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Published: January 25th 2007
Tonight is our first night in Nicaragua! We are finally here!!!! I flew into Atlanta yesterday afternoon and stayed with the Skuses. Ricky and Mr. Skuse picked me up from the airport and then we went out to dinner that night with the whole family. In the morning I woke up early and took MARTA to the airport and met up with the whole Brigade group. The flight down here was not bad but we had to sit at the airport for a while while they fixed something with the engine starter. Then I slept the entire way here and only woke up for lunch- they gave us food on the plane--weird! Chicken and orozo- ummm. Then we landed and the airport was a lot smaller then I had imagined, especially since it is the biggest and the only international airport in the country. One of the girls on the trip, Jackie, is from Africa and they almost didn't let her through because she was told she didn't need a visa but she actually did. Sarah from JHC met us at the airport and we hopped on the mini school bus and drove through Managua. It was really dirty and kind
of reminded me of the bad parts of Rocky Point. I liked it because there were so many things to look at and it is all so colorful. There were also tons of people on the sides of the streets and in the middle of the streets selling things. One man even jumped up on the hood of the bus to wash our window. Then we finally reached the JHC compound. It took about 15 minutes to get there from the airport and we took one of the only two paved roads in Nueva Vida. The women's co-op is right at the enterance, which I didn't expect it to be so close and there is a house where all the JHC people live. The building where we were are staying is pretty much two rooms- one filled tightly with bunk beds- aka a board wtih a thin pillow/mattress. I'm on the bottom and Kristine and I put our bunks together to create a queen bed and we are sharing her sheet because she only brought one. The other room is where we hang out and eat dinner and there are sinks and bathrooms. The bathrooms aren't as bad as I
thought they were going to be and there is a gang shower with four shower heads-- for some reason I pictured one nasty shower that we would all have to take turns in. We can't flush the toilet paper down the toilet so we have to put it in a bucket and if we forget, we have to go fishing for it. We also have a motto that helps us conserve water-- "If it's yellow, let it mellow, if it's brown, flush it down". At night we all had dinner together and it was pretty good. Fried plantanas (which are like bananas), chicken with onions, rice and some veggie mush. Then for the rest of the night we have just been hanging out playing cards. I'm excited to start working tomorrow and see the clinic. There are some nurses from Boston College here and they are working in the clinic. There are also three other people that joined our group who are friends of Dr. Stecksholtie's. One is a nurse named Susan and the other is a doctor named Randy and he brought his son, Jeff, with him, who is 26 and is doing research at Berkeley right now. The
Emily from JHC
Emily was our main tour guide and coordinator from JHC. She is a temporary employee of JCH and has been in Nicaragua for over a year now.thing I learned today that I found the most interesting is that about 80% of Nicaraguans live on less than $2 a day. Some people say that that is not so bad because the cost of living down here is so low, but that is not exactly true. The cost of living is actually more than the US but people that live with less than $2 a day in the US are fewer and are considered very poor. Its just that in Nicaragua that's the way that most people live and so far this is evidenced from the areas of severe poverty that we have seen just driving from the airport to JHC.
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