Granada and The Lost Boys

January 23
I arrived in Granada this morning, met up with the rest of the group of volunteers and got on another bus to Laguna Apoyo. It sits under Mount Mombocho, a dormant volcano. We swam, ate and generally chilled out.

Once back in Granada, we split up and a small group of us wandered around the mercado after a cup of lovely Nicaraguan coffee, mas fuerte!

After dinner we were standing in the hotel lobby and an American man approached us. He feeds some of the homeless boys and is working to help them stop sniffing glue. Two of the boys had a high fever, would one of us come take a look? There were eight or nine raggedy, skinny boys ranging in age from 8 to 13 or 14. Three of them had fever, sore throat, body aches, swollen lymph nodes, and a cough. One just had fever and lymph nodes. They all wanted attention and love. There wasn^t much I could do except hand out ibuprofen and hugs.

Grammatical caveat. The Central American computer keyboard has many subtle differences which is causing me to pull my hair out. So if you see punctuation that doesn´t seem quite right, just bear with me this week.


January 24

We started clinic today. The day started with a trip to a pharmacy to purchase medications to give out. All together I saw twenty five patients from the ages of 4 months to 80 years. Just a regular day. Paula, an RN from North Carolina, worked with me today. Boy was I happy to have her. After work, we went to a boy´s orphanage for our daily mass. It was in spanish today. My language skills are picking up! We took all the boys for pizza afterword. Tomorrow we go to a girl´s home called Calcutta. I wish I had time to record everything that´s happening here. Every minute feels significant.

Bienvenidos a Nicaragua

There is a certain joy that comes with traveling to the tropics in the winter when one has been freezing their tushie for the last couple of months. I´m on the hotel computer at the Best Western hotel across the street from the airport in Managua, Nicaragua, waiting for my room to cool off.

There are all sorts of flowers blooming in the courtyard and the moon is up. In the morning Í´ll be catching a shuttle to Granada, where I´ll be staying for the rest of the week. The plane was loaded with Minnesotan women who were coming to volunteer with an orphanage through their church. All of them very blond and tall and thrilled to be leaving the artic temps behind. I sat next to a gentleman from Monroe, Louisiana who was here on his fourth trip to Acatal, bringing medical and building supplies. He still had a four hour bus trip into the mountains after reaching the airport.

It still feels unreal that I´m here and I´ve got that "just traveled for 12 hours" sort of manic feeling. A good night´s sleep followed by some Nicaraguan coffee should fix me right up.

Stay tuned. Hopefully, I´ll be able to get an internet connection on my laptop tomorrow. If so, there will be some photos!

Buenos Noches.