hasta el proximo

andrea, lindsay and lynda flew home this morning. back to their families, and back to the cold. chris and I will do the same on monday. it is hard to believe that after so many months of planning that the brigade is actually over.

thank you to everyone that offered us love and support along the way.

thank you especially to my amazing team. they spent the last three weeks waking up early in the morning and working their asses off in the intense nicaraguan heat. they rolled with all of the unexpected punches that nicaragua offered them, including crazy sandy wind, nasty coughs, violent stomach viruses and three flat tires. they worked even longer hours than the already long days that i had booked for them in the clinic. they gave from their hearts, and they did amazing work with the kids at the parajito azul centre.

Lynda: you are such a brilliant and lovely woman. i have heard andrea speak highly of you over the course of our friendship, and it was such an honour to finally meet you and to share this experience with you and your daughter. thank you choosing to come to nicaragua with us, and for doing all of the (often underappreciated) work of charting for the clinic. your documentation is the tangible evidence of the amazing work that happened at the centre. i am forever a member of your fan club. thank you for trusting me to take you on this trip, and for opening your heart to this experience. thank you especially for being the mama to us all.

Lindsay: when i talk about lynda being the mama to us all, i think of you as being the mama to the babies. thank you for being the one to hold each and every child that came through the clinic. you were doing so much more than keeping them on the table, and getting them ready for their needles. you were loving them deeply, and that was obvious to all of us. thank you for being so flexible with your position in this group, and allowing your role to change from artist to nurturer. the clinic could be so chaotic, and you were the one that consistantly worked to make it a safe, quiet, and peaceful space for the people recieving treatment. your generousity of spirit and your open heart helped those amazing kids to feel safe with us. thank you for your friendship in tricky times, and thank you for all of your hard work. i look forward to a bottle of wine and a long talk as soon as i get back to edmonton. i love you.

Andrea: what can i even say? that i adore you. that i believe in you. that i feel incredibly blessed to have shared in this journey with you. andrea, i have trouble believing that this entire experience came out of a conversation in your clinic almost a year ago today. look what we made happen! and we are not finished yet. there is still a long road ahead of us, and i am committed to walking down that road with you. thank you for trusting me to plan this trip for us. thank you for encouraging me to have the confidence to be a leader. thank you treating these kids with the exact same respect as you treat your clients at home. thank you for loving them, for singing to them, and for healing them. thank you for teaching a TCM workshop in a rural community in northern nicaragua. thank you for holding workshops on acupressure points for the staff at the orphanage. thank you for consistantly going above and beyond what was expected of you, both from the people here in nicaragua, and from our team. thank you so much for coming to my favourite place in the universe both to heal children, and to teach communities how to heal themselves. i am so blessed to have you in my life.

much love to you all. thank you for coming to Nicaragua.
abrazos,
jania

(chris and angel are still here with me. They both know how much I love them, and how grateful i am to have them around. i plan on showering them with love over the next three days in lieu of blogger style tributes. xoxox. i also plan on spending the rest of my life with chris, and inviting angel´s future children to spend summers with me in edmonton...so both boys know that i love them like crazy. they have been invaluable members of our team, and i wouldnt trade them in for anything.)