Thank you!

Dear Friends and Family,

I cannot thank you enough for giving me the opportunity to go and serve in Nicaragua over the past several months. God used the time to do amazing things with the lives of many Nicaraguan children, their families, as well as with my own heart and life. Your donations and support yielded so much good, love and improved health. I worked alongside a Nicaraguan pediatrician named Dr. Karla setting-up a program and attending to Nicaraguan students in 4 different schools with Pre-K through High school programs. These students are some of the poorest children in our hemisphere. Dr. Karla became a best friend and mentor. Together, we had a total of about 1,800 children to love and share our clinical skills with to promote their health.

Just being a part of these children’s lives and sharing both the joy and the sadness with them was such a learning and influential experience. Dr. Karla and I did not have a clinic or a room in the schools. We traveled from school to school in a car with our bags full of everything from stethoscopes, syringes, tongue depressors, and medicines to health education posters, a minor emergency kit, and tweezers. We also travelled around in order to visit the children when they were in the hospital, bring them to specialist appointments and/or a place to get laboratory tests done. There was never a dull day.  I saw firsthand how poverty reaches every aspect of life especially health. Mothers sleep on the cement benches outside of hospitals while their children are cared for in intensive care.  Children’s diets consist of tortillas and 7 cent bags of chips/candy/cookies. Families don’t have towels or soap in their homes. Eight people live in a one-room shack with a dirt floor.  Things like headaches/hunger/thirst/stomach aches are part of daily life. Access to health care is a huge problem in Nicaragua. Giving the children at the schools access to healthcare through Dr. Karla and I is an immeasurable blessing. With your generous donations and support, Dr. Karla and I were able to serve together in the following ways through Nicaragua Resource Network:

• Gave anti-parasite treatment and taught about parasite prevention, symptoms, and treatment  >1,500 children and >200 of their teachers
• Installed soap at the schools to assure that the children and staff can wash their hands. The bathrooms are always pretty dirty, rarely had toilet paper and no soap. Hopefully with the soap we can prevent the spread of many infections including parasites.
• Helped set-up the documents/supplies/system of care delivery for 4 different schools, 2 of which have special needs programs. Special needs programs are very rare in Nicaragua. Typically special needs kids are hidden and ostracized from society.
• Identified cases of malnourished and anemic children  and gave the support/teaching needed to treat them
• Attended to several particularly grave cases of children with fatal conditions or emergencies and supported their family members through the process of care throughout the tough times.
• Organized for many of the children to receive dental evaluations, vision screenings, and receive glasses if needed
• Got health insurance for some of the special needs kids whose families have no financial means to support the medical needs of their children. Many families live on about $1 a day. So for the special needs kids that have medicines costing $50 per month, it is impossible to provide for their children and their families.
• Taught basic personal hygiene and hand washing to all of the children
• Taught  parents about nutrition and oral hygiene for their families and answered parents questions about their child’s health.
• Supported a 16 year old Nicaraguan girl with bone cancer as she struggled emotionally, physically, spiritually, and clinically. Her name is Heysi and she was always in and out of the hospital either to receive chemo, with a kidney infection, with anemia, or with unbearable pain. She is smart, beautiful at heart, and is a blessing to know. Her mother has not been able to work and spends her days supporting Heysi with all the love a mother could possess.
• Brainstormed and got a plan in action to get clean water at the most rural school where currently there is no water available.
• Began teaching (and Dr. Karla will continue) the oldest high-school students how to be health promoters in their community by teaching about the Heimlich Maneuver, CPR, wound care, infection prevention, and how to identify and handle many emergencies. This school is located in a rural area where access to health care is especially difficult. Equipping these young people in their community can help provide the community awareness and skills to address emergencies/health concerns.
• Found and transition a Nicaraguan nurse to take my place when I left to keep the program going to create sustainability. The new nurse’s name is Martha and she is a Nicaraguan nurse that is skilled, loving and enthusiastic…she has also become a good friend.
• And much more!!!

However, despite or maybe because of the poverty, the people in Nicaragua are so beautiful in heart. Nicaragua is the 2nd poorest country in the western hemisphere, so the people feel the ups and downs of life in such a tangible way that they share a sense of humility and connectedness that is warm and welcoming. They work hard and I was so surprised about the many people wanting to give whatever they had to help better their own community or their neighbor. Thanks to your support and donations, hope, health and love are being spread to the Nicaraguan children and families through this medical project.

In addition to working with Dr. Karla in the schools, I experienced Nicaragua through other avenues too. I spent time with a Nicaraguan nursing school and supported them whenever I could. I lived with a host family and enjoyed learning how to make tortillas, eating gallo pinto (a typical Nica rice and beans dish) for dinner every night, going on family trips, eating mangoes on the porch, and playing by candlelight when the power went out. I went to church at Nicaraguan churches and learned to praise God the Nica way. I love this country, the culture, and the people. I was constantly challenged and humbled.  I learned to redefine love, justice, health, faith, and my own dreams.

I dream to positively and significantly impact women’s and children’s health in the developing world and to promote global health education among nurses. While I was in Nicaragua, I was accepted to Johns Hopkins University for the MSN/MPH (Masters of Nursing/Masters of Public Health) program which will prepare me to accomplish those dreams and I couldn’t be more excited to start the program at the end of this June. My experiences in Nicaragua are the perfect steppingstone to prepare me for making the next step in my nursing career and life. I know I will be back in Nicaragua in the future.

I want to thank you so so much for your donations and support that gave me the ability to go on this journey to Nicaragua and grow spiritually, professionally, and personally in ways I cannot express. If you want to know more about my time in Nicaragua and see pictures, feel free to email me at ayla.landry@gmail.com if you have questions/comments/encouragement. I cannot thank you all enough and hope that while I have been in Nicaragua, God has been moving in your life too. Thanks again for your donations and support from the many Nicaraguan children/families and from me!

With Love,

 Ayla Landry, BSN, RN

“Love requires action.”