6:00 am came early when you don't sleep well the night before - the rest of our group who had a later flight, came rolling in around 11:00pm and the bus was right outside our window and seemed extremely loud!
We dressed and sorted our bags - anything we didn't need in the village was to stay on our beds at the Mission House - passports and most of our money stayed - also the hair dryer which I had brought for Jaime to use! Did I mention that we all lived out of ziploc bags? That's right - everything in the suitcase was packed into 1 and 2 gallon ziploc bags - each days clothing in a bag - pj's and night articles in a bag - shower supplies in a bag along with your towel, etc etc. You could hear the rustle of those bags all week long.................
Our interrupters arrived that morning - the mission group hires about 35 of them to go out to the village with us and most of them are young, ages 19 to 30 for most of them. Jaime was thrilled to hear they had hired a Nicaraguan pharmacist to help her out!
After a wonderful breakfast, we all climbed into 3 school buses and headed for the mountains - no a/c of course and it was hot and humid as expected! We stopped at a large store to get a cold drink and found the prices quite reasonable - the kitchen crew had packed us sandwiches and chips for lunch so we ate on the bus and continued our journey. It did get cooler as we climbed in elevation.
Don't we look all refreshed and ready before we leave the Mission House?
We arrived in La Dalia mid-afternoon. The big box truck had arrived before us and unloaded everything we would need for the next 3 days - the amount of things in the truck was staggering - mattresses, lighting, fans, electrical cords, showers, generators, water, ice chests, food, gas grills to cook on, tables, chairs, pharmacy medication, medical supplies and the list goes on and on........... The little school where we set up in had 8 rooms and a courtyard. This is a picture of the room we used for the pharmacy before we set up.
And here is a picture after we were all set up! Luckily we had plenty of fans that ran day and night and the generators kept up pretty well.
The courtyard is where the guys slept - tarps were draped around them for a little bit of privacy.
Many of the supplies were packed in the large brown crates you see in this picture.
Because we already had 150 people waiting to see us when we arrived, we went ahead and saw them that evening.
The order of the villagers coming through would be like this: first a church service (held up the steep hill under a huge tarp with chairs set up) that they were required to attend and then they were handed a blue card filled out with their name - then down to small group for another bible study (and if anyone accepted Christ, they were given a bible), next was outside the medical clinic where everyone was weighed and blood pressures checked, along with what was wrong with them and then into the medical clinic. After the clinic, they came to the pharmacy door and handed us their card which has all the drugs listed that we had and whatever was checked by the dr would be what our pharmacy crew would walk around to the different baskets and fill - Jaime or Raquel would check what we had picked up and then it was bagged and handed to the villagers who were waiting - then they were off to family packs (rice and beans were given out, along with a hygiene pack and if there were kids, they each received a small toy or article of clothing) If teeth needed to be pulled or eyeglasses needed, they stood in line to do that.
Here is the pharmacy crew: Helen, Todd, Linda, Charlene, Rayna and me
The kitchen handed out wonderful meals with what they had to work with - they worked long hours - up at 4:00am and many times not getting to bed till late at night. They served 100 to 125 meals 3 times a day!!
Showers were also assembled and this was the first year there was some hot water!! I was prepared to take cold showers!
Our crew plus one slept in the same room we worked in! We have mattresses under our tents but the 3 of us in the middle had to take down everything in the morning and pack it away for the day - it was quite the ordeal in the mornings to get it all done!
After we took care of the people that evening and had dinner, we had some down time so Rayna and Jaime crawled in Rayna's tent and played some cards!
We were excited to hear that 4 toilets had been installed - real toilets (but not flushable - you had to dip water out of a barrel and pour it in when you were finished) and of course no toilet paper goes into the toilet. But by late afternoon, they were all plugged and we had to use 2 outhouses down the hill - not much fun since it rained 3 to 4 times a day and there was mud everywhere!! Luckily one toilet was fixed by night as I was dreading to walk down to that outhouse in the middle of the night! We had brought rubber boots which we wore most times to the bathrooms - the floor usually was covered with water and mud and you had to carry your toilet paper and clorox wipes for the seat and anything else you needed in a bag - then put the bag around your neck as there was no place to set anything. Believe me, going to the bathroom became the biggest ordeal there was!
It was really noisy as we tried to get some sleep since it was such close quarters with everyone and when I got up in the middle of the night (using my headlamp of course as there's no lights in the bathroom) I discovered there were 5 people sleeping right outside the pharmacy door!
I did feel secure from any bugs inside the tent and slept 1/2 way decent our first night in the village. And so ended DAY TWO - To Be Cont'd............
