¡Viva la Vida!

A Trip to the Police Station

Several years ago, a team from SC served a large dinner to the police officers and their families in Masatepe. This tagged along with the work that a team from Nebraska had done, painting the police station. Resulting from these events, we now have several children of police officers in our school.

Today we took some of the guys from the SC team back over to the station. This time, though, one of the team members works in law enforcement in the area of explosives. It was fun translating for him and the police captain as they chatted about crime in Nicaragua, drugs in Masatepe, and how they can help them in the future. Hopefully in August, they will be able to put on some seminars together to help the police here.

So, what did I learn today from the police captain? The police feel like Nicaragua has a pretty good handle on organized crime. Nica is used a lot to traffic drugs, and last year they confiscated 7,600 kilos of cocaine. Cocaine isn't a big problem here, though, because of the economy. The big drugs here are crack and marijuana. Nicaragua is statistically the safest country in Central America.

Oh, Canada!

We installed this cool new counter on the sidebar that tells us where are visitors hail from. I never imagined that we would have so many Canadian visitors, seeing as we hardly know any Canadians! Of course, we don't know any Croatians, Peruvians, Danes, Poles, or many of the other nations represented there.

I hope you Canadians enjoy a warm respite from the Great White North while visiting our blog . I wish I could send you some of our 80 degree temps and sunny days, and trade you for one day of snow!

No...this is not our new daughter!  This is a 3-month old spider monkey that a friend of ours bought yesterday for $100.  It's pretty tranquil and very agile (it climbed under one of our wicker chairs and we had a time getting it out).

   

Jackson made a fine monkey's uncle ===>

<=== Jan monkey-sat while our friend went & checked her email.

A Bag of Coke

If you are thirsty here in Masatepe and want a cold coke,  you can't take the glass bottle out of the store with you. Therefore, they pour it into a clear plastic bag and tie it in a knot for you. You bite the corner off and drink the coke out of the hole in the bag. Sometimes they will put a straw in the knot instead, which makes it a little easier to drink. The drinks at school, homemade refrescos (fruit-ades) are also sold by the bag. There's really an art to drinking out of a bag... something most of us Americans find a little difficult at first.

Another thing that comes in a bag here is our milk. We don't get the plastic jugs of milk, we get plastic bags of milk. We then pour it into a pitcher in our fridge and when the pitcher is empty we open another bag o' milk. It's actually a lot easier on the trash!

Announcing the Guest House!

Well it's official!  We've rented a guest missions quarters to house our interns and short-term missions teams.  This comes after much prayer, searching, and patience!

<=== the outside

               The inside hallway ===>

<=== the spacious front porch area

   Jan & Jackson standing in the front doorway
                           ===>

Daughters

No, we don't have a daughter yet... but we met with the lawyer today to begin the process to solicit permission to adopt one!

This little girl is our next door neighbor. She turned four this week. The dress is one we brought back from our US visit, thanks to Target.

Almost every day when we come home from school or wherever, she runs out to greet us with a big hug and this great grin. She calls Greg "Don Papa" as a joke, and says she wants to come live with us and sleep in our bed and be our little girl. We wouldn't mind at all, but we think her mom may have a problem with that!

Medical Strike

For over two weeks 2,000 government employed doctors and 20,000 health workers have been on strike in Managua.   The average doctor here makes around $300 a month.  While this is better than many salaries here, many doctors argue that it isn't enough to cover the years of university education  it takes to become a doctor and so many of them are having trouble repaying their loans - not to mention the growing cost of living.

Things are changing rapidly in Nicaragua.  In the past year I have noticed lots of new vehicles on the streets of Managua and have seen more sparkling clean U.S.-style shopping malls spring up all over the city.  It makes me wonder who's getting wealthy in this economy while doctors and other medical professionals are barely getting by. 

Visitor Log

One thing I noticed when I was back in the US was how lonely it can get. You really don't get many visitors, you just call people when you want to chat or need something.

Telephone calls cost a lot here in Nicaragua. Even just to call my next store neighbor I have to pay per minute. For this reason, people just "drop by" whenever they need to say something. This typically doesn't bother us except when we are eating lunch or trying to rest. I thought I would explain that before I give you the rundown of our day just yesteday, Friday.

4:45 am Greg and Jan get up and get ready for school
5:30 the boys wake up shower, eat breakfast, and get ready for school
6:30 Jan leaves for school to be present for staff devotions
6:55 Greg and boys leave for school to be on time for 7:00 bell
7-1:00 classes
1:15 eat lunch
1:25 man comes by to bring some parts for our car
1:40 friend comes by to bring some things for the church bazaar
1:50 J's friend comes over to see if he can play
1:55 Z's friend comes over to see if he can play
2:00 Jan's friend comes over to take her to Masaya market to look for some kitchen supplies
2-4 constant stream of visitors, kids getting ready to go to the concert, kids coming over to play, a man selling purified water
4:00 Greg and boys leave for concert
5:30 Jan gets home from Masaya, locks all the doors, turns off the phone, puts the dogs in the front so no one will think she is home, and SLEEPS! :)
12:00 midnight, Greg and the boys get home from the concert.

Today is Saturday:
The first person was at the gate at 9, but there haven't been too many today. J's friend came over, another one came to get him for a birthday party. Z's classmates came over to work on a class project. Jason had a guy come to get him for a basketball game. Jan had to translate a conversation for an American friend who just moved here. The boy came to take his math test. A guy came over to bring a note from the owner of a house we are looking at renting.  I think that about covers it. Of course, it is only 3:30. We will see how the rest of the day goes.

Funky in Concert

Last night I (Greg) took the boys and around 30 youth from the church to Managua to see a Puerto Rican Christian musician called "Funky."  This guy, probably unknown in the U.S., is big in Christian reggaeton music in Latin America.    We were standing in the front along with about 6,000 screaming teens who were dancing, jumping up and down and throwing water everywhere.  It was fun for an old guy like me to be in the midst of that.  Hey, maybe the old guy even danced.  But you certainly won't see any pics of that!

Diseases

Yesterday I had the opportunity to visit with Sister Juanita, one of the elderly ladies in my church. She came over and we began to chat about her five kids, nine grandkids, etc. I was surprised when she told me that at the age of seven months, her middle daughter was stricken with polio. The doctor didn't recognize it as polio at first and when she took her back to him a month later he examined her and then sat down, stricken with guilt and grief, and pronounced her with polio. She underwent surgery after surgery during her childhood to lengthen legs, stretch tendons, and transplant bone. Now she is 42 and I have noticed a slight limp, but nothing too bad.

Another man of the same age was stricken as a child with this disease, and he never had any surgeries. His right leg is noticeably shorter, he drags it along and can't bend his knee.  This type of disability is difficult in a town where bicycles and walking are the main means of transportation. They don't have the vehicles to hop into and go.

Yesterday my friend's son was diagnosed with rubella. She asked her doctor if that wasn't included in the MMR vaccine that kids here and in the US get. It IS covered in those, but he informed her that at the time her son was small in Nicaragua, many of those vaccines were given out expired. Isn't that a travesty? Fortunately, rubella isn't usually anything but a mild rash, fever, and swollen glands. Please be praying for him as he goes through it, thogh.