It’s been over two-and-a-half weeks since I’ve posted anything. And that’s not because nothing has been going on….actually quite the opposite. Things have been so crazy with all the travel and getting to our next location that it’s been hard to find time to sit down and write anything…couple that with the fact that I’ve had limited access to internet and you get a lull in the blogs. But the good news is that we’re doing great, we made it to Nicaragua, and we are currently living and working at an orphanage here. So how did we get here? Let me try to give a quick recap…
We finished up some work in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala at a church that was being built. Our mission for our last day of work was to get palm branches to be used for the roof of the church. Seems simple, right? Well, someone had to climb the 30+ foot trees and chop down the palm branches. Then we had to drag all of them a few hundred yards up a hill and through the wilderness. Considering I was still getting over the typhoid and didn’t have much energy because I wasn’t really eating any meals at this point, I’m just glad I made it through the day.
At 3am the next morning we headed to the bus station and caught a bus to Guatemala City to meet up with the rest of the squad. We stayed the night at a local seminary there and then headed to Antigua in the morning to meet up with another World Race squad that left is getting close to the end of their race. We ended up being in Antigua for about a week. While we were there we had sessions that helped us process and deal with what had happened the past month. There were also a lot of relationships that needed mending and this was a chance for us to practice living in true community as we worked through some issues. Another ministry that we were able to be a part of was volunteering at a hospital that had a children’s ward with kids that had disabilities with many of them bedridden. It was hard at times and stretched a lot of us, but we had an awesome time playing with and loving on kids.
A couple days before we left Antigua our squad leaders designed a Race for us and we competed against the other teams on our squad. It was basically a list of things to do in the city…a lot of random pictures and videos…and the first to complete everything and make it to the overlook below won.
We ended up not winning and while that was hard for some of us, we learned a lot about each other, were able to grow closer as a team, and had a blast in the process.
One of our last days in Antigua we decided to take the bus and hike to the top of Pacaya, one of the active volcanoes. It was quite an adventure and some people came back pretty bruised and battered, but I think most people were glad we did it.
Since the situation in Honduras was cooling down and they were now letting people cross the border we decided to purchase our bus tickets and start making our way to Nicaragua. The bus ride was so long that we were unable to do it in one day and had to break up the trip. Most of our squad spent one in San Salvador, El Salvador and then headed out at 5am to start the 12 hour leg to the capital of Nicaragua. However, my team and team Azuriah (who we are partnered with this month) were trying to make it to Ometepe…an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua which is still a couple hours south of the capital. We ended up staying two nights in San Salvador and then leaving on the earliest bus we could get the next morning…why does everything start at 3am? Anyway, after another night in a hostel somewhere in Nicaragua, we took a boat to the island and then had to find accommodations for a few nights since the orphanage we were lined up to work at wasn’t ready for us.
Ometepe is pretty small and the island has to volcanoes that make up pretty much all of the land mass. Our first living conditions here were at a place called El Zopilote…an eco-friendly, hippie run hostel. Well, I’m not sure hostel is the correct word, but I’m not sure what else to call it. Below is a picture of where half of us slept.
A couple people were in the upstairs and had a mattress, but the majority of us slept under the cabin in the hammocks. It took a little getting used to, but the hammocks ended up being pretty comfortable. I think I have this unwritten list of things I’ve always wanted to do, or things I want to accomplish before I die…one of those was roasting a marshmallow over lava and another was sleeping in a hammock where beds and hammocks are synonymous. Two things checked off in a week? That’s pretty good in my book.
After three nights here we packed up everything for what seemed to be the millionth time in the last couple weeks and headed to the orphanage. It’s been nice to be here for a couple nights and feel a little more settled knowing this will be our home for at least two weeks. Thus far we’ve been doing construction on a road they have on the orphanage’s property. We mix all the concrete by hand and take all the loaded wheelbarrows up a steep hill. It is physically exhausting, but it’s nice to get back work and have a little bit of a routine again. We don’t have internet here and we have to take a taxi 20 minutes to get somewhere that does. I imagine we will make it into town on our days off like we have today, so hopefully I can post a blog weekly to let everyone know how things are going.
