Even "cool dudes" ;)

Even "cool dudes" listen to the good news in this country.  

Dangers in the ministry!

Dangers in the service!!!

This is the countryside and if you look straight ahead instead of monitoring the environment you are in serious dangers stepping in one of these. .. left by a cow, cat, dog, horse, donkey, pig, mule or any other animals you can think of ;)

Another 2 Mexicans leaving :(

Today another 2 lovely Mexicans left us, they are heading of to another area in the circuit where there is also a great need. 

For this reason me & Mily invited them to a local restaurant for a send-off and it was a great success. 

This fairly new Restaurant called La Tapisca in Totogalpa has decided to invite local artists, musicians, poets etc every month as an ongoing event. 

If you ask us we think it was a fantastic initiative and the ambience was really good. We will surely go to the next one again.... best event in this "town" since we set foot here :)

I have some videos from the night but cannot upload it due to the limits in my internet access.... 

Guess I have to put it on YouTube when we are home or if I come across a WIFI place here sometime. 

Walking and shooting strangers

Walking and candidly shooting strangers on the street in Esteli using my iPhone. 

Some people are even trying to make a living selling small bags of rat-poison.... They can't make much money in a day I guess.  

Update on photos and sickness

First, thanks to all who wished us well through our blog and/or emails. 

Here is the update so far...

1. 

   My iPhone is playing up in a BIG way and I still have not found a solution for putting photos on the blog from now onwards; but I will continue to work on a fix since many commented and liked my photos. 

   Seems like I will only be able to update with text (for now) then add photos later when I'm in a city that got WIFI access.... and this will not be often :(

2.

We are currently in Estelli waiting for the doctors test result. 

I look like Donald Duck, lips are swollen pink, face, eyes, feet, hands are all swollen, my back full of rashes. 

In Mily's case it is fever, abdominal and muscular pains and prolonged fatigue. 

We just arrived to the doctor now from our 2 hr bus journey to Esteli for a check up. So I'm actually sitting in the waiting room writing this post!!

Seeing the doctor today will hopefully resolve the mystery. 

More trouble ahead...

1.
I'm still not well at all during the nights so we have to travel to Esteli tomorrow to see a doctor (around 2 hrs on the bus).
The elephant is still stomping on my face and I'm swollen like a balloon at night; but the daytime it's fairly reasonable and I'm not too bad then.
However we cannot take any risks/chances so we have to address it.

Mily isn't well either, we think it's a local flu bug :(

2.
I don't know if I can update this blog frequently any longer.
My iPhone is playing up and NO trouble shooting or reset of the device has resolved the problem yet.

I will try to get my android device up and running and then use it as a channel of upload.

Did not feel well today...

Both Mily & myself were sick and stayed indoors all day. 

1...

   Mily got flue symptoms and is very tired in general by walking in hard/hot territories. 

2... 

   I don't know what happened to me though, I woke up this morning and my hands & feet were EXTREMELY swollen ... likewise my face looked like an elephant stomped on it !!! 

Can't recall being bitten by an insect or anything but something was definitely very wrong this morning :(

In the evening we met up with a Mexican couple who are visiting Totogalpa and came across this beautiful sunset. 

Ecclesiastes 8:9 comes to mind...

Ecclesiastes 8:9 comes to mind here. 

You have probably not heard about this event in Europe ... but here it's very big news (link below) and the TV is currently covering it 24/7. 

Maybe they are emotionally involved and maybe this event brings to mind underlying tensions & bad memories from the war they recently had in the country? 

We all well know the history of man.... sometimes it takes just a "minor" event like this ...and suddenly it escalates develops into a full local conflict/war. 

Ok, like in all countries the government obviously tries to put on a brave face and stresses how unified they all are + how everyone loves their rule and their policies. 

But as in all countries ... there are always two sides to the story... And it seems that some people obviously disagree so strongly that they are willing to kill innocent people to prove their point. 

http://nicaraguadispatch.com/2014/07/deadly-ambush-in-nicaragua-brings-bloody-end-to-anniversary-celebration/

Assembley day today

We had our Circuit Assembley in Ocotal city center today, just over 1000 attended and 9 got baptised. 

Some iPhone photos of the event below. 

The welcoming desk at the entry, maybe they should have sat under a different sign ;)

The schedule 

Some in our congregation

Some in our congregation

Some in our congregation, assigned to the sound department. 

Some in our congregation

Full house

Platform in action

Some youngsters in our congregation

Some from our congregation

Chairman

Brother from Ocotal

Platform desk. 

A brother in our congregation wanted to impress, and yes THAT is a tie-knot!!!

Maintenance day

Today was maintenance day in the Totogalpa Kingdom Hall. 

The women are a large army

Poco loco young hermano ;)

Bread & a cold drink made of maiz and sugar.... But it was a bit too sweet for my taste though. 

Work, work...

Normally not

Normally we eat well in the ministry to keep us going in the preaching-work, but today we got stuck in Salamasi without a prepared lunch, so today was junk food for lunch.... 

 - Yogurt

 - Chocolate milk

 - Vita Malt

 - Chrisps

 - Breadroll with raisins

Total of this was £ 2.50.... And that's quite pricey in Nicaragua. 

First time I met an English speaker here

Today I met an English speaker for the first time, a Canadian man in Tinajilla and Coyolito who was doing charity work there... but as most Westerners his interest in the Bible was minimal though. 

For more info about the place he worked at see link/URL under my photos from today's ministry. 

Lady we met in the ministry. 

Waiting for a chicken bus at the main road. 

Below is a photo I took of the place where the Canadian is voluntering. 

Turning landmine survivors into solar technicians

40 years ago Sabana Grande which is a tiny place in Nicaragua was ravaged by war. But today you find people there under solar-powered lights eating solar-cooked chicken and zipping on fruit shakes made by a bicycle-powered blender. This place truly embraced the solar culture that in turn transformed the community completely.

www.homepower.com/article/?file=HP143_pg30_Returns

It's impossible ...

The only camera I have in this country is my iPhone... and it's simply impossible to use this and successfully take a photo inside the "chicken bus" which accurately reflects how many people they squeeze in... how tight it is... how it smells + how noisy it is inside this yellow semi-managed managed disaster of organized chaos  ;)

 

Some got quite a heavy load in their baggage

Even though some are amazingly upbeat in this country whilst living under their current circumstances SOME in the older age group might at times look sad as well...  and it's easy to forget there might be a genuine reason behind it. 

 

Today we understood this better when one of our sisters related her own firsthand experience during the Nicaraguan revolution. It's now easier to grasp the full extent of the misery and struggle some had to go through when she told us face to face. 

Many in her family literally had all physical assets taken from them and they then had to walk all the way to Honduras for protection. There they lived in the bush without food and they only had one set of clothes. Of course a lot happened during the time but I can't go into detail. 

So many have simply "seen a lot of things that people should never see" and it changed them as people whilst they tried to live a lives on the run. 

This proxy war took place 1960-1990 and it killed around 2% of the population here. 

Mosquitoes

They are everywhere and they just love to eat my feet :(

Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes !!!!!! Aaaaaaarghh!!!!

The "chicken buses"

When it comes to the yellow "chicken bus" that we use daily; these run on dedicated routes and are setup as their own small enterprises. 

In the bus there is often a small timetable stuck with the family name of the owners next to the driver. This information is sometimes buried amongst tons of stickers and loads of religious objects. 

Because of failure to deliver a unified transport system to the public it is not a very homogenous transport system here... So you are never really sure what bus is arriving around the corner as you wait at the bus stop (for a fairly punctual service). 

The fare is incredibly cheap (in European standards) and for 20 pence you can travel almost 10 kilometres!!!

Most of the chicken buses are second, third or forth hand yellow school buses from USA that definitely seen a fair bit of action and are very tired. 

Travelling in them is a rough BUT strangely enough also a simultaneously amicable experience. 

You often literally thrown in by the emergency exit to this yellow metal container stuffed full of local people. The amount of people stuffed into the bus also means getting off and on can prove very hard. 

But the lack of space does not prevent the local traders from selling anything you can think of such as biscuits, fruits, headache pills etc etc etc. 

Things we take for granted...

Two things we take for granted sometimes....

1. 

Go to the kitchen & bathroom to turn on the tap, well this is NOT an option for people living in our community. They have to walk to the well and then carry the water back home, nobody is exempt ... so even kids has to do the job. 

2.

We can see, but the lady Mylene is studying with cannot see a thing; but she got a good memory and studies very well. She very much enjoys studying with us. 

Caldera & Buema Vista

Today we went to Caldera and Buema Vista. This is approx 60 min walk into the countryside from where we live. 

Before going there we were told that a lot of them cannot read in this area .... so we have to simplify the message and use lots of illustrations to get the message across. 

BTW if it does not come across in the photos below, it was HOT and I was sweating buckets :(

These sisters just keep going, and....

These sisters (last Mexicans in the congregation) are just unstoppable!!!

They preach so much that we have difficulty keeping up with them.... They just keep going, and going, and going, and going, and going, and going :)

Water and trip to Somoto

You (or at least we) cannot drink water from the tap in this country, because if we do we will spend the next day stuck in the toilet ;)

We have to buy these 20 litre bottles and use as drinking water, they cost about £ 1.50 each and they last approx 1 week. 

If you follow this blog you probably know by now that Monday is "time off" for preparations and chores, likewise today. 

So we took the bus to another nearby town today called Somoto. It got a slightly different feel to Ocotal that we normally go to for our shopping. 

To our surprise the busses stopped going to Totogalpa 16.30 and this is certainly something we have to take into concideration in the future. 

Just a quick iPhone snap from a crossing in Somoto town.