St. John Goes to Nicaragua

San Ramon. This community is about an hour outside of Matagalpa. To get there, we passed Santa Emilia, a place where we held a clinic on our last trip. One of our patients said a family member had been to that clinic a year-and-a-half ago and told her she should come to this clinic, that we would help her. So we did. We saw another 250 people. The auto-refractor was a little cranky and wore out both of its batteries by around 2:00. That means that Gary has to see everyone else himself without the ballpark figure the auto-refractor provides. It also means I am unemployed. I found work taking people from the initial screening room to either the reader room or the distance room. It was nice to get outside and stretch my legs a bit.

The facilities (I know you all are so curious about our bathroom situation each day) were similar to the previous day - one lone outhouse. I drank two cups of coffee and had to go as soon as we got there. I went with Georgia in case she lost her cookies again, passed out, and hit the side of the outhouse. It was a long walk out there and I wasn´t sure if anyone would be able to hear that thud so I thought I should go with her, just in case. I went first. I was pleased to find that although it looked scary, it did not stink. After I okayed it, she went in. Then along comes Kelly and he takes a picture of me hanging out by the toilet (if I had a nickel for every picture I have of myself standing near an outhouse...). Then I went over to look at the picture. A Nicaraguan man with a roll of toilet paper walked by. I noticed this and thought how nice it was for them to provide us with toilet paper. It did not occur to me that he would want to put that roll in the outhouse or that the door to the outhouse would not be fastened securely. He easily threw the door open, and a very surprised Georgia squeeled. The man smiled, handed her the toilet paper without shame and walked back to the school. If you want to ensure your privacy while using the bathroom in a third world country, I might not be your first choice as guard.

We had a few children who were legally blind without glasses. When we put the glasses on their little heads, their eyes lit up. One little boy left the room saying ¨the trees are so big!¨ In that instant we changed his life.

Dinner consisted of the most delicious tacos ever. They looked like what I call taquitos but Pam and Beth informed me that no such food exists in Latin America, it´s just something Taco Bell made up. Kind of like Sweetest Day and Hallmark - don´t even get me started on that one. So the tacos were wonderfully seasoned chicken rolled up in homemade tortillas and fried. SOOOOO good. They also had a sort of cole slaw and something that reminded me of thousand island dressing. It may sound weird, but it was a most delicious combination.

Now we´ve stuffed ourselves and it´s almost 8:30. Most people are already in bed. The work is not overwhelming and we all love most every minute of it, but it is exhausting. It´s a good kind of tired that I have not experienced much except when I am on these trips. I would encourage any of you who are reading this and think you might want to come on our next trip to be brave and do it. You won´t regret it.