In loving memory

Twice a week, Preston goes to the children's hospital with our friend Rodrigo to pray specifically for children with cancer. I went with them once on August 19th.

It took us a long time to get in. The part of the hospital we wanted to get to was guarded. To get in, we needed to walk up to guards, explain what we were doing, get interrogated about our business. There was a very good chance that we could've gotten turned away. But after a while, they had us sign in on a clipboard and allowed us access. Rodrigo knew his way around--he led us through a garden, down hallways, twists and turns. Eventually we made it to a specific ward, and found ourselves in a green hallway. We began knocking on doors, asking to pray for the children and their family members. It was a little difficult for me because yet again, the language barrier rendered me unable to understand everything that was being said. Preston interpreted for me the best he could in a whisper.


The first room we went into was very dark and very hot. There were four beds, all of them occupied with a sick child. We went to all of them to talk and pray, and I took pictures of everyone--the sweet little girl, the older girl who had no hair, the tired-looking boy who smiled big for the camera, the small child who slept the entire time. The next room was smaller with only two beds. One of the boys there had the most swollen, largest belly I'd ever seen on a child. Interpreting his family's words, Preston told me that everything had already been done on him and there was nothing else to do but wait.


Strangely, I felt very sleepy the entire time. I wanted to wake myself up to really concentrate on what was happening, but I just felt so tired. It was very odd. I'd had a good night's sleep and everything. Preston felt the same way--he figured it was the heat in the hospital. I think it was that and the fact that everything felt wan and dead.


I felt so tired that I nearly groaned when Rodrigo beckoned us into one last room. He let me go ahead to take a picture, and I squeezed into the small, barely lit room. I found myself looking at someone with only one leg. Their hair was so short that I had to ask if it was a boy or a girl. It was a girl. I angled myself the best I could, and took a picture of her stretched out on her bed. Rodrigo said "Take a picture of her face," and so I did that as well. I leaned over and showed the girl her picture, and she gave me a quiet little smile. Then we left the hospital.

I'm going to cut myself off here to post a link to the Kolbs' blog about this topic... read (it's pretty short) and watch the video.

http://bigpicturemissions.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/la-moscota-childrens-hospital-nicaragua/

See the girl, Scarleth Altamirrano at the end of the video? That's the same girl at the beginning with only one leg, and yes, those are my pictures of her. She died about two weeks ago.

Last week Carrie was sitting at the table and I was doing dishes when Preston came home from the hospital. He flopped heavily into a chair, telling us that one of the girls Rodrigo had often visited had died. He and Preston had asked to visit her, but a nurse said "Oh, you didn't know? She passed away last week." They hadn't known at all, but it wasn't very surprising. She had cancer in her leg, and the doctors decided to amputate it before it could spread any further. So they went ahead and amputated her right leg... only to discover that they were too late and cancer had already spread to her lungs. She lost her leg for nothing, and she was only twelve or thirteen.

I washed the dishes, listening to Preston talk when it suddenly hit me that this girl only had one leg. I ran to get my camera, went through it until I found my hospital photos, and showed the picture of the one-legged girl's face to Preston. He looked at it and said "Yeah, that's her."

The huge sense of loss began to really sink in. Her story was sad enough, but it suddenly took on a much heavier meaning to me because I had seen her just weeks before she died. I had been in her room, taken pictures, spoken to her, showed her the picture of herself. Carrie and Preston had used my pictures of her in their video because there were no other pictures of her.

I'm slowly realizing everything as I'm typing it down. Honestly, this entire post is like an epiphany that I never knew I had in my heart until my fingers began hitting the keyboard.

And you know what, I don't know how to end this post. I've been sitting here staring at the screen for several minutes, and I'm completely lost. How do you end something like this?

Might as well end it the way it started.

                                                              In loving memory

How many more strange things will I see before leaving?

Yep, this is a continuation of that wonderful list consisting of bizarre, wacky, disgusting things seen around these parts. Does it seem like I relish talking about these grotesque topics?

Because I do.

We get a TV channel from Miami, Florida. We like to watch it because it's one of the few channels in English, but I personally enjoy it because of this:

FREAKIN' YES. It's a weatherman... in a Hawaiian shirt... with a parrot hand puppet... in a smaller Hawaiian shirt. Is that not the greatest thing ever? He's got to be the ballsiest weatherman alive! And of course he makes the parrot talk in a high-pitched voice, why wouldn't he? He's not even close to being a professional ventriloquist, but dang it all, he tries. If the man taking a nap in a hammock underneath an 18-wheeler is named Awesome, than this must be his twin brother Beawesome. (Origin: Beyond Awesome merging into one word. Source: the movie Bolt.)

A few days ago on Independence Day, we went to Catarina with Eugenio (La Vina pastor and good friend) and his family. It's beautiful there--scenic, breezy, great view of the lake, colorful. It's a nice little place, I'd have to say I like it better than Granada because it's not as busy and there's a lot less tourists. In fact, the only reason Catarina had people there that day was because it was a holiday. Eugenio's wife, Ana Patricia, says that on normal days hardly anyone is there. It's a great place that I would love to visit again sometime in my lifetime or maybe in another if I'm resurrected as a gecko or one of the disgusting cockroaches that like to hang out in my room.

But well, there is a catch. After all, it's showing up in this post, is it not?

We were walking along the path in the hills, following Eugenio as he led us towards more scenic sitting areas. I might as well mention that there were a lot of couples there, and that they were rather... um... passionate about each other. That was pretty uncomfortable. But hey, there's always the lake and the trees to look at, right?

So I'm walking along, thinking my own thoughts and glancing around myself at the scenery when my peripheral vision suddenly warns, "Mind your head." So I duck, step to the side, and take a good hard look at what almost hit my forehead.

It was a frog. A dead, rotting frog, dangling from a tree branch on a string by one of its legs. What I couldn't figure out was who would put it there, WHY would they put it there, how would they reach the tree branch with the string, why did they choose a frog, why wouldn't they be courteous enough to not put it in the middle of the walkway... The only reason I didn't take a picture was not because there was loads of people around or because I had more dignity--no, I only didn't take a picture because I was in a hurry to catch up with the others and I assumed we would see it again on the way back. Of course, we didn't because Eugenio led us a different way back to our cars.

But yeah, that was just--that was really, uh, well... look, I'm having a hard time finding a word strong enough for that. So I'm just moving on.

Not too long after that frog incident, we reached an fenced area on the edge of the mountain. Some parts of the fence were broken, and Eugenio was very fearful that one of the Kolb kids would be dumb enough to approach the open area and accidentally fall down the side of the mountain. (I wouldn't have minded.) While he was preoccupied with watching the kids, his daughter Ana Marcela marched over to the edge of the mountain and stepped onto a rock to elevate herself. Spreading her arms wide, she began to sing the Titanic theme song: "Every night in my dreams--" and was suddenly cut off by her father, who panicked wildly and told her to get off the rock and away from the edge. I suppose I'd needed a good laugh that day, because that silly little incident had me screaming with laughter. I'm not exaggerating, I stumbled over to the side of the path, clutching my stomach from laughing so hard. Everyone was staring at me, it wasn't even all that hilarious, and I couldn't even get the words out when Carrie asked what was so funny, but I didn't care.

Preston and I were in the car once (it seems like all my strange sightings start out like this), going to someplace that I can't remember and thus is not important. We were sitting there quietly, doing our own things, and then... was that... no.... it couldn't be, right? Holy crap, it totally was... it was a guy on a motorcycle with a tire around his waist!

Being in Nicaragua has rendered me out of practice in the art of watching America's Funniest Home Videos, so I didn't immediately assume that the guy had tried to be young and carefree by attempting to ride a tire swing, got stuck, and was now riding in the path of humiliation on the way to the hospital to get pried free. Pity, it would've made a great story. But still, a lot of explanations can arise, so use your imaginations to assume what you want about this tire and his man. I figure anything we imagine is a lot more interesting than the actual story, anyways.

This list isn't near long enough, but I'm starting to get tired of writing so I'm going to stop here. To be continued... eventually!

What do I name a post like this?

My time in Nicaragua is coming to an end. Exactly a week from now, I will have already stepped off the airplane, embraced Texas, and will probably be asleep in bed with my cat. The time here seemed to go past so slow, and yet I realize now that it went by faster than anyone had expected.

It's been a difficult trip. Being in Nicaragua itself was uncomfortable as compared to America, but that wasn't the entire battle. Most of the obstacles lay in being the first person to live with Preston and Carrie. In all honesty, I really believe that any other person who decides to also briefly live here with the Kolbs will have an easier time than I did. But while it's been the most difficult experience, it's also been the most wonderful.

Want to know why?

• Figuring out Nicaragua at the same time as Preston and Carrie. It was hard because we were all in the dark together. We stuck close together for a long time, and the first several weeks we had nothing  to do, which was frustrating and caused a lot of problems in the house. Often P & C expressed their wish that they could tell me about places to go and people to see, but none of us just had any idea. It was pretty difficult to not know what to do and who to talk to. Three months later, we've made friends and have an insanely busy schedule from people constantly inviting us to events. All of us are wiser about Nicaragua and are able to advise future visitors about it, but it really did suck to be the tester. The nice thing, though, is that now I'll seem like a wise elder figure who one comes to for advice about my own experiences. Plus bragging rights for originating the whole idea of living in Nicaragua with the Kolbs. Do I sound like I'm proud of that to you? Because I am. Sorry, guys.

•  Trying to get the internet. Oh sweet Jesus, that was agonizing. It took us almost a month to get our internet modem because the stupid company basically did. Not. Care. About. Us. We often walked to the internet cafe by our house, but that was crap because we could only go online for a half hour. Have you ever been timed on your internet browsing? It's a frantic experience, especially when you have a lot of mail from concerned people back home. There's hardly any time to really respond to all of them. Then, when we finally got our modem, it didn't work. We called for someone to come and fix it. No one ever came.

• The euphoric joy of finally getting the internet. We went to Granada one day, and when we came home the internet was mysteriously working. Who knows why? We didn't question it--just gleefully got online to spread the good news and immediately called our parents. We spent hours on the computer that day and the next, just catching up with everyone.

•  The Costa Rica mission trip. That was a huge part of my Nicaragua experience because it was the first time I started making friends with people around my own age. I found out about the trip the day before they had to buy the bus tickets. God was definitely wanting me to go because I asked to join at the very last minute and they said yes. Two days later I found myself leaving a foreign country for a 5 day trip to another foreign country, surrounded by Nicaraguan youth I didn't know, who were speaking a language I barely knew. The entire trip, I'm afraid I wasn't quite myself because I was extremely frustrated at hardly being able to communicate with anyone. Very often I felt bored, isolated, in the dark. Many times I wondered what kind of an idiot I was, going on this trip in the first place. But after expressing my frustration, I discovered that everyone was very sympathetic and was eager to practice their English with me. The Costa Rica trip turned out to be a great (and humbling) experience.

•  New friends from Costa Rica/Nicaragua + Soccer + Freezing cold rain + Slippery grass = AWESOME. Soccer in the rain is definitely one of my favorite memories. Do you know how great it is to see nimble, athletic people who are totally into the game try to make a fantastic kick, only to start sliding and skidding and completely miss and fall down? It's amazing, my friends. Simply amazing. I burned a lot of calories from laughing that afternoon. (I was goalie, so while I didn't run around enough to fall, I got just as bruised as everyone else from getting kicked at. Win some, lose some.)

• Meeting a bunch of people in general was great. We've gotten to know a lot of people from church, the neighbors, and other random people met in various ways. They are happy people and genuinely want to get to know us... well, except for the few people that try to spend time with us just to ask for money. Not cool. But most people are very friendly and likable and will add you on Facebook without even thinking. I've made a bunch of great friends here who I will sorely miss.

•  Getting used to the culture without warning wasn't all that pleasant. Learning to throw away toilet paper, trying not to die in the insane traffic, trying to be late to everything just like everyone else, and more... all of this we hadn't known about until actually arriving in Nicaragua. Who could've warned us that everyone jaywalks and that it's legal to pee on walls? Figuring everything out was confusing, but you gotta do what you gotta do to live here. Every time P & C and I see a jaywalker or a motorcycle overflowing with people or a bus cutting us off or a woman walking around without a bra, etc. etc., we throw back our heads and scream "CULTURAL!"

•  Somehow, the blend of Taiwanese/Irish/Scottish/German/Spanish/white that created the wonderful creature named Ashley Petty that's speaking to you right now also creates the illusion that I'm a native Nicaraguan. That's right--for whatever reason, I just so happen to look like I actually live here. How the heck did that work out? Beats me. But it was great, because for once in my life no one was asking me "What are you?" They just looked at me and decided that I blended in, which I LOVED. Seriously, that's never happened to me before! Do you KNOW how much I stick out in America?? It was wonderful because I got all the good prices (if people think you're a gringo, they charge higher prices), but it was also bad because people would start nonchalantly talking to me in Spanish. And then I would say "Um... mi espanol es muy malo." They'd look at me strangely, and I would quickly add "Muy malo," followed by hastily fleeing the vicinity the first chance I'd get.

• All the adventures. Bodysurfing at the beach, visiting Granada, Masaya, and different areas, going to Costa Rica, soccer in the rain, drinking one Smirnoff and getting insanely dizzy, climbing volcanoes, attending musclemen competitions, talking ourselves out of police tickets... ah, these aren't even half of the adventures I've had in the two-and-a-half months I've been here.

• As I've mentioned before: all the sights. So many hilarious, gross, just plain bizarre sights. And yet... I've neglected to mention Nicaragua's beauty. Nicaragua is a colorful, dirty, unique, frustrating, calm, sensible and yet not sensible, beautiful country. I say "beautiful" because I just absolutely love how green it is. Being from Texas where everything brown grows (I'm exaggerating... but not by much), I really appreciate the natural beauty of trees and plants and flowers. And I love how simply people live here. It's not as complicated as life in America with all of our technology and laws and rules... and yet it's more complicated for me because of the lack thereof.

• Gaining a place in the Kolb household. Seriously. While I've spent over half my trip irritated with the Kolb kids, their home really did become mine as well. If I spent a few days away from the house, I began to think longingly of my "bed"--an air mattress with two sheets, a mosquito net and a fan shoved inside so I can actually feel it--and Carrie and Preston's American sarcasm. I've got a few places in my list of things to call home: my dad's house, my mom's house, my church... and the Kolbs' house in Nicaragua has definitely added itself to the list. Heck, I regard Nicaragua to be one of my homes. I guess that tends to happen when your skin color and appearance blend into a place you're living for an extended time.

There's a lot of other things I can't think of at the moment, but I'm pretty sure I've gotten the big ones out of my system and onto this screen.While I'm extremely excited to go home to Texas and see my loved ones, I'm also melancholic about leaving this country I've grown to love and all my friends I've made here. I don't know when I will next get the opportunity to visit again, but I promise that I will go back and forth from Texas and Nicaragua with arms wide open.

Oh, Jed.

There are no words for Jed's current Facebook status.

" So this is how my morning went... I was making my way around the bed, smoothing the sheets, humming nonchalantly to myself when all of a sudden "SCORPIAN! THERE´S A SCORPIAN IN MY BED! EEEEK!! LIZZIE! BRING THE SHOTGUN & SHOOT ANYTHING THAT MOVES! (It was MASSIVE!) SHOOT IT LIZZIE, SHOOOOT IIIIIT!!!!!!!!!!!!" (Said like the man from Jurassic Park, the original, when the first dino goes all jurassic on ´em... "

 This trails off and starts again on a comment--

" So anyway, Peggy comes in & gives a tap-tap on the bot-bot and the little creature goes instantly to scorpian Heaven - what a place that must be... Hot & Stingy) And then... Well where was I... Oh yes, on to dusting my Royal Doultons. The ones with hand-painted periwinkles... "

Again. No words... just pure enjoyment.

Stop undressing me with your eyes

As hinted at in my previous post, one thing I cannot STAND is being stared at by people who have no business doing so. I mean, I don't mind people-watchers and observers... I myself am one. But there's a difference between observing and staring. While whistling. And making smoochy noises.

Realization about cultural staring here dawned on me within days of coming to Nicaragua. I would be walking with a group through a heavily crowded area and would glance up to see several people staring at us simultaneously. Um, creepy. But easy enough to shrug off and ignore if you're part of a group.

I'm a big fan of taking walks around the neighborhood for the exercise, to observe life, to explore, to pray, and to just get out of the house when I'm restless. I usually go at night because it's cooler, (Yes Mom, I know I promised you that I wouldn't walk by myself...but I have been. I'll begin my profuse apologizing as soon as I get home) and I've not had any problems with anyone trying to assault me or anything. I've been trusting that God will protect me, He always has. I'm scarcely ever worried while walking, but I am extremely wary just in case.

I've made the mistake of walking around while looking nice...in a skirt, for instance. It was just what I happened to be wearing those days, and I never thought twice about it. Our neighborhood has security, lots of people are out walking by themselves as well, it's not yet the time of night when the rapists come out, what could possibly go wrong?

I started rethinking that when the whistling began. Ugh. The nice thing about being whistled at in the evening is that you can make incredibly dirty faces at the whistlers and they'll never know. And then they start the smoochy noises. What the heck am I, an animal? That's the same kissy noises I make when beckoning my trusty fat cat Poochmutt to my side. There's plenty of hoochies in stripper clothes walking around the vicinity--please go bother them instead, I'm sure you'll make them feel wanted or something.

However, I don't want to be negative about all the males here--some guys really are nice. I've made a lot of good friends here who are male. If they're nice, they will just say "Buenas noches." I don't mind that, I'll smile and say it back politely and continue on my way.

Since I've graduated from high school and am now qualified as a semi-intelligent human being, I've made my own rule to look comparatively like crap on my walks. Meaning t-shirts and old gym shorts (which are more comfortable anyways). Often glasses are worn to help complete the crappy walking outfit, and thus I pull on shoes and march out the gate with dignity and supreme satisfaction.

I remember complaining about this problem a few weeks ago to Preston and my friend Ana Marcela when we were all in the car together. Ana Marcela had asked if our neighborhood was dangerous (it's the same level of dangerous as your suburban American neighborhood... I'm not sure why she asked since she lives about two minutes from us) and Preston and I had immediately launched into the chorus of "Oh yeah, it's SO dangerous! We always have to stay inside our house because people get raped and murdered here everyday... no, not really," saying this last part hastily when Ana Marcela's face turned a strange color.

Side note: We aren't trying to minimize those problems because every country has those kinds of horrible places, but people just get way too caught up in assuming that the area we live in is a terrible, dangerous community when really any robber that tried to break into the Kolbs' house would be screwed over, seeing as we have hardly anything of value to take anyways. Those people down the street have a nice TV in their living room, go rob them instead and could you please lock the door on your way out, Mr. Robber?

Anyways. I told Ana Marcela that the only problem I'd experienced was with people staring and whistling and making kissy noises, even if I wasn't even dressed all that nice. Her response? "Yeah, BECAUSE YOU'RE HOT!"

I rolled my eyes, exasperated. "Well, I always walk at night, so how could anyone see my face??"

Silence. Something began to dawn on me. "Wait..."

Preston finished that thought for me. "What makes you think they're looking at your face?"

Ah, I can be so naive sometimes.

So that made me even more determined to take my walks while not dressed nice. But here's the frustrating thing... yesterday I walked with a t-shirt and jeans, and I still got whistled at. And this afternoon I had on gym shorts for a walk just outside the neighborhood, and it was even worse! Several guys said "Adios" simultaneously as I passed. Then a man who was probably in his 30's was doing smoochy lips at me and I didn't even attempt to hide the dirty look crossing over my face. I'm not even going to describe the rest of my walk except to say I'd never been happier to step onto the Kolbs' porch and lock the gate behind me.

While I'm not trying to alarm anyone (although I'm sure I will regardless), I would just like to point this out as being one of my biggest problems, but God has taken care of me from harm and I know He will continue to do so, and no, parents, I swear I won't do anything stupid on purpose. I'm thinking of America a little more fondly now, since there's a majority of people who won't actually say anything about the fact that they're undressing you with their eyes.

So this post is dedicated to Jessica Knox and any other girls I know who might want to visit Nicaragua from now on. Don't be a hoochie, and while most likely nothing will happen to you, you WILL be uncomfortable.

As for Mattias and any other guys who will visit... well, I sure hope that this problem doesn't pertain to you.

"Hide yo kids, hide yo wife..."

Things I miss, things I'll miss

I've been having problems all summer with my room leaking whenever it rains really hard. Recently after a particular nighttime thunderstorm in which I spent hours awake because of my leaking room, I wrote down my favorite parts about being in America and being in Nicaragua. Since I have nothing else to really blog about, I decided to go ahead and post my lists.

Things I Miss

• privacy
• my own bathroom and throne
• a bedroom without a window connecting to the kids room
• getting dressed without worrying about being seen
• warm water
• the occasional bath
• no leaky rooms
• shelves and drawers to put my stuff in
• my bed
• my books
• more food choices
• eating healthier
• no kids in the house
• no kids constantly asking questions
• peace and quiet
• blasting my music into the quiet
• not being stared at by kids/people
• places to escape the bugs
• not having to constantly mop and sweep
• the power staying on consistently
• no language barriers
• punctuality 
• people not coming over to your house unannounced
• driving my car
• America's Funniest Home Videos and The Office
• Dad's house
• Mom's house
• Poochmutt, my fat paranoid cat
• the Vineyard Church of Conroe
• my loved ones... friends and family

Things I'll Miss

• the rain
• the green trees and plants
• the yummy food... especially the gelato
• Smirnoff and the drinking age being 18
• laidback Nicaragua time
• the utter satisfaction of fighting and killing a cockroach
• watching a lot of Seinfeld
• soothing routine of doing my laundry outside
• cheap prices
• having ten convenience stores in my neighborhood to walk to
• the markets and unique, colorful products
• all the colors in general, especially on the houses
• riding in a car that says "Yo Amor Nicaragua" and "Texas"
• the fast driving
• barely any laws
• having lots of free time
• walks around the neighborhood
• my looks blending in
• my chances to learn more Spanish
• crazy adventures and stories
• the funny sights
• watching the fire juggler
• the wonderful places to go
• La Vina
• my new friends
• the Kolbs