MINSA, Jalapeño chips, and Toothpaste

I haven’t written in a couple days so I’ll catch up now.
Monday was a pretty normal day. It consisted of time in the MINSA clinic, like usual, and we went to go visit a lady who had a small machete wound on her foot. Her foot was sooo swollen! Mindy cleaned it up and we gave her some antibiotics and Ibuprofen to help with the infection and swelling. Her husband, Pedro Hitler, was the cutest old man. He was like 70 and about 30 years older than his wife. He was enthusiastic for 70 though and was a real sweetheart. He wanted to practice his English on us and I told him that was fine as long as he would teach us Miskito! I’m pretty sure we’ll become good friends haha.
Afterwards, Mindy, Bridget, Ruth, and I went out on the town in search for our favorite Jalapeño tortilla chips. Ruth showed us the four different little shops we had in Francia that I had no idea about! We went all the way out by the high school and saw a beautiful sunset. I realized (as I have been a lot more lately) it really is pretty here sometimes. Out past the town square is more of a serene, secluded area. Mindy and I talked about going out there sometime to watch a sunset or sunrise sometime. Out there was like on a hill that overlooked pretty much Nicaraguan “jungle” and right on the horizon you could see the sun. It was pretty nice!
Tuesday started off like normal as well. After working in the clinic we went to visit our friend Noelia. We first met her after we found out that she had lost her baby that we couldn’t hear a heartbeat for a while back. We befriended her and her brother, Fernando, who always seem to be giving us stuff. The first time we visited her she gave us a bunch of plantains and promised us some papayas. The next time we went her brother gave us a bunch of papayas and some sugar cane. This day was no different. As we were leaving, Mindy complimented Noelia on her earrings. She smiled and asked, “Does she have her ears pierced?” I answered in the affirmative. “Does she wear earrings?” I said yes. Immediately she pulled the earrings off of her ears and handed them to Mindy. We were both amazed at her kindness. I just thought to myself, “Why is it that this lady who has so little compared to so many people is still so willing to give?” I was humbled.
After we left there, we came back to the hill to pick up a goodie bag that we were going to give to a new mother. This was a 15-year-old girl that had just had a baby the week before. The first time I saw this girl in the clinic I couldn’t believe she was even pregnant. That isn’t the first (and I’m sure it won’t be the last) time I felt that way. When we got to her house, we were followed by a flock of children. There were probably 10 random kids that just walked up behind us. Sometimes stuff like that happens around here haha. We got followed or we get stared at. I’m thinking that may stop eventually but I’m not so sure. Anyway, we gave the girl the gift and they were very grateful. I like it that we’re starting to get to know people around here. It definitely changes the way I feel about here. The more I get to know people, the more it feels like home.
Wednesday morning we went to MINSA, but things were really slow. The doctor and nurse from Waspam were back so they were saying most of the patients that were coming in and there weren’t that many coming in the first place. Mindy and I left early and headed back to the hill. Later that afternoon we went to do Bible study. That’s been going slow lately because we haven’t been able to catch Francisco and Anamelia at home probably because everybody is out getting rice in their plantations. We can’t talk to Zanaida so we usually don’t do much over there. This time, though, Mindy and I decided to take a beach ball to play with the kids. So we went and played with the kids for about an hour. Then, we all got together and had a word of prayer before we left. We got to know a bunch of them and they really seemed to take a liking to us. Just a little while longer we were walking down the street and ran into those kids again. Some ran towards us and gave us hugs, while others greeted us with ear-to-ear smiles. That made my day! Again, feeling like I’m getting to know people makes the world of difference here.
Today (Thursday) we went to Santa Clara to teach about tooth brushing. I was excited about it and it turned out being even more fun than I thought it would be. I thought it would be kind of intimidating going up in front of those kids since I hadn’t really prepared, but it was fun! The kids were quiet for the most part, but it was surprisingly rewarding when they did respond. Even more rewarding was when we heard some kids walking down the hall singing the song we had just taught them. Not only that, but we saw a couple of little girls afterwards with gobs of toothpaste running down their chin. It’s kind of nice to know that the effort we’re putting forth is making a difference, even for just a little while.

Beans, frogs, and cow poo

So I decided to write more of a daily account of the things I’ve been doing, and man, did I pick a good day to do that.
It didn’t take long for my day to get interesting. I started off reading my “matutina” and then went to meet the group for worship at 7:00 a.m. Before I could even get to the meeting spot on the veranda, we had a lady come up to the steps. This happens pretty regularly if MINSA was closed so I wasn’t that surprised. I asked the lady, “Dia mai daukisa?” which means basically “What’s wrong?” in Miskito. (Sometimes I don’t like to ask because even though I can ask I can’t usually tell what they’re saying anyway.) She went on to explain that there was something in her 1-year-old baby boy’s nose. I looked up his right nostril, and sure enough there was. It looked kind of like a blood clot so we didn’t think it would be hard to remove at all. We managed to find some forceps and started to try to pull it out. I stuck the tweezers up the kid’s nose and noticed it was hard. This was not a blood clot; it looked like a bean. A big black bean. Eventually I gave up because I was more worried about shoving it further up the kid’s nose so then Mindy tried. No such luck. We took the kid down to the clinic to see if we could suction it out with a 60cc syringe. We cut off the tip of it and stuck it up the kid’s nose hoping it would create enough suction to pull out the giant black bean. No luck there, either. Finally we went to get Jahnette. I was completely confident that she would be able to pop that sucker out no problem. We got to her house and as we greeted Amelia we told her about the kid. “Oh yeah. He was here yesterday. We couldn’t get it out. We can try again today though.” Great! We went back to the clinic and waited for Jahnette to meet us there to see if she could work her usual magic. When she finally did get there, she said what we should do is plug up the kid’s ears and other nostril, blow through his mouth, and hope it creates enough pressure to push out the bean. So that we did. We tried about 20 times and nothing. We’ll try again later and if not, we’ll have to take him to the hospital in Waspam.
This was not the end of my interesting day, however. I did a fun activity for the big chunk of my afternoon: scrub cow poop. The community center here was filthy. There was cow poop pretty much all over the floor. A few of us decided there’s no good reason one of our buildings should be like that so we set out to fix the problem ourselves. Jeremy put a new latch and lock on the door so that cows and any other random people can’t just get in and leave the door open for animals to enter. Then we scrubbed. For hours. I don’t know about any of you, but that’s not the kind of activity I’m used to doing on a Sunday afternoon. It was nasty, but by the time we were done it looked pretty good. I just hope it stays like that.
When I got back from scrubbing the floors Tekoa had a nice present for me. First of all, let me give some background on the situation. It seems that Mindy and I have started a war of sorts against Tekoa and Rachel. It all started one day at the shower house. Mindy and I thought it would be funny to throw coconuts down to the showers while Tekoa and Rachel were in there. So we did. And it was funny. We were kind of far so a few of them didn’t really hit the doors but it was enough to scare and annoy them. They wouldn’t just let that slide, of course. Probably within a few days later, they had payback ready for us. When we were in the shower, they threw coconuts at us. Mindy yells, “Real original, guys!” which of course only fueled the fire. So Tekoa marches down to the shower house, opens my door and steals my dirty clothes. Me, being the genius that I am, tell her that they’re my dirty clothes. So she comes back in, takes my clean clothes and my towel too. I just watched her do it! So now I’m stuck in my shower with nothing but my dirty clothes. Mindy’s a good friend though so she offers to go back up to the room and get me some clothes. Too bad Tekoa has already locked her in her shower stall. So I put back on my dirty clothes (I know) and unlock Mindy. Tekoa kindly informs me that my clothes and towel are at the sink so I can get dressed. On top of it all, she recorded the whole thing. So Mindy and I decided that we MUST get revenge. Tekoa has this thing where she thinks that if her mosquito net is open for .2 seconds a malaria carrier is going to come in. So whenever I open up her net she yells, “You’re letting malaria into my bed!” We start to plot and decide to steal Tekoa’s mosquito net. When she goes down to take a shower one day, Mindy and I quickly take her net off her before she gets back. We were running around all excited about our prank and even put two Chloroquine pills on her pillow to top it all off. She walked in, says, “NO!” and turns around and stomps away. We thought she was sooo upset! We weren’t sure what to do, so we figured the best thing to do was to put her net back on. She came back in a few minutes later and she was fine, but I still think she was a little mad at first haha. She assured me there would be revenge, and I was pretty sure I knew what that meant. I’m afraid of frogs. I don’t really know why – I just don’t like them. I don’t usually share this fact with people because I don’t want them to use it against me. Tekoa knows of this thing I have with frogs and once joked that if I ever messed with her she would put frogs in my bed. Well, she wasn’t lying. When I got back from cleaning the community center I walk into the room and find that Tekoa is following me with a digital camera. I knew this meant trouble. I look over to bed and there is this box of laundry soap all taped up sitting in the middle of my bed. I couldn’t believe she had really done what I was thinking that she had done. The thought was confirmed when I saw the box shake as if something were inside of it trying to jump out. She put a frog in my bad! After a little bit of freaking out and screaming I eventually picked up the box and let the frog out. To top it all off, when I went back to my bed there was a nice little wet spot where the box had been. Yeah… I just let Tekoa know that although she may have won this battle, she certainly hadn’t won the war. I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me…

A day in the life

Let me tell you what my typical day is like. Depending on whether I run in the morning, I can get up anywhere between 5 and 6 a.m. We have worship as a group at 6:30. Breakfast follows shortly after. Then, I get dressed up in my scrubs and head down to the MINSA clinic. MINSA stands for “Ministerio de Salud” and is the governmental health organization for Nicaragua. Our friend Jahnette is the sole nurse in charge of the clinic in Francia and is responsible for the entire village as well as some of the other surrounding villages all by herself! She says other health professionals don’t like to stay in Francia. It’s more uncomfortable than the bigger cities like Waspam or Puerto Cabezas. We don’t have electricity, or more importantly, ice cream here. But this is where the doctors are needed. Anyway, Jahnette lets us work with her throughout the day and is very good about interacting with us and teaching us. So far I’ve already participated in a delivery, given several shots, and helped to see patients and prescribe medication (all under her supervision, of course). I’m learning a lot, but I’m also realizing how much I don’t know. So, after the clinic we had back to “the hill” (what everybody calls where we live) and have some free time. I try to study Miskito, read a book, or watch some episodes of House with Mindy. My most important afternoon activity, however, is Bible study. Me and Mindy have been going to the houses of a couple families who live near us and going through Steps to Christ with them. The language barrier here makes it difficult sometimes (not everyone speaks Spanish) but I pray that any little seed I can plant will grow with the help of the Holy Spirit. Please, please, PLEASE keep these Bible studies in your prayers. If I leave here having done nothing but brought some people to Christ, I’ll be happy. Finally, at around 6 it gets dark, we have dinner, followed by another group worship, and a couple hours to relax. Sometimes we’ll watch a movie or Alias with the projector and a white sheet on the wall of the kitchen. If not, I’ll just read a book and go to bed. Usually this place is pretty much dead by 9 p.m. That’s pretty crazy to me who lived my life at southern complaining about 8 a.m. classes and couldn’t manage to go to bed before midnight! So that’s pretty much a day in the life of a Nicaraguan SM and what things are like around here. I’ll check back in a bit! Love and miss you all!

I lost count of the weeks...

Now that I’ve been in Francia a few weeks, let me tell you about it.
All the girls sleep in a wooden cabin with a tin roof that makes the rain sound really loud (like right now). There are seven bunk beds cramped in this place which gives us barely enough room to fit all of our stuff. I kind of like it though. It forces us to all be together. There are no private conversations; everyone is invited to join in haha!
We don’t have any dressers or anything so it looks like I’ll be living out of a suitcase for the next 7 ½ months. We have a bunch of wooden boards on the walls that serve as shelves. Too bad some are only about 3 inches thick and can barely hold my books!
We do get to use a toilet (which I wasn’t expecting) so I’m happy about that. You get to the showers by taking a little hike (maybe 150 ft.) down to the shower houses. These were better than I thought they’d be. Aside from the occasional cockroach and tarantula, after some TLC they look pretty good!
We get water and electricity most of the time. All of the water we use is collected rainwater. No plumbing here! If it doesn’t rain for a while we can’t bathe, flush toilets, or cook. Luckily it has been raining more lately, but after a couple of months when the dry season comes we’ll probably have to go down to the river to bathe. Our electricity is supplied by I think 6 solar panels mounted to the roof of our kitchen. If it’s cloudy, we may not have electricity at night unless we turn on the generator.
Our kitchen is fully equipped with a sink and a gas stove/oven. No refrigerators here! Did you know that you don’t have to put eggs or mayo in the fridge in Nicaragua? It’s true! We have two lovely ladies who help us out around the mission by cooking and doing our laundry. Their names are Alisa and Miss Brown. Most of the time we get rice and beans for our meals with some kind of side – vegetables, veggie patties (no, not Morningstar ones!), or plantains. One the weekends we usually get a special snack – empanadas (made with coconut and cinnamon, not cheese or meat) or cinnamon rolls made from scratch.
Our group is awesome! I’m fortunate to be on this journey with such an amazing collection of individuals! We have students from all the big Adventist universities – Walla Walla, Andrews, Union, Southwestern, and of course Southern. There are eight girls and two guys. All of us get along really well considering how big of a group we are and all our different backgrounds. I’m blessed!

Here with us is also the mission family, the Zimmermans, and their many pets. They have two dogs – a Rottweiler (Condor) and a yellow lab (Sheba). These dogs are awesome! All you have to do is call their names and say “kuerko!” (Miskito for “pig”) and they dash out into the yard to chase the pigs away. It’s crazy how much they listen to commands in general. We also are blessed with the presence of Biara (Miskito for “stomach”) but everyone just calls her Monkey. She’s a cute-LOOKING little spider monkey with a not-so-cute attitude. She’s quite mischievous! She especially likes to swing by and grab your hair and/or glasses as you’re walking by. She even bit me once! She picks on the dogs too! Poor Condor will get smacked on the head repeatedly as she swings by on her little rope. We also have the parrot whose name I don’t know. It’s just the parrot. To me, it’s now the parrot that I hate because it pooped on my head this morning. Next, we have the Buchin, which is their pet squirrel. I have never EVER in my life been able to come even remotely close to a squirrel, but this one will just climb right on your shoulder, especially if you have food.

Lastly, we have the chickens. The chickens don’t have names, but they should considering they lay eggs in Mindy’s stuff every morning. If you’re going to be dropping eggs next to my pajamas, we better be on a first-name basis!

The most recent addition is the sloth. Yes, we have a sloth. Or had. We can't find him right now. His name is Sid, like the one in Ice Age but he's no where to be found right now. He couldn't have gotten too far though...

Ahhh the life of an SM...

Week 2

Hey everybody,
Sorry I haven’t been able to write this past week. The computer has been down at the mission and there are NO phones in town so there was no way for me to communicate with you. I’ve been thinking about you a lot. I hope you’re all doing well. I miss you all, but I know God has me here for a reason.
So this past week has been o.k. We flew in to Puerto Cabezas and (of course) our luggage didn’t come in with us so I had to go like 2 or 3 days without clothes. It is SO HOT here so I was like all sweaty and stuff. It was really gross.
The ride from Puerto Cabezas was both awesome and horrible. We had to ride on the bed of this huge truck with all 8 of us and our carry-on luggage. Most of the way the roads weren’t paved so it was REALLY REALLY bumpy. It was REALLY uncomfortable because we were basically just sitting on these little wooden benches. BUT, it was also REALLY NICE because the stars were CRAZY AMAZING!!! I have never seen stars like that before! It was my first time ever seeing the milky way (no, not the candy bar)! I would just stare up at the sky as we drove along…truly probably one of the most memorable experiences in my life. It was BEAUTIFUL! The stars are nice here in general, but I hate sitting outside during the night because there are so many freaking bugs. You should see my legs and arms…I’ve been getting eaten alive.
The food is good I guess. It’s rice and beans like all of the time. I’m talking about breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Everyday. But at least it’s good food everyday. It could be nasty food every day, like at SAU, right? LOL
So, I’ve spent all week just cleaning the clinic. IT IS SO NASTY! Everything is like super dirty and there are cockroaches and TARANTULAS! It was bad! We got it cleaned up a lot now, but it still looks pretty bad. It doesn’t really matter though, because we won’t even be in there most of the time.
Starting next week we’re gonna start the mobile clinics. We have to go out to the different villages and try to help people. We have a four wheeler, a couple of bikes, and a couple of motorcycles. I can’t drive a four wheeler or the motorcycles so the next nine months should be interesting considering that it can take HOURS to get to some of these villages by bike. No one in our “medical” group actually has worked as a nurse or doctor so we’re all a little worried. Sometimes I really don’t feel worthy to even be here because I don’t know ANYTHING. I know, though, that God will give me the knowledge to do what I need to do. I know that if I ask, I will receive, especially if I’m asking for blessings so that I can bless others.
But anyways, I miss you all so much! I love you with all of my heart and I can’t wait until I can talk to you again!

Contact Info!

I can't believe that in exactly one week from right now I will be in Nicaragua barely beginning my journey as a missionary!

Here is some info so you can keep in touch with me:

Email - yn4rra@winlinc.org       

The email system is rather "primitive" there. Somehow it works through ham radio. I don't know the details but apparently everybody receives their email together so if you want to send me a message, MAKE SURE YOU PUT MY NAME IN THE SUBJECT LINE so I know its just for me! I should be able to check that pretty regularly, so feel free to drop me a line once you start missing me!

Also just FYI, I should be going into town every once in a while where there is an internet cafe. That'll be when I can update my blog, check my normal email, go on facebook/myspace, and HOPEFULLY chat with my webcam. I'll let you know about the webcam when I get there...

Mail - I don't get mail exactly where I'm living, but there is an Adventist college that holds our mail for us until we can pick it up (which will probably be every couple of weeks or once a month). Slap this on the box of goodies you're sending me and I'll be sure to get it (eventually): 

Jennifer Seymour - Tasba Raya Clinica Adventista

Colegio Adventista Porteño

Frente Plaza Central

Puerto Cabezas, RAAN

Nicaragua, Centro America

As for phone calls, I don't know how often I'll get access to a phone so I'll call when I can.

Love you all and remember to keep me in your prayers!!!

Before I go...

I'm three weeks away from leaving and it feels like so soon and yet so far away. I've been waiting for August 18 to roll by for some time now and I'm starting to feel anxious. Still, when I think about how long I'll be gone and how everyone will carry on a whole nine months without me, I find myself hoping for these next three weeks to go by slowly. I hear about my friends getting ready for a new school year - a time I've always found to be so exciting; so full of possibilities. I don't want to miss anything, but I know I'm going to miss a lot. Even so, I realize that there is a whole world in need outside the little bubble that I've been living in and I have an opportunity to help, so I'm going to take it. Jesus didn't live inside a bubble, did He? 

I just ask that you keep me in your prayers. I know I'm going to need it. I'm excited for the chance to do something life-changing, but I'm nervous about all of the uncertainty. Know that I love you all and will miss you greatly. Don't forget about me while I'm gone! =)