*There are pictures of most of these things on my facebook page, so feel free to friend me if you want to see them….it takes super long to upload a single photo on this blog!*
I have a really obnoxiously long, detailed, ever-growing, and largely unrealistic bucket list at home that I began about two years ago. Pardon the unoriginal idea, but if you have never made one, you definitely should. Take the pressure off of yourself to add items that you feel like “should” be on it….if you have never had a desire to see the Great Wall of China, go skydiving, eat escargot, or paint a picture, then don’t include them. My bucket list has everything from places I want to see, recipes I want to try/create, books I want to read, events I want to attend….and about 100 other random personal desires.
I had originally thought about making a bucket list for this trip, but given the unpredictability of the whole year, I feared it would become impossible to actually do anything on it.
So here is the next installment of my “Reverse Bucket List”: crazy, unique, random things I experienced in any given country that I never could have known or predicted, but want to remember nonetheless.
I want to go to Nicaragua and…
-visit the quaint town of Granada, Nicaragua, with its multi-colored buildings, rustic churches, and fascinating history….for more about Granada, see my blog about debrief!
-take a 5 hour truck ride in the bed of a pick-up with 13 other people and their packs.
-meet 13 incredible young men and women of God on a passport trip at our ministry host site.
-learn about and work with Vision Nicaragua, a ministry committed to tangibly doing the work of Jesus Christ by helping those in need in countless ways.
-see two of my team mates nearly blow up the kitchen while making brownies with a gas oven.
-work at an organic, self-sustaining farm orphanage doing various tasks….putting up gutters, painting, playing with children, gardening, building a basketball court and baseball field, and other random tasks.
-eat an organic salad for the first time in months!
-pick mangoes almost every single day, usually eating 3-4 per day.
-pick and eat jocotes, a little nutty, plum-like fruit, several times a week.
-spend an entire day attempting to de-lice myself and my team mates…complete with a “Lice Lice Baby” playlist, an attempt to drown lice in mayonaise (for those that survived the chemical treatment), and the naming of the lice big enough to be mistaken for fleas…the Nutty Professor, Gilbert Grape’s Mom, Oprah circa 2003, Rosie O’Donnell…etc.
-spend a day wondering around the town of Leon, thrift-shopping and getting lost.
-feel especially third-world-missionary-esque after taking a trip to the pharmacy with several team mates to buy meds for lice and parasites…our “Flea and Worm meds.”
-ride a horse that a random stranger is passing by on, just because I asked.
-have a chance to work alongside the doctor, Dr. Michael Martinez, that Vision Nicaragua put through medical school and employs in its free medical clinic. Treated men, women, and children for respiratory illness, skin allergies, kidney disease, menopause, and many others throughout the month.
-had a shot-put contest with rocks, and a who-can-work-with-a-mouthful-of-water-the-longest contest while shoveling rocks and dirt.
-make friends with a family in the village of Bethel by wondering into their yard to meet their pig, and spending the next two weeks visiting them every chance I got.
-got “tatoos”, hand-drawn by the children of Bethel.
-crack eggs over the heads of two squad mates, per the Nicaraguan birthday tradition.
-enjoy a delicious PBJ and watermelon picnic prepared by two lovely young ladies on the Passport team…love you Haille and Amy!
-find a pig so big that at first glance I think it is a baby cow, and then hold her three piglets…feeling somewhat fearful for my life thanks to mama pig’s angry baritone snorting.
-understand the reality of how blessed I am to have been born and raised in the USA (clean, clothed, fed…I could go on and on…) after seeing the heartbreaking filth and poverty of small children who dig through piles of trash completely naked.
-accidentally set 3 cows free from their designated grazing yard, then chase them up and down the street trying to direct them back in. Whacking them on the butt with a stick and speaking to them in Spanish helped. (ps, good work Amy and Naomi 😉 )
-discover the awesome games of “steal the bacon” and “You’re not my husband” thanks to the beautiful girls at the orphanage.
-take a seriously torturous run down a dusty road in 100 degree heat during Nicaragua’s dry season…and have to play “chicken” with a herd of oncoming cattle on a similar run.
-lay in the back of the truck and stare at thousands of stars on a night time drive back from the beach.
-discover that one of my team mates loves to eat cake powder right out of the box as she and my other 4 amazing girl team mates climb in my bunk to comfort me on a really hard day.
-I visited a 23 year old, Juan Carlos, dying from kidney failure, treated symptoms as well as I could, and helped embalm the body when he died 3 days later. God bless his mother, who has lost her husband and two other sons in the past two years.
-spend an afternoon in the backyard of my new Nicaraguan friend’s home, while she has her son climb a mango tree to pick the perfect mango, and sits her parrot, Rosita, on top of my head to sing. Connie…you are a trip! love you!
-spend a day with the youth of Bethel at the natural spring water park.
-run through the 6 inch deep dirt of a dry river bottom to a small swimming spot and swim with some local kids…and find a horse skeleton on the way back.
-hike and board down the side Cerro Negro, a cynical active volcano…a fairly newfound "extreme sport" that can only be done a few places in the world. Thank God little Helena, who toppled down most of the volcano, was ok!
-serve coffee and sweet bread to most of the village of Bethel when Juan Carlos died, as they began the all-night mourning service per tradition.
-make friends with a Canadian pilot, Neal, and climb up in his airplane on Lake Nicaragua.
-become a World Race team leader.
