning, the big day had finally arrived.  Troy and I were up early to meet the team at 5am at the airport.  I, of course, didn't sleep well and woke up saying, "I've changed my mind; I'm not going."  But, as we all know, I went.
It was reassuring to see familiar faces at the airport, but I was still anxious.
The waiting in SAT went quickly, and the flight to Houston was smooth.  We were scattered throughout the plane for that one.  With a longish layover in Houston, there was time to get a snack and begin to get to know each other.  For the flight to Managua, the Zimmers and I had moved our seat together.  I slept a bit, until my motion sickness started kicking in.  This was one of my fears about this trip.  I don't handle motion sickness well.

We make it through immigration, security, and customs.  I'm still feeling pretty queasy.  As we load into the van, I make it known that's cannot sit in the back.  It becomes an ongoing joke about "my spot".   Several people, including a young boy, approach us for tips.  It's hard to say "no", but we were instructed not to do it.  I'm kind of used to it from our travels to other countries.
As we drive though Managua, we see literal shacks made of tin lining the city streets.  We also pass the dump, where some people (families!) actually live!  Then, all of a sudden, we turn a corner and are at a shopping mall, just like you'd see in America.  It's so strange to see both ends of the spectrum so close together.
Lunch is at a restaurant called Tip Top.  I know Rob was hoping for something more authentic, but I'm grateful it's recognizable-fried chicken!  There's even a play area like McDonald's, and there's a birthday party occurring.  It's quite elaborate, even by American standards!
The drive to the compound is about 45 minutes, and I was feeling much better after getting some food.  The compound is very nice.  It surrounded by a high wall on all sides and manned with an armed guard 24/7.  There are 2 houses, one for the teams and the other for Jorge and his family.  It's very warm in the house, but at least we have an AC unit in our room that we can use at night.   Karen, Kristin, and I end up sharing one room, with Theresa, Deanna, and Emily in the other.  All the men had to share one room and bathroom!
We had a quick information meeting with Jorge, which eased some of our nerves.  I know that I'm still anxious about my role on the hygiene team and look forward to meeting our leader on Sunday.   One thing that Jorge said that I found amazing was that Pepsi is easier for these poor people to get than clean drinking water!  His biggest piece of advice was that the week would fly by and don't have any regrets about missing out on time spent with the people.  I plan to take that very seriously.
Dinner was a chicken stir fry; a nice easing in to Nicaraguan food!  We played some bananagrams before heading off to bed.  Unfortunately, before bed, I discovered that there's no hot water!  At least it's warm weather here!
My biggest fear about this trip, that I hope doesn't come true: that I won't be useful.  That the spot I took on this team was "wasted".