Day 5

Good morning again from Irene. Today we travel back to Managua in preparation for leaving for home tomorrow. Yesterday was a good day in both Santa Marta and in Santa Celia. We were able to do some more home visits and community assessments and Judy was able to see more of the community which will be very helpful with our data collection. Orling, Nikki, Jolie and I went up to Santa Celia and had a busy fun day doing crocheting with not only the women but also several men and of course as always a huge group of children. Many of the women have developed amazing skills and will be able to sell the things they are making. One of the Rainbow staff will be organizing a regualar Sunday gathering of women to get together and learn and practice with each other. She is also organizing the distribution of the yarn and hooks. They were all amazed at the amount of yarn we brought and even more so by my telling them that I still have that much at home for them!! Thank you so much to all who donated! The small amounts given were just the right size to give to someone learning or to the children who were learning to braid or knot little bracelets and necklaces and it was so nice to hand out full skeins to those who were learning advanced skills. Jolie started teaching a couple of women to knit and they learned within minutes!! So.....how about those Knitting needles you have laying around?

Katie and Cassandra finished in Santa Marta and walked up the hill to Santa Celia and kept the kids busy playing all kinds of fun versions of our childrens games and theirs. They taught them the chicken dance which they thought was hysterical.

Judy and Leah had the chance in the afternoon to see a private pediatric clinic in Matagalpa which was informative also. We all had an early return to the hotel today and a bit of a break from the normal hectic schedule.

Last evening we went into town for dinner to a restaurant we had not yet been to and the power kept going off. We were in an enclosed back room with no air eating seafood. It did get quite hot and stuffy by the time we finished, but the food was good.

This morning we have some things we want to do here in Matagalpa then want to be on the road by 11 to Managua.

Apologies for not posting new pictures yet on this trip, we have amazing ones but time is always fleeting. If you promise to continue to check in with us, I promise to post some after we get back if not before.

As always, thank you for being with us.

peace,

Irene

Day 4

Good morning! This is Irene and we are at the start of day 4. Apologies for missing a day, but the last two have been quite busy. We started our health assessments Tuesday and continued them yesterday. We saw approximately 130 people the first day and then another 170 or so yesterday. Two amazing days of organized chaos! We have had the rainbow docs and the dentist with us the last couple of days and it has been delightful to work alongside them. Our computer guru, Mark, set up an amazing computer network and with ipads we were able to enter our assessment data as we went. Who would have thought that we would be able to have electronic medical records in a remote mountain village in Nicaragua? The Rainbow Network scholarships students were amazing in their work with us. They helped at every station, helped the flow of individuals waiting to be seen and were integral to our work.We had a bit of a later day as we then stayed after we cleaned and packed up to leave so that we could have a follow up meeting with the Rainbow staff and the community leaders.We gained  so much information on individual health, community health and literacy levels. Several adults were so excited to get reading glasses in the strength they need, and the smiles on their faces when they could see the pictures on the card were priceless. Many told us that they would now attend the adult education classes because they would be able to see the work!  The scholarship students sent us off by singing two songs to us, getting some of us a bit teary. Meeting the community members one on one as they came through the stations is wonderful.

We didn't arrive back to the hotel until about 6:00 and discovered to our delight that Dr. Candido and Dr. Lissette, our doctors who visited us in La Crosse for Ultrasound training were coming for dinner with their families at 7:00. We had a lovely time with them. Dinner here is always a 3 hour event, especially with such a large group, waiting usually about 2 hours for the food after we order it. With a tired and hungry team, this can be challenging but all in all was lovely to spend that much time with our Nicaraguan friends.

Signing off for now, the team is starting to gather for breakfast. Off to Santa Marta again to do some more community assessment and to get to know it better and to Santa Celia to be with our friends and do some crochet classes.

peace,

Irene

Day two of work

Good morning, this is Irene again. It seems that I am up with the roosters (and I do mean that literally) so am able to write a note early in the morning before anyone else is stirring. By the way, the roosters here start about midnight or 1am. I can use ually ignore them until at least 4:30 or so.

Yesterday we were in Santa Marta for the first time to start our work. We always start with a meeting with the community leaders on our first day in a community. Introductions are done, we are formally welcomed there, then we introduce ourselves and talk about our work with them for the week. After that we did a bit of a community assessment and visited individual homes to learn more about their lives. We also worked on getting everything set up to begin our health and literacy assessments today. We played with the children and visited with the community members for awhile. Then we made the short trek to Santa Celia to check in and say hi to our friends there. We also dropped off a full suitcase of yarn, which they were so excited to see because they have been crocheting like crazy since we left and it is almost gone! Thanks to the amazing generosity of our friends back home we still have lots of yarn to take out there later this week. Some of the women showed us the things they have been making and they are beautiful! One of the women very proudly showed a lovely small blanket to Nikki and then gave it to her as a gift for teaching her how to do it.It was a very sweet moment. Nikki has class set up for 10am on Thursday and the women are spreading the word.

We sent Paul and Karen off to Managua yesterday to meet Mark and Judy and do the hand off. Paul and Karen are taking some much needed time to enjoy themselves this week and rest and recuperate. Mark and Judy arrived safe and well and immediately went into assessment mode getting all of the technology ready and training everyone for the tasks today. We also spent a lot of time emptying suitcases, sorting and organizing supplies and re-packing them and getting the vehicles loades so we could head out right after our early morning breakfast. A very busy evening for all of the team members.

It's time to head out shortly, so I shall sign out for now. Thanks for follwing us on this journey.

peace,

Irene

Our first day

Hi this is Irene again! I had quite the blog written and due to technical difficulties beyond my control, I think it is lost somewhere. I will attempt to recreate it and apologize if somehow they both show up and there are repeats.

We had good travels to Matagalpa without incident yesterday and a lovely time at Selva Negra,walking in amazement at the beauty of the forest. The howler monkeys were in fine form, making quite a noise and most of us were able to see them, busy at the tree tops. It was a lovely break from the heat and noise of the capital city. We stopped at the grocery store on our way to our hotel and we encountered our awesome Nicaraguan friends and interpreters, Marcos, Frank and Orling. Our reunions with them are always so wonderful with lots of hugs and excitement to be back together. Upon arriving at the hotel we reunited with Al, who had been wandering Nicaragua for most of last week. We also found Cassie and Rachel waiting for us. They are 2 students doing work in Costa Rica and are joining us in our work here for a few days.

Today will be getting to know the community of Santa Marta, with a meeting with the community leaders, visiting individual homes and doing community and environmental assessments. We hope to stop briefly up the road in Santa Celia and visit our friends there. We will also be preparing to begin our health assessments tomorrow.

Thank you for checking in, please keep in touch.

peace,
Irene

We made it!

Hi, Irene here, just wanting you to know that our team is together and all is well. How awesome to be met at the airport by familiar faces. Mark and Judy will still be joining us on Monday after the Global Health Conference and our team 2 will be complete. We will hit the road soon for our  trek to Matagalpa, with a stop at Selva Negra to hike in the rainforest. This seems a very appropriate activity to honor Earth Day today.

Thanks for joining us and feel free to comment and send us messages as well. We look forward to hearing from you.

Peace and love,

Irene

From the homefront!

Hi! This is Irene, still stateside and so very anxious for Team 2 to be on our way on Saturday. Thanks so much for joining us on this adventure. We are hearing wonderful things from Team 1, including that they have been quite busy in their work and may not have had time to contribute to the blog. As we all know, there are always a variety of technical difficulties as well. At any rate, hopefully we will be successful in continuing this information stream throughout the next week. Keep checking in!