Hola from Nicaragua!

View of Granada and Lake Nicaragua from Mombacho Volcano

What an amazing, hot, humid, and busy first week! I'm staying in Granada, Nicaragua which was a Spanish colonial city located on Lake Nicaragua known for having freshwater sharks although I'm told they're mostly fished out (still not taking my chances on that one). During this first month of the Engineering World Health Summer Institue myself and 25ish other students/recent grads take daily Spanish, Biomedical Instrumentation and Lab classes catered to developing setting applications. The architecture of the city is well preserved and our classes are in a beautiful old building in the central park area of the city just 5 or 6 blocks from my homestay.

Inside of our school

View of Central Park and Catedral from school

I'm staying with a Nicaraguense family (who only speak spanish) and one roomate, Katie, who's in the Engineering World Health program as well. If you wanted to see an epic charades game you should have been there the first two days. Luckily for me there's three kids, Carlos, Danni, and Jamie (Yeh-Me) because my spanish is just about on their level and kids don't judge.  Carlos didn't even look phased when I told him my sister was 203 or asked if he had any clouds in Go Fish. I'm in desperate need of our daily 4 hours of spanish lessons. Did I mention Jamie is the cutest 2 year old I've ever seen? I was a little wary the first day when she went number 1 and number 2 on the floor then ate diaper rash cream all in the span of an hour. But thankfully she's been incident free since.




My heart melts a little every time I come home and here her yell "chicas chicas!" from the doorway and take our lunch bag when we walk in.. and not because I'm dying of heat exhaustion. Have I mentioned it's hot? I think I could start a bikram yoga studio in my room to make some money on the side this trip. I'm slowly becoming used to being constantly drenched in sweat and find every reason to go visit the bank which is the only air conditioned place I've found so far. It also doesn't help we were given the impression long skirts/pants were an everyday must but for school but after our host mom asked if we were a different religion and told us it was too hot for that we pulled out the shorts and haven't gone back since.

Typical Lunch of rice, meat, ensalda, y platanos

We walk the 5 or 6 blocks to school every day and start with 4 hour of spanish lessons.. solamente en espanol. We have an hour break for lunch and our host families bring us hot lunch at the school. Lunch is the bigger meal in Nicaragua and usually consists of a meat or beans with rice and platanos or a salad with cabbage, lettuce, carrots, and or tomatoes which usually seems to have a vinegar flavor. Gallo Pinto is a rice and beans mix and very popular in Nicaragua. Schools in Nicaragua don't usually provide food so the older kids go a half day in the morning and come home for lunch then the younger kids go in the afternoon and classes run monday through saturday.

My lab partner, Brittany, and I soldering in
100 degree heat

After lunch starts our instrumentation in the developing world lecture followed by lab. So far we've made our own extension cord, flashlight, AC to DC conversion circuit, learned how to find replacements for batteries not available here and now are learning the function and trouble shooting necessecities for medical equipment. I'm a year away from my Bioelectrical Engineering degree and yet I feel like I've learned more practical knowledge and tied concepts together better here in one week than in those 3 years. Except for some interesting suggestions from our text like buying a recently killed pig to test your defibrillator on prior to releasing back to the hospital floor. If it visually jumps then you're good to go. On the bright side I guess our hospital could have a nice luau afterwards.


During the first month here we visit the hospital in Granada on Friday's to get accustomed to working in developing hospitals and get a sneak peak of what to expect during our second month. This is when we'll be heading to separate cities in Nicaragua in pairs to work full time in the hospital as biomedical engineers. More on this to come for the sake of not making my first post a novel.

Roughest part so far: Laundry. Or maybe the termites in my bed. But I haven't seen any in awhile and washing my weeks worth of laundry has turned into a 3 day ordeal so I think that wins. My family like many others do their laundry by hand in a concrete basin with a washboard and drain then hang clothes to dry in the center of the house (most houses have square courtyards or concrete slabs open to the air in the center of the house). Problems: we have class until 4 or 5, it gets dark at 6 and pours for at least an hour almost every day which requires us to run home when we see the clouds rolling in. Katie is actually still washing hers as I type this. I have gained a new respect for Fatima, our Nicaraguense mom. She also got a good kick of out me digging out my headlamp to wash after dark. I really think laughter might be the best form of communication and I'm taking full advantage of this.

View of Granada and Lake Nicaragua from Volcano Mombacho

Best part so far: Mangos. Mangos. and Mangos. They are fresh and sold everywhere on the street for 10 cordoba (less than 50 cents). Also the views. We took a trip to Las Isletas which are a string of private islands which was blown into Lake Nicaragua by Volcano Mombacho. Then hiked around Mombacho and got a great view of the city on my birthday last sunday.

Mama and baby monkey on an island in las isletas

I can already tell this will be an extremely challenging, rewarding, and perspective changing experience. I'm working hard, playing hard, and trying to soak up all the experiences I can. While posting this blog at a local cafe (no wifi at school or my homestay) I heard the sounds of my Duoling Spanish app coming from the girl's phone who worked there. Turns out she has the same app for learning English and we're on the same level. We both had a good laugh and it reminded me that everyone has a story to tell and the effort and courage it takes to overcome the language and culture barriers to find them out is well worth it and greater than the contrary.

I'm thinking of you all and hope you're having great adventures and summers of your own. God bless and I'll talk to you soon!

Becca