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...