Day 20

Busy, Busy, Busy, Busy!

The shower seemed colder than it has ever been this morning. I have learned how to handle it and make it less difficult to shower. You see the trick is to just jump right under the shower head all at once. Your body, when exposed at once begins to become accustomed to it and it is almost as if your skin puts on a thicker coat because the water seems to warm up a bit. Or it could be that your body is so numb that it doesn't feel the intensity of the cold water as much. Yea, just throw yourself in it, if you do it little by little it will seem so much worse. Once your back is completely under the shower head and your back is used to the water it is a lot easier. So there you have it, 'Mekaila's Tricks to Master a Cold Shower', coming soon to all bookstores near you!

So my morning began at 6:45am with a shower. I made breakfast for the team after I got myself ready for the day. We left the hostel around 8:20 to meet Rocío, the kids therapist, at the bus stop. We all then headed to Camile Ortega, which is a neighborhood where a lot of our scholars live. We met with some of the moms and a few of the older girls to discuss what our plans were for the following week and letting them know about the office and that we plan to have an open house party on Saturday. So it was really great to see them and to see that they seemed excited and interested in coming throughout the week to meet with us. I love every time I go because I get to see Ninoska and her beautiful little baby boy Eduardo Esmir. He is the cutest thing!

Eduardo Esmir and myself

We then took Nino and Sonia's moms, Carla and Patricia who are twins which can get confusing at times, to a lawyer. You see both of them have a son who are our scholars who aren't filed as people in Nicaragua. They have no birth certificates and to the government they don't exist. You may ask how this could happen? Well they just didn't have the money at the time that Kevin and Leo were born. Now Leo is about 15 and Kevin is 18. So we had to go get that taken care of especially since we are becoming recognized in Nicaragua by the government.

Anyways, while we were there with the lawyer and there 'office', her assistant was typing up the information needed. No she wasn't using a laptop, she was using a typewriter! It was so interesting! I have never seen a typewriter being used in my life time other than on movies! I felt like I was on an old old movie. It was really neat to watch her and it was just crazy how they still use those down here. I can understand why, it doesn't need electricity which is really expensive and they don't need wifi. It is all manuel. But still it was pretty neat to see and to think if kids saw that now they wouldn't know what to do with it. I probably couldn't even operate it on my own!

The typewriter

The picture above is the typewriter. I wish I could've gotten a picture of the front, but we weren't even supposed to take pictures anyways but Brad snuck a picture on his phone for me. It's very big and I bet pretty heavy too. I might invest in one some day just to try it out for myself and to say I used a typewriter! Pretty cool for us younger generation to see the older generation still alive in some areas, it's almost like traveling back in time without having to have a time machine! Ok enough about that. :)

We were able to get the process started on getting Kevin and Leo to exist. It was then off to lunch after we said bye to those in the neighborhood. We had lunch at a different spot today. We went to Managua's biggest university and ate lunch on their campus. It was pretty yummy. I had chicken tenders and fries. I'm not going to lie, it was pretty nice to have an Americanized meal for a change. I love the food here but sometimes you miss the food back at home. They definitely didn't beat my mom's fried chicken tenders, which that sounds so good right now! With her white rice and yams! YUMMY!!!! :) Anyways it was just nice to do something different. 

We came back to the hostel and I was able to take a nap while Jessie and Brad went to the clinic to check on Jessie's head. Thankfully, the doctor said it is nothing to worry about. He gave her some medication to help the pain and numbness. So thank you all for your prayers. She is feeling a lot better! Anyways, my nap was well needed and when they got back we headed to another government building to get VISEDAL registered. It's crazy to watch the process of NGO's and becoming recognized by the government. I know with each government there is a different process but yet there is still a process. So we got recognized last week, so this week we had to get registered. That didn't take long, Brad just had to make a copy of a paper, pay a fine, and then get the stamp and we were good to go.

We headed to metrocentro so Brad could do a few things and also we were able to get ice cream after a busy but productive day. Ice cream before dinner! My favorite! :) We then came back to the hostel and relaxed for a little bit before making dinner. Tonight it was fried rice with veggies and quesadillas. Very delicious. I'm telling you we are getting so much better each day of cooking here. Well it was a great meal to end a great day. 

Well it has been a very busy day of running around all over the place. But very productive! We got a lot accomplished today and it feels great! Well I''m off to bed because I am exhausted!

Until next time, buenas noches