Day 5 - Beach Day!

Today was our day off! We got to sleep in which was very nice and then we went to the beach. As we drove to the beach we would pass all these little shacks along the road with kids and families just hanging out. You see so much trash everywhere, no one throws away anything! It reminded me alot about my friend Jen Dye who hosted a mom from Nicaragua 2 years ago with her two sons who came to have surgery. The little boy, Domingo, would just eat something and then just drop the trash wherever he was. By the end of the 2 weeks the Dye's yard had a "Domingo" pile that was his personal dump! Anyway as you drive along you see lots of people on bikes, multiple people to a bike and the carts on wheel or horse pulled carts. You see lots of stray dogs, very thin horses, chickens and even an occassional pig along the roadside. We saw an active volcano from the distance, shown above, which Garrett thought was very cool! When we arrived at the beach there was a outside restaurant and a few umbrellas that we all quickly got under because the sun is so hot and the sand would literally burn your feet if you didn't wear flip flops! The sand was dark in color almost dirty looking. Most of us went into the water and cooled off, then came back for a nice luncheon together. Lots of us got the fresh fish and it was delicious! After lunch we lounged around a little more and some of us got back in the water for a last time. By the time we got back to the hotel we were all tired so we just showered and hung out. We regrouped for our team meeting/dinner at the other hotel and got down to business about the beginning of surgery week. Once all the announcements were made, we broke into individual groups to talk about what we all would be doing. The high school girls, us and another non-medical volunteer-Lucas - all spoke to Miguel the child life specialist to make our plans for the next day. Miguel was worried because the Scott's and Lucas are leaving on Tuesday. He only speaks spanish and is concerned how he will work with the high schoolers and their sponsor once we are gone. I assured him that there would be other volunteers that are bilingual from the American/Nicaraguan school. After eating pizza, which the kids were thrilled about, and having our meeting, we played the name game. We went around the room and introduced ourselves and let everyone know who we were routing for in the Superbowl, which going on while we were at the meeting. At the conclusion of our meeting, one of the in country Ops Smile coordinaters thanked us all profusely. She was very emotional and said that even if we only changed one life, it mattered. We have all made personal connections with these Nicaraguans we've met and we will all be forever changed! We quickly ended the meeting so everyone could get to sleep because we are back to early morning tomorrow - 5:30am! Garrett has already crashed and Celia wants to write something so here she is!

Hi its Celia! The Beach was so much fun today! We played Marco Polo and just hung out in the water. Our friend Kristy was amazing at this game. I think she should go pro! We also had delicious ice cream on the beach. We are so excited for sugery tomorrow!! Bye until tomorrow!!

Oh I forgot to metion the little parade the had right outside our hotel yesterday morning, sort of random but kind of cool too! I enclosed a picture above! Good night!!

-Crissy, Garrett & Celia