Fourteen volunteers from the “Helping Hands” group of the UM-VIM journeyed to Nicaragua in Central America February 18 to March 1, 2006. Our goal was to provide health care and medications to about 1,200 people in six days of clinics. We flew from the capitol city of Managua to Puerto Cabezas in the North Atlantic Autonomous Region. Miskito is the principal language spoken on the Miskito Coast , with most people speaking a little Spanish as well.  

From Puerto Cabezas we traveled three hours in an open boat to the coastal village of Prinzapolka.
Here, Nancy waves to Manuel our pilot/driver while Gary looks straight ahead. We were one hour on this interior waterway and  two more hours on the ocean.

Prinzapolka, population 500 has no well, no sewage treatment and no electricity. The only way to travel to these villages is by water;  there are no roads.  At the far left  in the photo is one of many outhouses built out over the river.  We were guests of Francesca  who had solar generated electricity on sunny days and plenty of soft rainwater for bathing. We brought our own food and purified water.

At the start of a typical day’s clinic, we would pass out about 200 numbered tickets for persons wishing to consult with and be treated by our doctors. An additional 50 tickets were passed out for persons wishing to be fitted with eye glasses for reading.
At the right, our tri-lingual translator Robert  (in the white shirt with black stripes) assists Doctor Colleen. Toward the back of the room, the woman in the pink blouse is viewing  an eye chart  through the lens of a focometer mounted on a tripod.

Here are some of the children in the village of Prinzapolka which  is situated on a marshy swampy flood plain.  The inhabitants of each of the villages we visited  lived in wooden houses built on stilts. Prinzapolka had a public health doctor, but he had only a few medicines and heaccepted our invitation to work with us in our clinics.  Each village had a public school, several of the buildings just being finished.
Following the 1979 Sandinista Revolution, the Miskito Indians asked to be left alone and they were finally granted the right to become autonomous regions governing themselves.