Apologies

I'm really sorry folks for not getting the past weekend's events up on this blog. I've become incredibly busy with the final days of class and whatnot. I promise I will get the blog up eventually (and it will be worth it). Until then please be appeased slightly by these photos:

Half of the famous political mural in León (showing Sandino crushing Uncle Sam despite the bombings in the North (his hat))

The other half of the political mural in León (showing Sandino and Democracy crushing Samosa the dictator)

Not quite the Nittany Lion in the square in León in front of the main cathedral

Some graffiti art on one of the buildings (not sure what Bush the artist is describing)

The same mural with the enemy of humanity part attached as well (O.o)

The view from the top of the Telica Volcano near León on the midnight super moon hike I went on with Kasper and Evan and the Quetzal Trekkers (probably around 3 AM)

 

The crater of Telica (probably around 4 AM)

Day 31 6/22/13 (Staying up late (early?), meeting a WPI semi-alum, soccer in a field, Canelones, soccer on the TV, Tower Heist)

So far the day has just continued from the last one. I’ve been waiting for Dan to return and it’s late. I think I’ll brush my teeth and just nap in a chair next to the window to await his return (as I have to let him in the door). We’ll see if I can get some sleep eventually. Nothing has happened so far today. Nothing. Only about 2 more days and I will be halfway through with this excursion! O.o I’ll be heading to San Carlos in 6 days for the next phase of fixing equipment. Good morning now! I got up around 9 AM (after a solid sleep (felt so so good)) and had some breakfast and did Spanish homework on the subjunctive and describing the operation of phototherapy lights (bilirubin lights) in Spanish with common problems and what we have to test. Also for the first time I got to have some fresh fruit down here (fresh ripe mango that was deslish! (like da’ fish)). After that I putted around working on various blog posts etc (normal life) and eventually left to go play some soccer with Dan, his brothers, Salvador Jr. and some other kids. This turned into the most epic trip as I walked all around the city first then came back to the homestay got my phone and then walked all the way down to the lake and to this soccer field like 25 minutes from our house. It took forever to get there. I was walking to the parque central when a man wearing an orange shirt with glass and a hat asked me what WPI on my shirt stood for. I said it was my university (Worcester Polytechnic Institute) and he said he had gone there for as part of the class of 1964! So here was a WPI attendee (he had not graduated, but left for another school) in Granada Nicaragua. He was from Honduras and had moved up north for school. I think he lives in California right now too. I talked to him a bit about what I was studying there and he told me that his old teacher used to head the physics department or maybe a student in his class is head of the physics department (dunno what he was trying to say there). Anyways he was talking about how even back then he was dating chicks from Clark and Becker. Ah good times. His name was Gonzalo. He also said his son is in CA and studied or is studying at UCLA. I couldn’t believe I met someone from WPI (and someone who spoke so highly of the school too! (he keep saying it was a great choice to go there))! WPI REPRESENT! After that I kept walking down Calzada street to the dock and then to the lake where I briefly talked to this Nicaraguan dude who was saying that many of the tourists here can’t speak a lick of Spanish and he was surprised that I could. He told me the kids had gone to the park way down the lake (which was true as I could vaguely see them playing soccer on a concrete court. So I headed off to play some soccer. Soccer was aight. I’ve realized that I am not that great at soccer and just sort to lumber around with as much ability to do. WE were mainly playing 5 v. 5 or 6 v. 6 and switching in an out for teams. After a while we got tired and headed back for lunch (at which point the seemingly infinite distance from the field to our home became readily apparent). The lunch we had made it all worth it though: as it was this epic pasta jawn (Canelones) with cheese and ketchup on top with a mix of cheese, chicken, olives inside. I also had cheesy rice and a small salad and some Big Cola to top everything off. Win.

 

 

Even got to watch the end of the soccer game between Brazil and Italy. The game was 1 to 3 when we started watching and the last 15 minutes saw Italy score a hotly contested goal as the goalie stopped playing because the ref was close to blowing his whistle. It took a few minutes to accept the score and it became 2-3 Italy v. Brazil. With like 2 minutes to go Brazil scored an epic goal and carried the game through overtime (about 2 minutes). I even saw the first 17 minutes of the Mexico vs. Japan game (same stadium), but this game wasn’t all that exciting except that Japan scored a goal that was redacted because a penalty had occurred as the goal was scored. I was rooting for Mexico although they seemed to be a tad sloppy with controlling the ball. Also got to watch the last quarter of Tower Heist with Ben Stiller and Eddie Murphy (in Spanish). Been chilling and it poured quite a ton today, also got another fresh mango as I was watching and a mini-sandwich for a snack! So epic!

Day 30 6/21/13 (Managua’s Lenin Fonseca hospital, a custom panel board for an ESU (I didn’t build it), more baked goods, no clubbing and still waiting)

            Today was another hospital visit (this time to the Lenin Fonseca ER/OR specialty hospital in Managua). We had a quick breakfast of sandwiches (ham and cheese and mustard on 2 hot dog buns put together (two of these made up breakfast)). These were actually better than I thought they would be. We quickly shuffled off to the school to meet the group and head to Managua. We had the same bus as the time going to Rivas, but this time we had an extra bus that could seat at least 10 people in the back, so we weren’t cramped into the one bus. The drive was actually quite long (it seemed to take almost an hour and a half in the bus this time, although I got a decent amount of napping in on the way there. The hospital was actually pretty nice (and was more or less enclosed too, with rooms and what not and not open causeways). We travelled into this conference room with AC (actually a tick on the cold side for a change) and basically stayed there and worked a bit on an ESU that wasn’t working and an ECG. The ECG had some wires that were funked I think and the ESU had broken tactswiches in the front panel (where someone had actually done a nice job of replacing the front panel’s switches with a custom built tactswitch board. We also got a “tour” around and looked at some of the different wards (mainly the x-ray place, the MRI machine, the CT scan machine and then the dialysis room (with like 8 dialysis machines (this room was the nicest and cleanest room I’ve seen in any hospital down here and it looked actually decently sanitary as well))). After the tour the smaller group went back to the conference room to look more at the machines while the other group went out on “tour.” The previous group (ones not on tour) had taken the custom panel buttons out and we could see the connections and layout (someone with quite a bit of patience and knowledge of ECE put that board together, but the tactswitches were old and not making solid connections). Anyways that was the not functioning ESU. Not too long after that we left the hospital back for Granada at like 12:30 PM (it was not all that exciting in the hospital as we had done quite a bit of waiting for relatively little being accomplished). The bus ride back was even better because I had two seats in the back to myself and could stretch out and sleep a bit. Back at home Dan and I missed lunch so we had to buy baked goods from the local bakery (I bought those same apple cinnamon jawns (2 of ‘em) and this new cheese bake for 20 cord total) (which was a tasty and not super filling lunch. I haven’t had much energy today so it has been just chilling on the internet and watching videos and music. Nap time though and maybe a baseball game later!

            After a dinner of cheese, gallo pinto and bread, Dan, Salvador Jr. and I headed to the stadium to watch the game between Leon’s baseball team and Granada’s team. It was actually pretty legit! We arrived in the 4^th inning and Granada was up by 2 (to Leon’s 0 points). A few innings later one of Granada’s players hit a homerun and another scored a run, so Granada was up by 4. They continued holding off Leon and ended the game with a score of 4-0. Shut down! Leon was supposed to be huge into baseball too! Although Granada is just that good. It was an interesting experience for only 30 Cordobas and I got to watch the people trying to catch many of the foul balls that ended up in the parking lot (probably at least 3 or 4). It was also like the States with vendors walking around selling drinks and snacks. It was kinda fun as I got to talk to Salvador Jr. a bit and chillax at the game. Not a huge baseball fan. Some others were there too (from EWH and had their own sort of sectioned off area for watching and drinking). Fun times over there. Anyways I thought I would go clubbing, but I didn’t have the energy (at like 9 PM). I then spent the next 3.5 hours wasting time on the internet enjoying more or less every second of it. I’m presently at 12:32 AM still waiting for Dan to return so I can finally go to bed. Dunno when he’ll be coming back.

Equipos Médicos del Hospital Lenin Fonseca en Managua

The ECG at Lenin Fonseca

 

The ESU at Lenin Fonseca in Managua

 

The front panel with the custom button board some epic tech made for the ESU (so much awesome!)

Dang! Look at that skill! Whoever built this...I'm buying you a pizza

The power transistors in parallel on the bottom to provide the necessary power output. Also some massive-A resistors in gold (75 Ohm rated @ 50 Watts! and mounted on one of 4 huge heat sinks!)

 

Random photos from recent times

Chicaron (yellow (fried pig skin) and tamal (green) and the gallo pinto (eaten by many, not eaten by few and served almost daily)

Tamal straight from the stalk (not quite)

Trying to get a photo of Dan and my host parents (Adrianna, Salvador and little Adrianna Elena) (perfect eyes closed shot -.-)

Day 29 6/20/13 (describing medical equipment in Spanish, we had a presentation?, actual lunch, autoclaves (in Spanish: autoclaves), breakin’ circuits for science, epic pastries and MORMONS!)

           Breakfast heading off to class: normal. Conversation and talking about how medical equipment functions in Spanish: not normal. Seriously this was actually a bit of a challenge as we had to pick a piece of equipment and describe how it works and some modifications we can do to fix the equipment if it’s broken. We had to do this twice too. I chose to describe a defib (and how it can function as an external pacemaker, restart the heart and act automatically (AED) to help a person (it can also help to fix ventricular fibrillation where the heart rhythm is out of whack) and how the defib charges up a huge current and then sends it through the chest with two electrodes close to the heart (upwards of 360 Joules for some units (probably enough to vaporize and LED))). I then talked about the different types of pumps and how there are pumps that work with a wheel and four small rollers on the wheels to push the fluid through the tubing under the wheel. I also talked about how some pumps have “fingers” that hit the tube in succession to push the fluid up or down in the tube. Additionally I mentioned the syringe pumps with stepper motors that turn just a bit with each pulse out of phase on the individual coils around the motor allowing for precise control of the motor. Anyways after that grammar was pretty normal and we covered the uses of the subjunctive a bit. We also heard about the presentation we had today about what we would do when we get back to the US. We had a bit to write what we wanted to say and then we corrected it with Mariella as we read it aloud. My plans involved biking quite a bit, wanting to take overnight trips with my bike and the VW bus camper we have. The plans also involve much skating and building of projects (including a robot I can sit in that I want to weld together). I also want to get back into whitewater kayaking with my mom (who’s much better than I) and some old peeps from Tumalo Creek Kayak and Canoe (where I worked for two summers back in high school). We actually had lunch today and it was chicken with breading and B&R and plantains. Good food.

Lecture was a quiz and then we got to learn about microscope and autoclaves (sterilizers). Pretty chill day. It started raining so hard at one point that we had to take a break from class as the rain was too loud on the steel roof. After that we had a cool lab on troubleshooting circuits (basically we would give our circuits (power supplies) and anything we built to another group and have them introduce problems into the circuit by removing components or cutting connections or adding wires. This was also an exercise in trying to not be a total jerk to other people as cutting some things on the supply could be quite irritating to get back together (such as cutting the capacitor leads in the variable power supply short against the cap). Luckily no one was a total jerk and we had no real problems. Dan and I cut one wire connection for the bridge rectifier for a group’s variable power supply and we also soldered the unconnected pot pin to the variable part. They found both problems after a bit of time (especially the power connection as I hid it against the board). The two problems on our board were that the wires on the voltage regulator were swapped and the one connection from the regulator was cut. Not too bad, although trying to swap the wires back was kind of a pain. We also reversed the batteries on their flashlight and they completely unsoldered our LED and swapped the polarity (not too hard to spot as one can look at the LED parts inside the head and see the polarity usually). Anyways another group took our baby alarm and soldered two of the output pins on the perfboard area of the PIC board together. Not too hard to fix after using a bit of solder braid so that was solid. That was about it after a quick mini-lecture on this oxygen concentrator tester (designed by two chicks at Tulane that went to Tanzania after seeing several fires from the candle test (putting a candle below the concentrated gas to see if there is more O₂)) that we will be trying out in the hospitals. I headed home after getting the money Mark owed me from Ometepe (good to have some cash again!). I stopped at the bakery to buy some good bread and ended up buying this delicious breaded loaf:

It basically is pastry/bread on the outside with this epic tasty apple cinnamon (cheese too?), sugary filling in the center baked to perfection so the sugar crystalizes and is a tad crunchy. So good. I had to go back later and buy two more (and met two Mormon chicks in Nicaragua for a mission trip (“mission for the church of Latter Day Saints” (immediately thought of Book of Mormon (look it up!)))). Anyways been writing pretty much all of tonight trying to catch up and helped Salvador test circuits with a DMM a bit. Grabbed a workout and had a dinner of more breaded chicken, some steak, lettuce like coleslaw, plantains and white rice and fried cheese (I’ve missed you oh so badly fried cheesy goodness (o how though art like a squeaky chewy piece of happiness)). It has been a good day and night. With that I’m calling this epic day to completion at 10:32 PM. Tomorrow is visiting Managua’s Lenin Fonseca hospital (devoted to taking care of trauma victims and ER cases (All free too)), so I have to be at school at 6:20 AM for another round of rush hour with EWH students and the mini-bus that we’ll most likely have. Peace!

Day 28 6/19/13 (Guin's birthday, the conditional tense, DIY lunch, mircotomes and baby incubator alarms!)

                Today started off with scrambled eggs and really good gallo pinto. Today is also Guin’s birthday, so I have to finish something for her, but should be able to do that later today. It’s crazy we only 7 days until we leave for San Carlos. It feels like I’ve just gotten to Granada and haven’t had all that much time to do anything. Additionally only 4 days of Spanish class and 3 equipment lectures are the final learning to be done before San Carlos (not to mention all that I will learn there). Class today was actually pretty sick! We spent conversation working on verbs and writing sentences using the past perfect and future perfect in the tú and vos forms. The snacks were good and grammar was covering the uses of the conditional (future hypothetical situations, past probabilities, doubts in the past etc). We also talked a bit about the different of hypothetical situations and real situations (many of which seemed to involve bad relationships for some reason). Anyways lunch today was DIY (the homestay for whatever reason couldn’t deliver the food until way late at like 1 PM (when we have Ron’s lecture), so we just said we could grab our own food. Dan and I headed out to Tip Top chicken near the central park. Down here Tip Top chicken is a fast food restaurant that serves (any guesses?): chicken (like a KFC). Anyways I ordered a chicken sandwich (like on a burger bun) and not only did it take almost 25 minutes to make, but the guy making the sandwich had to ask one of the other women workers how to make a sandwich and she told him the buns and then the chicken and lettuce on top with the sauce. Guess they must not have that many orders for that. Anyways it was a good sandwich. After lunch we covered stirrers (magnetic etc), hotplates and microtomes (basically really small versions of those meat slicing machines at the deli for cutting 1 to 10 µm of flesh for a sample on a microscope slide). After that we had a lab using the PIC microprocessor to build an infant incubator alarm that has a thermistor to sense the temperature and output an alarm when the temp gets too high (about 39 degrees C (102.2 degrees F)). We had calibrated the alarm by putting it in a bag and then putting the bag in cold and warm water baths. After that we tested the device and then headed home. We had these friggin epic hamburgers for dinner! Seriously there were like a big mac, but better! We also played a bit of street soccer and then basically just chilled.