Well, I will try again to write a few things about the trip to Nicaragua...
It is a country of contradictions and inconsistency, and you have to love them for it,,,
When one of our group was checking onto the local airline, they took his knife away from him and gave him a ticket stub for it..however they gave it back to him before he got onto the plane, ???--were they worried he would use it just in the airport?
They diligently sweep the sidewalks and streets every day, first thing in the morning, but then people throw down trash all day on the road, only to have it swept up again in the am.
Although the US has been in and out of their government since early in the past century, they don't seem to harbor any animosities in their hearts towards us.
It is a beautiful country with lots of jungles, volcanoes, and lakes. It is mountainous in the north, but we were in the south. We were at San Carlos on the border of Lake Nicaragua, and the San Juan River which empties the lake into the Carribean Sea....Sort of the end of the road, since it goes no farther...all boat after that. I was part of an eye team for Medical Missions International, a Christian organization which sponsors medical missions in various countries all over the world. Our group was made up of about 2 opthalmologists, 4 residents, 1 optometrist, 4 opticians, and multiple translators and general helpers. We were about 33 at maximum, although some of the team only stayed 1 week instead of 2. The main work we did was to screen patients for glasses through the optometrist, reader glasses from the opticians, and then surgery if they needed through the opthomologists.
They did correction of crossed eyes, cataracts, and other surgeries as well. A lot of the people have problems with their eyes with burning and itching and pain, and they wanted to express the extent of their pain in all of that. We ran out quickly of artificial tear samples, and that would be the one thing that would help a lot of their problems.. A lot of people develop pterygia of the eyes, which are growths of skin over the cornea, and can obstruct the vision....had a lot of people having surgery for that...
Our motel was in the town of San Carlos and we set up our clinic in a local school. The local hospital was used for surgery. The motel was clean, but no AC, except for a couple of rooms (not mine), intermittent electricity and water. You soon learned to soap up only one body part at a time, in case the water decided to quit on you, you would not be left soaped up with no place to go! There were no screens on any windows but in the rooms themselves, but most of the time, the mosquitos were not a problem. One night when I was taking a nap, someone yelled "the motel is on fire", and when we got out, the service box bringing in the electricity into the motel was sparking and arcing, but actually never got into any of the building itself. They got out an electrician at night and had everything fixed up in a couple of hours, which was quite impressive.
Saturday and Sunday of the first week, we went down the San Juan river to an old Spanish Fortress called "El Castillo", built back in the 1500s to prevent pirates from coming up into the interior of the country. It is amazing that in that isolated area, there were people long before anyone had come to this portion of South Alabama. Although I glibly said that we went down the river, it was not quite as easy as that-as most things weren't in Nicaragua. The first thing was that we were supposed to be down at the wharf to load onto boats at 9 am. Well, there were no boats down there for us when we got there. We waited and waited, and as in most things, there was not an explanation why. Well after an hour or so, they brought a couple of boats that they said were going to be our boats, and we thought we were ready. At that point, they said anyone who had to go to the BR, there was an opportunity, but since it was a good ways to the BR, I thought if we were getting on the boat, I could go a couple of hours easily. Well, we didn't leave for another hour and a half, and by that time I should have gone, but since I was thinking all that time we were leaving at any minute, I could scarcely break away....So we load by 11:30 and we were on our way...We had a 2 hour ride down river, but I was not able to enjoy it as much as I could have, due to pressure on the bladder. When we stopped, the only public bathroom I could find needed money to use, and I didn't have the proper change, so I waited until we walked to the restaurant there at the Castillo, at which point the trip became much more enjoyable. We then went on down the river another 30 minutes or so to a resort area, where we spent the weekend. I say resort loosely, since it was a place with a large open court with hammocks scattered round, and then some rooms that slept 4 a piece--no screens or anything on the windows there. We were able to have mosquito netting over the beds while we slept. It was a gorgeous wild area right next to a neighboring national park. There were howler monkeys that put out a tremendous amount of noise out of a small body. They were our alarm clocks in the morning starting around 5 am...All kinds of birds such as toucans and macaws, and other wild animals--huge iguanas --I think we saw one that would go 4 feet in length. We had our morning church service there and then went up a smaller river to do some swimming as well. The cold water felt good on the 90 degree day. The native people climbed up a tree about 25 feet above the water, and then went hand over hand out a branch until they were over the deep part and then jumped in, but none of us gringos would try that.
On the way home, I calculated that we would need to leave by 3:30 to get home on the river before dark, since seemed like a good goal since the boats had no lights, but lunch was late as usual, and afterwards people were just kind of sitting around waiting for someone to tell us to load. Around 4 or so, the call came to load, and so we set out, and I knew that we couldn't waste any time. However, the boats were low on fuel, so when we came to El Castillo again, they stopped to get some fuel. Well, we were met with the news that there was no more fuel in the town! So we set out to go further upriver to get some, but amazingly, just 50 yards upriver from where they said there was no fuel in town, there was a place that had fuel. I don't know if it was because we were in a hurry to get home before dark, but we did not quite take on enough fuel....so the first boat ran out about 20 minutes from San Carlos--by this time of course quite dark. There was no way to transfer anyone since each boat was fully loaded. So our boat tried to tow the other one, but it was going rather slowly, and our captain thought it would make us run out of fuel as well, so we tied the one boat to a tree at the side of the river, by now completely dark, and then our boat went on to get help....Well, end of story is that everybody got home safe and sound, and none the worse for the wear, except for extra mosquito bites from being right next to the river bank.
By the second week, everyone was used to each other and we told a lot of stories at night--incredible stories with incredible story tellers. There were people who could keep you quite spell bound--you would be roaring with laughter and crying the next...wait that sounds like a reunion of any of our families..
Well that is a short-become-long summary of an incredible 2 weeks--I was pleased to be part of the group and contribute what I could. For me, it was like an ophthamology rotation, as I learned so much during the 2 weeks. Too bad I can't get CME credit!
Editor's Note--this was written a month ago--Since I am just starting the Xanga thing--thought I could add my perspective on the trip...
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