Believe it or not, I actually have a job...

I figured that it’s about time I write about the real reason I’m here, which believe it or not isn’t to weigh the pros and cons of hot water, public transportation, or pigs as bacon, not pets. I do have a job and it has proven to be quite an interesting experience, so bare with me and then I promise I’ll get back to the good stuff later, like my first experience with doing laundry in a third-world country.


I started working pretty much the second I got off the plane in Managua. On the same flight as me were 16 undergrad students from Yeshiva and Rutgers who would be staying in Limon and volunteering for FIMRC for the week. Since then it has been non-stop volunteers and will be straight through the end of March. In total, there will be over 40 Americans coming to this town to help provide medical care and public health education.

FIMRC is funded almost exclusively by volunteers. They pay a pretty large sum of money to come here – most of that money goes directly to the clinic and the community (believe me, it’s certainly not coming my way!). So, it’s critical that they enjoy their time here, see value in the work that we’re doing, and go home and tell their friends to get involved with FIMRC. Thus, a good portion of my job is tour guide/babysitter/responder to the 50 million questions they have each day…this is the ultimate test of my patience.

Volunteers go on rounds at the various clinics in the area, as well as the government-run hospital in Rivas. They see some things that would blow your mind…and as a function of my job I’m required to see these things too. On Friday, I scrubbed in and watched a man have his leg amputated (pictures of the shock on my increasingly yellow face to follow). Last week, I saw three c-sections and got vaccinated by a second-year med student – hey, it was free and I ran into a barbed wire fence the day before.

Aside from catering to the volunteers, I’m working with another FIMRC staff member to help establish and grow FIMRC’s program in Nicaragua. Right now, we don’t have our own clinic here, whereas at all other FIMRC sites we do. Here, we partner with the Roberto Clemente Clinic, which is a private clinic funded primarily by Rancho Santana, the “Beverly Hills of Nicaragua” that sits past some giant gates just outside of Limon. Basically, the millionaires at Rancho thought it would be a good idea to 1, have a place they could go get emergency medical care should they trip on the marble floors in their mansions and 2, to contribute something positive to the community aside from their five-minute trips into town where they grace the community members with their presence. Can you sense any distaste for these folks yet?

So, FIMRC has a formal agreement with Roberto Clemente – we provide funding for the clinic and volunteers to execute community outreach and education programs and in turn, the clinic offers us a base from which we can run our program in Limon.

Now the problems. Number one, Roberto Clemente is not technically a free clinic. The clinic charges a “voluntary” fee of $1 per visit. To be clear, nothing “voluntary” in Nicaragua is actually voluntary (we learned this the hard way when there was a “voluntary” tip added to our bill in Granada and the waiter chased us down the street on his bike for not paying the whole thing). So people are absolutely expected to pay. And for most people in Limon, $1 is what they make in an entire week, so this “voluntary” fee means they don’t go to the clinic for care. Instead, they can walk about 1 mile down the road to the government clinic in Las Salinas, where everything is 100 percent free, including all medicines and vaccinations.

And hence the biggest problem of our partnership with Roberto Clemente. FIMRC’s mission is to provide free medical care to children and at RC, we can’t do that. The clinic board is insistent on this fee remaining. They’re afraid that if they don’t have the fee, people from all across Nicaragua will travel to get care at this clinic instead of the government clinics. This is likely true (government clinics are severely lacking in resources), but isn’t that the point?

So to correct this issue, FIMRC’s Yale chapter has raised over $23,000 to build a pediatric ward at RC that would provide FREE medical care to children. Which brings me to problem number 2: the RC board doesn’t want to sell FIMRC the land to build the ward. Instead, they want FIMRC to give them the money and they’ll build the ward and continue to charge for care.

Are you getting the feeling that the board members at RC may not be looking out for the best interests of the community? That’s the understatement of the year. I can’t figure it out yet – why they would treat this clinic like a business instead of a resource for people in need. They view FIMRC wanting to build a pediatric ward as “competition” – when you’re talking about providing free care to save lives this seems pretty ridiculous.

So it’s a pretty tenuous relationship right now and things are starting to come to a head. We attended the clinic’s BORED meeting last week (keep in mind: they meet in an air-conditioned room at the resort with wait staff, cold beverages, and fresh fruit while they talk about how well-connected to the community they are…and then hop on their helicopters to head back to the States). At the meeting, we presented our desire to build the pediatric ward and were pretty much snubbed. So the future of our partnership is up in the air.

In the meantime, I’ve been talking to lots of people in the community about other alternatives. There’s a fishing village north of here where there is absolutely no medical care – if they want to go to a clinic, they walk 4-5 hours one way to get care. The mayor of our district lives in this village and would be highly supportive of a clinic there…as would the owner of the local hotel here, who has property there and offered his design and project management services should we build there instead of Limon. I’m hoping that after I put together all of the resources we have in this community, FIMRC will decide to cut ties with RC and build a clinic in Ostiero, where there’s a huge need and the opportunity for FIMRC to really fulfill its mission.

While I work on saving the world one Nicaraguan pediatric clinic at a time, I’m also in the process of finishing up a massive census of the four communities in the area. This info was pulled together by volunteers over the past year and provides us with a complete list of every person that lives here, a map of where they live, how old they are, and any medical conditions they may have. Once this information is all in order, we’ll be able to implement a more formal system for ensuring they’re all getting care.

So the moral of the story – I do in fact have a job here, it’s proving to be challenging and interesting, and if the volunteers don’t drive me crazy, I may actually be able to make a difference. I’ll let you know how that goes, but first I need to make it through my first experience at a Nicaraguan “fiesta” which I’m off to now. Will write more later – love and miss you all.

Granada

I ventured out of my two-street village this weekend and went with the volunteers to Granada, one of the oldest Colonial cities in the Americas (to be honest, I don’t even know what that really means, but that’s how everyone here describes it). Granada is about two hours north of Limon. We had planned on taking the van there…until the van broke down on our way to the hospital to do rounds that morning. So, with no other options, I was forced into my first experience with Nicaraguan public transportation.


In Nicaragua, most people travel via bus. Especially in remote villages like Limon, hardly anyone has a car and the nearest cities are too far for the usual cattle-drawn carriage (I can’t remember the real name for these, but they’re a legitimate form of transportation here). So, there’s pretty much one way to go and that’s the bus.

Ever wonder what happens to big yellow school busses when they’re no longer in good enough shape to use in America? Well, Nicaraguans buy them, slap some ridiculous paint on the outside, deck out the inside with pictures of Jesus, and call it “public transportation.”

Every bus has a driver and then another guy who handles luggage and helps to “facilitate” people finding their seats. In other words, the second guy is an absolute maniac who screams, pushes people out of the way, and does super-human maneuvers with ridiculous cargo. The driver never stops for his assistant. If the assistant gets off the bus to grab someone’s bag/bike/bucket of fish (serious), the bus keeps moving while the assistant runs alongside, leaps up the ladder on the back, stands straight up on the roof of the moving bus, and ties down whatever cargo was thrown his way.

And this is all on the outside.

Inside, the bus is quite the experience. We got on early and had to sit for about 30 minutes before it left the station. During the waiting time, women and children circulate from bus to bus offering anything under the sun for sale – fried chicken, juice in a bag (that’s how it’s sold here…plastic sandwich bags are filled with juice and tied closed), flashlights, underwear, an assortment of baked goods, and even different colored nail clippers. I’m still trying to figure out who sits on the bus and thinks to themselves, “oh, I really need to buy a nail clipper before we depart for Granada,” but I guess that question will go unanswered for now.

The ride itself wasn’t too bad, aside from the woman who got on half-way through and brought with her two buckets full of fish…and the man who stood in the aisle next to my seat with his crotch so close to my face that I was unable to look to the right for a good 30 minutes. So, with a sore neck and a serious need for a shower, my first experience with Nicaraguan public transportation was complete and we had arrived in Granada.

The city itself is really great – it’s absolutely gorgeous, with tons of old buildings, lots of bright colors, beautiful churches, and an excellent view of Lake Nicaragua to one side and a volcano to the other. It’s crazy how different it can be just two hours north – there were paved roads, street lights, and even somewhat warm water in my shower!

In the afternoon, we took a boat ride on Lake Nicaragua, where they took us to a cluster of islands within the lake (there are over 300 right around each other) and drove us around the mega-mansions, old Spanish forts, and islands inhabited only by monkeys. We climbed to the top of an old clock tower to watch the sunset and got some great photos of the city…well, I didn’t since I’m currently without camera, but my volunteers did and they’ll share them with me when they get back!

That night, we had a great good dinner at a restaurant called El Tercer Ojo. It’s an “Asian fusion” restaurant in Nicaragua, which means a mix of Spanish tapas, Italian pastas, Indian curries, and traditional Nicaraguan fare all on one menu. Please note that despite being touted as Asian fusion there is not one single Asian item served at this restaurant. I guess that’s what gives it its charm.

I took the bus back early on Sunday morning so I could spend the day in Limon catching up on e-mail, cleaning my room, and watching the football game. We may not have pavement here, but at least we get football at a few select locations :) And thus ended my weekend adventure. I’ll post more this week about my job – it’s been an interesting experience so far. And I’m getting a camera this week so hopefully pretty soon you’ll be seeing some photos!

Modern Conveniences

I’ve been living in Nicaragua for one week – so much has happened this week it really feels like one month. I’m still trying to figure out how to piece together everything that I’m experiencing and explain it in a blog, so for now, I thought I’d share with you my top-5 list of modern conveniences that I miss so far…and that you should never take for granted:

1. The ability to flush toilet paper. Yes, you read that correctly.
2. Dog leashes
3. Pavement
4. Pigs in the form of bacon, not next door neighbors
5. Hot water

The good news is that in spite of all the above, I still absolutely love it here and wouldn’t trade any of it for anything (alright, perhaps I would trade the ability to flush toilet paper, but that’s it). It’s really incredible how life works here. And how despite the fact that these people have next to nothing, they are so incredibly happy.

Sorry for the short post – I’ll have another one coming your way later this week but I’m about to take the volunteers to dinner at the best restaurant (and one of only two) in town. It’s called Dona Yolanda’s – and it’s basically a front patio outside Yolanda’s house where she cooks you dinner – and insists on you hugging and kissing her when you arrive and leave.

Two for the Price of One

So I wrote a blog post the second day I was in Nicaragua…and then went to post it…and there was no internet…so I tried the next day…and there was no power…and then the day after that…and there was no internet. So here I am, four days later and my post seems pretty irrelevant at this point. But since I wrote it, I’m posting it anyways. And as an added bonus, a few more updates:

I moved into my house last night. I’m living with three sisters. Their parents own a pulperia in town and live in the store (this is common here…stores are also people’s living rooms). The daughters live in a house down the road and I rented a room there. It’s actually one of the nicest rooms I’ve seen in any of the houses around here, so I lucked out. I have my own bathroom (WITH RUNNING WATER!!) and their dad even installed a “ceiling fan” for me, which basically means he took what we know as cheap desk fans and hung it from my metal ceiling :)

Last night was my first night there. We had a bonfire on the beach with the volunteers so I didn’t get home until late and apparently I woke up all fifteen dogs that live in my front yard. They were none too pleased and proceeded to spend the next hour outside my door barking and growling. Needless to say, I’ll be coming home earlier from now on.
Aside from the pooches, I have roosters, chickens, a couple of pigs, and a few cats all right outside my door…and I don’t even have to pay extra for the petting zoo that is my front yard! And for the record, roosters do not only crow in the morning. In fact, they do it all day and all night long…earplugs are my new best friend.

Now that the living situation is taken care of, I’ve been focusing on acclimating myself within the community. It’s going really well so far. I love the people and they already know my name, which is so nice. I actually met a family that lives across the street from our clinic and runs a supermarket (out of their living room of course). When I went to visit them yesterday, they told me that they spoke with god and he told them I needed a family in Nicaragua, and they were going to be my family. Now in the states this would be creepy, but here it’s so endearing!

I’ve got to run for now. We have about 30 children from the community at our clinic right now. The volunteers taught them about brushing their teeth and nutrition, and in exchange for them paying attention, we whipped out the donated baseball gear and are having a massive baseball game.

Miss and love you all.
This is my previous post…

Culture Shock

Culture shock is an interesting term. Because while culture shock accurately describes how I felt when I visited Europe, traveled to Argentina, or even moved to D.C., it somehow seems inaccurate to describe the craziness of the past three days. It’s more like culture “holy crap how on earth do these people live like this…and how on earth did I become one of these people!”

Surprisingly, I say all of this in a positive way – while I’m unbelievably overwhelmed by everything I’ve seen/heard/lived in just a few short days, it’s actually pretty amazing. The Nicaraguan people are some of the nicest I’ve ever met. They know that the Americans here are here to help them and they appreciate our aid. They don’t try to take advantage of us – instead they look to befriend us and introduce us to their culture. Most importantly, they’re understanding of my Spanglish, so I’m not feeling like an ass just yet :)

So a quick update on life so far. I got into Managua on Sunday, where I met up with Anne, the other FIMRC staff member living here. We picked up a group of 10 volunteers from Yeshiva University…yes, I came all the way to Nicaragua only to be followed by the super jews. Once the volunteers issued their claims for their lost luggage (welcome to Nicaragua), we took the three hour drive to Limon, the small village where I’ll be living.

The first half of the drive was rather normal – paved roads, a decent number of cars, and even a Papa Johns right outside of Managua! About two hours into to the drive, things got interesting. We switched to a more “all-terrain” vehicle and drove for about an hour on nothing but dirt roads. At certain points, the road comes to a river…which might make one think that the road is closed and we need to go another way. No, instead we cross our fingers, drive through the river, and hope to come out on the other side. Such is the way of life here – there’s one way in and one way out, so you make it work.

Side note: best part of the ride was when my driver went to honk his horn and I thought a car alarm was going off, only to realize that his horn was in fact an old car alarm he had wired as a horn. Gotta love it.

So now I’m in Limon, the small village where I’ll be living. When I say small, I mean SMALL. There are basically two main roads (dirt roads of course). The “center of town” consists of an intersection of the two roads and a pulperia (corner store) that sells a few basic necessities. Limon is divided by Limon 1 and Limon 2 – in total, there are about 800 people living here. The homes are modest to say the least – most of them were built by their inhabitants. Often times the living rooms are outside – there are dirt floors – and of course, the dreaded latrines.
I’ve been staying at the local hotel, Hotel Tortuga. It’s super cheap ($10 a night) and comes equipped with air conditioning (incredibly rare) and the village monkey Lola who sits in her own mini-hammock out front. I like the Tortuga, but in Nicaragua, it’s actually considered quite expensive. Fortunately, I found a house where I’m going to move this weekend, so I’ll only be paying $90 a month in rent  And to answer the most important question, it has running water!!

More to come later. Miss and love you all.

And the adventure begins...

While I could be talking about my trip to Nicaragua, I'm actually referring to the fact that I've bit the bullet yet again (first Facebook, then Twitter) and now have my own "blog." This is so not my thing, but it really is the best way to keep everyone updated on my crazy path ahead so I'll give it a shot. Just don't hate me if this blogging thing doesn't stick (if you'd like an example of ending your blogging career after one post, please visit ihate-running.blogspot.com - sorry MES, I had to).

So if all goes well, this will be my hub for keeping in touch with everyone on a regular basis - I'll try to post as much as possible and will do my best to be somewhat interesting. For now, I'll keep things short and sweet. If you're reading this, then I want to thank you. Sure, for humoring my pitiful attempt at a blogging career, but more importantly for supporting my decision to fulfill a life long dream of living abroad in a Spanish-speaking country. It's unlikely that any parent/sibling/friend would enjoy having me call them one day and say "hey, guess what, I'm going to quit my job and move to Nicaragua." But you all have provided unwavering support and for that I am incredibly grateful.

With that, I guess my adventure beings. Next time I post, I'll be living the good life in Nicaragua...fingers crossed for running water!