View looking down over Jinotega, Nicaragua from our hike

Jinotega, Nicaragua is in the northern part of Nicaragua, tucked into a valley surrounded by beautiful green mountains. The northern part of Nicaragua is full of farms that produce coffee, lettuce, tomatos, carrots, peppers, cucumbers, fruit, lots of corn, and more. The small city and rural areas almost give off a southwestern aura with men wearing cowboy hats (here they're just refered to as sombreros) cowboy boots and their "country" accent as well. At times the people seem easier to understand than the rushed speach in Granada. Maybe their relaxed speach is something that comes naturally from the slower pace of life here. Everything is "tranquilo", the lifestyle is simpler, never rushed, and runs on "La hora Nica" aka and hour or so late.

Streets of Jinotega sourrounded by farms in the hillside

View of clouds hovering over the hospital courtyard

 The city is nicknamed the city of mists (las brumas) for the constant light rains. The weather here is much cooler than Granada and I'm reminded quite often of what being cold feels like. Especially in the morning with our cold outdoor shower. Our homestay is modest but our host mother's cooking more than makes up for it. On weekends she makes around 70 nacatamels which is a traditional dish here which are always gone by Monday. She has also blatently admitted to trying to fatten me up before I go back to the states. We live in an old empty building around the corner from our host family's. Our room is sectioned off with plywood reaching halfway to the roof wich is visible and likes to shower us with dirt when there's wind and drizzle when there's rain. We also share our room with another companero, a mouse who loves rustling through our stuff at night and popping out of my box of granola bars when that wasn't the snack I was looking for. Our bathroom and shower are outside where the laundry basin is as well which we use as a sink and is decorated with cartel grafiti. In reality, I have all I need and more but there are many families with less than these luxuries here.

Our shower and bathroom

Our room in Jinotega

Our room in Jinotega

Entrance to Parque Central

Our city is small, with only 2 stop lights which many people will give you directions in reference to. Addresses here don't exist and if you asked what mine was it is one block west of the Uno Gastation or two blocks west of the semaforo (stoplight). But there are many clothing stores, workshops, stationary stores, comedors (smaller, cheap places to eat sometimes out of people's houses) and mini "supermarkets". Vendors can be seen everywhere carting fruit, vegetables, tortillas and more. I wake up every morning to the newspaper vendors which are always heard before seen with their megaphones on their bike yelling "la prensa la prensa la prensa" (the main news source here). If you find a mangled megaphone on the street one day it wasn't me.. There is also a beautiful park with a playground, bandstand, gardens, and place to eat that faces the cathedral here. Although it's small we have the convenience of finding most of the replacements parts we need. When fixing an infant warmer the other day we switched out a bad sensor then had to change the halogen bulb. Within a day we found the right voltage bulb in a taller (workshop) here which is a luxury some of the smaller cities don't have.

My Spanish has gotten exponetially better since I've been here because my partner Brittany is the only person I know who can speak English here. However, my starting point wasn't exactly solid so that puts me at slightly comprehending when people talk very slow. It gets better every week but I still have those days (quite frequently) when I try to ask for a rag (trapo) and mistakenly ask for a shot of liqueor (trago) or ask where the laundry machine (lavadora) is in the public bathroom instead of sink (lavamanos). Thank you God that you have given everyone a sense of humor. It's been working out quite well for my benefit this trip. I think my best yet was when I told someone I didn't sleep well because turkeys (pavo) kept falling from my ceiling instead of dust (polvo). By the end of the day I'm exhausted from intensely listening and trying to piece together sentences. I sincerely salute everyone who has mastered more than one language. You are incredible.

Hospital Victoria Motta

Working with Anibal, a tech at the hospitalç
on a infant warmer

The hospital we work at is the only in the city of Jinotega and serves the surrounding rural regions as well. It's a larger hospital with about 260 beds. The hospital is public and completely free for patients. There are private clinics here as well where the care is better and waiting times are shorter but many people don't have the money for them or must travel a far way to reach one. There are also smaller public clinics run by SILAIS (the ministry of health here) in the surrounding rural municipalities but often  doctors have to bring equipment with them and for the equipment they do have there are only a couple technicians who visit once a week for maintenace or repairs. The majority of patients in the hospital are low income families and campesiños (those from rural areas) that need an operation or need treatment other than the clinics can provide. We chatted with one man who traveled from his farm because his daughter was very sick. Later he came back to introduce us to her and she came running out with her IV sticking out from her tiny arm and wearing a puffy pink princess dress. It's moments like that that remind me why I'm here. Even if we can't cure every disease or fix every piece of equipment I am completely certain being able to share that one smile between dad and daughter made this entire trip worth it.

Testing an electrosurgery unit with soap

The hospital we work at has a great maitenance team with 3 engineers, multiple techs and plenty of equipment to keep everyone busy (if you search for it). They kicked off a preventative maitenance effort a couple months prior so we've spent a lot of time cleaning and making small improvements before returning monitors, electrosurgery units, incubators, fetal monitors and more. We were brought one electrosurgery unit (used for cutting and cauterizing skin during surgery) covered in everything from dust to bird feathers. We cleaned the unit, sanded and repainted it's cart then found an old metal plate for the dispersive electrode

Fetal monitor we fixed the printer for

and soldered a new connector onto it to fit the port on the unit. Taking something from closet to surgery unit in a days work definitely makes up for the slow days full of cleaning blood and blowing out dust from machines. When returning a fetal  monitor the other day after fixing the printer on it I got an inside look at the maternity ward. The cynderblock walls of the ward were painted a light purple and there were two major rooms each holding around 20 beds full (some with two per bed) of pregant girls. I say girls because the majority were teens. Teen pregnancy (many times as young as 13) is a common problem here especially among the low income families. We had a chance to talk with the director of SILAIS here the other day and he mentioned they are in process of creating maternity houses in the rural areas where pregnant women who are often indiginous people (Miskito) can live for a about a month prior and after their pregnancy. There have been complications and even 3 dealths this month from women trying to make the journey to a hospital too late in their pregnancy or leaving the hospital too early and later pass away from complications that could be treated if they had stayed. Of course every program has it's challenges but it's great to see the investment in improving health care here.

Electrosurgery unit we found in a closet

Operating room ready!

That goes for many other infrastructure and civil projects as well. Nicaragua had an oppressive dictorship for over 40 years. After the revolution, the FSLN or Frente Sandinista de Liberacion National, took power and are still in control today. Although there have still been many unscrupulous leaders since the revolution there have also been many positive trends. The government has invested lots of money to fix highways, beautify parks, restore buildings, improve sanitation conditions, and other areas of healthcare. The signs with "project complete" everywhere are a promising site to see and I would love to return in 10 years to see the changes.

Leon- Volcano boarding

Volcano boarding down Cerro Negro

Either because central america doesn't get the joy of snow sledding or because or there was a real crazy adrenaline junkie out there somewhere who thought it would be a grand idea to hike up a volcano then hop a board and 'sled' down the bed of sand and rocks the sport of volcano boarding was born. And of course I obliged because ya know, when in Nicaragua. This may have been one of the scariest, biggest rushes of adrenline I've ever had. I really think they should call it Volcano luging just so you get the right idea. Or in my case even volcano falling. We hiked up active Volcan Cerro Negro with our sledding suits, goggles, and boards then plummeted down as fast as 55km/hr. It is extremely hard to stear going this fast on rocks and I ended up sliding down the volcano on my side for a good while and came out with only a burn on my ankle and sand everywhere. I'm still finding it in my ears. And I would totally do it again.

Street next to central park in Leon

View from Volcan Cerro Negro

Leon is another colonial city like Granada and have a beautiful central park that makes me feel as if I was trasported to Europe. Leon has a big University that many students from other parts of Nicaragua travel to to study at. It has also been known as the more liberal city for this reason as well. One of our host brothers studies in Leon during the week and comes home to Jinotega on weekends and was nice enough to show us around the city.

View of Central Park in Leon, Nicaragua

So far I've loved my time in Jinotega. At times the communication barrier is frustrating and there is a lot of waiting at work but we've made friends with the techs at our hospital and our host family as well so there is always someone to pass the time with. The weather and views here are also like none other and will definitely be hard to leave behind.

¡Que les vaya bien!