St. John Goes to Nicaragua

As you can see from our earlier post, we did not eat any rooster wings. The rooster lives.

We headed back up the mountain to Selva Negra today. When we were there last year, we did a clinic after a full day at the hospital. Since by then it was after school, we set up in the school. School was in session today so they asked us to set up in the dining hall. We have never done a clinic with all of us in the same room (usually we have a room for screening, a room for reading glasses, a room for distance glasses, etc.). There was plenty of room for us and we made a system with good flow. The problem was that the kitchen is right off the dining room, separated by metal bars only. In Nicaragua, the cooking fuel of choice (or necessity) is wood. The plantation has a lot of hungry workers so the cooks had to start cooking lunch about the time we got there at 9 AM. There were about eight giant pots of rice and beans and pasta all being cooked over very smoky wood fires. The smoke filled the room where we worked. I adjusted somewhat to our conditions but we all smelled strongly of smoke after just a few minutes of being there. Blech.

We found out that the plantation workers are served food based on how important they are. Coffee pickers are the low men on the totem pole and they get only beans and rice. The next level gets you some pasta to go with the beans and rice. If you are really important, you get something red on your plate like hot pepper salsa. Ryan sweet talked the ladies in the kitchen and scored a homemade tortilla, beans, rice and something red! I would not have a lot of incentive to advance under this system since it doesn´t get any better than beans and rice for me.

The morning was a little bit slow, but after lunch things picked up. We think we saw about 200 people there. Pam had a great side adventure. She went to give the school kids some letters that her students had written and also to give out some play-doh. The teacher asked if she would mind to substitute so that she could go get her eyes checked. Of course Pam agreed. She taught the kids some multiplication and they taught her their school song and made her write down the words so she could take it home and teach her kids. Experiences like that are the very reason we are here. I encourage everyone to check out her blog for this trip (the link to it is on this page).

We shut down the clinic at 3:00 and headed back to the lodge. Rafael, Carlos, Ryan, Charles, Kelly and I went for a little hike around the lake. On our last trip here, we stayed at this resort for the whole week since the house where we are staying this time was not ready yet. Every day for the whole week I went outside hoping to see a howler monkey. Every day for the whole week I came back disappointed. When we were a little bit into the jungle, Carlos started making some crazy monkey sounds. Ha Ha, Carlos, I thought. But then! A monkey actually answered! And then that monkey came closer to better hear what Carlos was saying. It sounded to me like Carlos was saying some pretty incendiary things but I don´t really speak monkey that well so I´m not totally sure. Since that monkey was apparently a baby, his mom came over to check us out too. I got some pictures! When the papa monkey started to come our way, we decided it was time to move on. We don´t know what howler monkeys eat or how fast they can run on land but we didn´t want to personally find out.

After drinking some delicious coffee on the deck, we got back on the bus. We decided not to eat at Selva Negra but instead went into town to one of the nicest restaurants in Matagalpa. We stopped at home quickly to get out of our smoky clothes. As soon as we decided that we would go to this restaurant, the two Raphaels started telling us that this restaurant had a delicacy and we all needed to try it. The delicacy: bull testicles (huevos del toro). Stephanie and Ryan were all gung ho about this but the rest of us really just wanted beans and rice. And by the rest of us I mean me. Our first course was seviche. I know that this is raw fish marinated in something and that you eat it on crackers. The first dish to come around was a white fish in a delicious lime marinade. The next dish looked like little chunks of salmon. It was not. It was the Huevos. After a successful attempt at the white fish, more of us were feeling daring. I will now list for you the members of our group who tried huevos for the first (and maybe last?) time:
Ryan, Stephanie, Pam, Claire, Me, Katherine, Gary, Alan, LuAnne and of course Raphael and Carlos. I did not gag. I did not feel the need to eat more than one bite, but I did not feel the need to purge, either. The rest of the meal was delicious and uneventful. Some of us had steaks, some had shrimp and fried rice. Beth got an entire half of a chicken. The whole meal for the 19 of us, including the usual though optional 8% tip, was $150 US dollars.

All of that bravery made us tired. We came back to the house for evening devotional and most of us are ready for bed. Tomorrow we are heading to a different town about 20 minutes away. It´s supposed to be more rainy than it has been so far. Another day, another adventure.

Three other notes of interest:

1. We figured out that the key to hot showers is low water pressure. If you just barely turn on the water, it has enough time to heat up. I´ll gladly trade a little shampoo left in my hair for a steamy shower.

2. Kelly told us today that instead of telling people the needed to go get sun glasses, he was saying something like "you need glasses by herself." What does that mean? We don´t really know but somehow the patients figured it out.

3. Dear readers, please post us some comments! We want to hear from you. Don´t be afraid. You can even be anonymous...