tuesday evening: we’ve been through the first two of four days of work in the village of jinocuao. it’s evening. we’ve had another outstanding dinner of beans and rice and homemade guacamole (from the oddest avocados you have ever seen.) nancy, kevin, courtney, lance, mary, stephanie, jamon (ham — it’s what james has renamed himself), amy, ken and i are sitting in the large patio area of the hotel puma (meow) looking at pictures, enjoying a breeze, eating cheetos (hey, don’t judge us) and chatting.
so far in the past 48 hours we have:
-gotten 5 feet into a 7-foot deep triple-latrine. (notice the pictures — and you may have to look in various places for the pix. day one is the carla-in-the-hole pic and day two is the bruce-in-the-hole-pic.)
(one of the many cool stories about the whole latrine project — never thought you’d hear a cool story about digging a primitive toilet, eh — is that after harold bought the heads for pick axes (they didn’t come with handles??) rafael, one of the locals working with us, took his machete and made handles…that fit perfectly…out of tree branches.)
-packaged 60,000 vitamins into tiny plastic bags…
-and put them into 400 home health kits to hand out to villages…
-in a series of classes hosted by “gringo” graham. he has made such an impression hosting these things that he’s being considered for the hosting job on nicaragua’s “quien quire ser un milionario.” he talks to about 50 people at a time explaining how to use the stuff that’s in the packages. he has the cleanest teeth in nicaragua as he apparently brushes his teeth, LIVE, for everyone in every meeting.
(the gringo thing? remember last year we told you about “dashing” doug the doctor? every year, carla does this great exercise where on our first night together, we introduce ourselves by adding an adjective to our first name (and it starts with the same letter unless you’re ken hubbell and somehow you think “superfrog” starts with “k.” we just let that one go.) graham, who lives in costa rica, has become accustomed to being a “gringo.” well, doug caused such a furor by being “dashing” last time around, that this year his wife cindy (who some of you may have met at some wedding in september) wrote out options for the n.c. team members before they left. paul went with pig-headed. josh picked jovial, which he claims to have come up with on his own. doug, still smarting from last year’s naming fiasco, shunned determined, delightful — no way he was going with that one — and diligent for the tried, true and oh-so-generic “doctor” doug. scarred for life i guess.)
-painted hundreds of children’s teeth with fluoride and made valentines with same.
-treated over 110 patients in our clinic. what a difference it makes to have 2 docs and three nurses!
-spoken more spanish than perhaps any mission team thus far (much of it fatally flawed, but hey…)
-and tried to explain to frank, one of our leaders, how to use the phrase “that’s what she said.” he’s starting to get the hang of it (for better or for worse).
we have done quite a bit more than this, and the best way to learn about it…ask someone who is here to talk about the experience.
as you are looking around here, keep your eyes open for pix of:
nancy, graham and kids headed back from a valentines day art class.
stephanie in the pharmacy.
kevin and sue working in the clinic.
painting teeth.
a little nicaraguan girl wearing one of the beautiful dresses from n.c.
good night and god bless.
((look for multiple new posts.))
