Jinotega, Nicaragua: Fourth Clinic Day

I like the painting on the back of this truck.

 We had a great breakfast this morning. Martha and Martha fixed the best sweet rolls! Muy bueno! Delicioso! Then we rode the bus only 20 minutes or so to a little community south of Jinotega. We followed this truck part-way through town, and I was impressed by the painting on the back of it. We hardly ever see a truck that doesn't have somebody riding on top of it like these guys. Whenever we go places I take a few photos out the bus windows--like the one of the fruit market. They have a lot of these here. Just south of town you can see a little yellow church down in the valley. Our bus driver, Oscar, told us that was our destination.

I love the open-air fresh produce markets in Jinotega.

 Not the church, actually, but the community it was in. Kaye and I took a short walk from the clinic building up the road to photograph the church. Later we would be visited by a nun from that church--a missionary from Ohio called Sister Rosanna. She came to greet us and see what we were doing at the local clinic, because one of her parishioners had come to show her a photograph of her with her new baby. She was in tears, because the photo meant so much to her. It seems the woman lost a child a year ago; then she recovered and had another baby. Perhaps her emotional response was because she didn't have a photo of that baby, but now she did have one of her new child..

Notice the little yellow church on the lower left.

I haven't mentioned it, but we've had rain almost every day this week. After all, they call it a rain-forest. This is supposed to be the dry season, but Tuesday we had a little bit of misty rain, but it didn't affect us much. Then yesterday it rained pretty hard for a while, and we had to move the "photography studio" under a portico where we were in the way of people trying to get to "ropas" where the clothing was distributed. The people who came to see a doctor either stood in line under umbrellas or just stood in line and got wet. It didn't seem like many left and went home.

Today's clinic was held near the little yellow church.

 Again today it threatened to rain, but it was only a few drops, so we weren't affected. Good thing, because there was no porch we could get under. It's almost bedtime as I write this, and I can hear a gentle rain on the roof of the orphanage. I have my clothes packed--except for what I will wear tomorrow--so we can complete a half-day clinic nearby and do the long bus trip back to Managua. One of the fun things we did today was to take a picture of a man's horse and give it to him as he left. He was very happy to get it.

Why does this place remind me of the Old American West?

The guy with the FBI shirt laughed when I pointed at his shirt, smiled, and took his picture. Later I learned that he had bought the shirt on a trip to Miami. Must be one of the wealthier citizens. It was a very busy clinic. The medical providers saw 161 patients and Alan, Kaye, and I took 138 portraits and gave them to people. Kaye thought to take a photo of one of the appreciative clients showing off her picture to a friend.

Why indeed!?!

These clinics we do are very much under the cooperation and supervision of Nicaragua's Ministry of Health. At each clinic there have been M. of H. representatives either doing blood tests or giving inoculations.They have always been friendly and cooperative hosts. Also each day we have taken photos of them and given them prints, and they have been happy to receive them. Taking over 100 portraits in a day is real work, and I don't get a lot of free time to wander around the site and see what everybody else on the team is doing. We're usually set up near "ropas," so we see what they're doing, and sometimes we're within sight of the pharmacy, but the doctors are in rooms inside the building, and we can't just barge in on them when they are consulting with a patient. They work even harder than the photo team, of course, and are doing the really important work while ours is just "icing on the cake."

As usual, our clients were waiting when we got there.

Most came on foot; several came on horseback.

 I have mentioned before that much of the work on the farms here is done by hand and on foot. The two guys spraying the tomato field nearby spent virtually all day doing it.

Representatives of the ministry of health were there.

The M. of H. people were doing vaccinations today.

Waiting their turn for clothing.

Jane Romack discusses clothing needs with a client.

Kaye Kimpling took this photo of clients enjoying their photos.

Workers in a tomato field nearby were spraying the crop.

I liked the FBI shirt; he got it in Miami.

We gave the owner of this horse a print of this photo.

A face with the "character" of a lot of years.

There is much construction going on in Jinotega.

We visited this Catholic church in Jinotega.

When we finally closed the clinic about 4:00, we stopped in Jinotega and visited a large Catholic church, a nice park near the center of town, and some of us went to the Pali market again while others went to the Flor de Jinotega coffee shop for a drink. Supper tonight was broiled chicken, potatoes, carrots, rice, salad, cole-slaw--quite a spread! I worked on choosing and re-sizing photos for this blog between supper and team meeting/devotions at 8:00. We took communion together, and we're all trying to wrap things up for our last day tomorrow. I will take photos, of course, and hopefully share some of them back at the Los Cedros orphanage. The medical team will spend tomorrow night in a nice hotel in Managua, while Tom O'Donnell and I re-join construction team 2. The medical team flies home Saturday; the construction team flies home Sunday. It has been an interesting and rewarding experience--and I think I can speak for all of us in saying that. We have grown spiritually, we have renewed old acquaintances and gained new friends, and we have a sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves, and those are all good things.

Noelia, Harvey, and Michaell -- "more than translators"