Pictures

Here's a link to pictures from my trip. The other students who were there with me should also be posting. Enjoy.

http://picasaweb.google.com/belize.feb

nearing the end

Only 2 more days of clinic left and then 2 more days and I am home. The month has gone by fast. Yesterday was extremely busy with tons of mothers and their children. We gave out a lot of tylenol. Everyone had a URI... that and of course the staple of scabies. I went on the Wednesday morning market run for my last bit of fresh papaya, pineapple, and bananas. We had a speaker from Sustainable Harvest International come and speak this lunch and he was fabulous. The group teaches locals how to grow fruits and vegetables using organic, sustainable techniques in hopes that they will incorporate the foods into their diet and grow enough to sell at the market. It seems like it is doing great things throughout Central America.

On the downside, my computer has decided to go caput... at least from the internet standpoint. For some reason the wireless connection has never worked here and I have no idea why. I tried downloading a new driver software and the like and nothing worked. Now the ethernet card has also stopped working. It cannot sense the connection and yes it is connected on both ends. I think I am going to have to let Dan take a look at it when I get home. Blah.

Nothing much else of news or importance. I am getting excited for Match Day which is less than a month away. I want to know where Jimmy, Skidaway, and I are going to end up next year. I don't know if I am going to write another blog entry before I leave, but we shall see. If I don't, I will see most of you soon.

titles escape me

Another day in clinic, nothing too exciting. After clinic we went back to the University of Belize to do free sports screenings. A pretty busy afternoon, which included a stop at the coffee shop. yum. Here are some thoughts on my mind right now. Yesterday I mean an older American couple who are volunteering for the Peace Corps. It was great to talk with them and get their perspective on Belize as they have been here for almost 8 months. The Peace corps has almost 70 volunteers in Belize and their are countless other non-profits here. We discussed how Belize is poorer than the U.S. but it is not as poor as many of its neighbors and has benefited from a relative stable political structure. I wonder why there are so many people here, myself included in those people; because as I compare it to other places I been, I believe that the need is not as great here. I think the big draw is that Belize is welcoming and a relatively easy place to adjust to, as compared to other parts of the world. (I use my experience in India as my personal comparison). Its just an interesting thought. And the people who are here are doing good things and I do not fault them for coming here. I appreciate the effort and any step taken to reach out to the world is a noble step.

My other pondering of late concerned my reaction to people who walk by me while I bike and how that has changed since a year ago. Last summer, a pedestrian try to knock me off my bike while I was biking at 4 am to get to the hospital to round with my surgery team. Ever since then my heart seem to skip a beat when a pedestrian walks toward me while I am on a bike. Its weird, especially as I have had that reaction here in Belize. A change in perspective that is hard to shake, maybe for the good.

That's it for tonight.

another weekend passes

I spent the weekend here in P.G. Saturday I biked into town to Jeff's house and borrowed his kayak for a little ocean fun. It was beautiful and I saw tons of fish below the sea's surface and tons of jellyfish above. Also passed a fisherman perched on a rocky outcropping - it seemed like an ideal place to spend the day. I also "borrowed" Jeff's hammock on his porch and took a long nap, ate some ice cream, and just took it easy. Today I again biked into town, which seemed a lot more difficult this morning if I stayed here much longer I would definitely invest in a bike with an adjustable seat and non-rusty chains... I spent the day at the Coral House Inn at their pool and met a bunch of Peace Corps volunteers. Another relaxing day in the sun. The only bad part of the weekend are my burnt lips, hopefully they heal fast.

just another Friday

Fridays seem to be slow around here, although Erwin states that the Friday that students and doctors leave is always the busiest so we shall have to see what next week brings. I saw our regular visits HTN check-ups and children with diarrhea. But no scabies. We found out why we don't see Botfly with its long emerging worm in clinic. People know how to extract the worm at home using saran wrap and tobacco and see no need for the doctor. Too bad for us as it would be something new for us to see.

Matt left today as he had arrived a week before us, so now we are down to four students. Tim, Kara, and Emily went to Placencia, which I opted out of as I had spent my first weekend on the island. Instead I am haning out in P.G. this weekend, alone in our treehouse. I am going to borrow Jeff's, one of the administrators here, kayak tomorrow and explore the ocean for at least a little while. I am excited. Today I got a ride into town and then biked back about a 30 minute trip on an one-speed bike with deflated tires. I saw a really cool crab - yes, I get excited about crabs I did teach Marine Biology for a year. He (or she) was striped like a Zebra and shaped like a swimming crab. He was definitely aware of me and I had to be sneaky to get a picture. The crabs antics brought me much amusment. Not much else planned that is all too exciting. I am feeling poor at the moment with all of the upcoming expenses that Jimmy and I are going to have and I feel like just taking it easy.

pharmacist for the day

Today we had mobile clinic in Barranco, a Garifuna community south of P.G. I was feeling better this morning but not completely up to par, but decided to go because I can only lie around being sick for so long. Since all five of us were able to go today, I opted to be the mobile clinic pharmacist, which basically involved slicing pills in half and counting them. I am so glad for pharmacists back home. We had a traditional Garifuna meal for lunch which involved a lot of plantain and fish. It was good, but I avoided large portions in respect of my stomach. I think one of the more interesting things I found out today was that at least some of our patients go to the various health clinics with the same complaint in order to get "stockpiles" of medication. Our intake nurse, for lack of a better word as he does much more than that around here, told me that a family I saw yesterday had gone to the P.G. clinic before coming to see us at Hillside for the same complaint of scabies. He also said that years ago one of the doctors at Hillside would go on home visits and look at everyone's medications. Supposedly he found enough medications in peoples' homes to run the clinic for 5 years. I know that is an exaggeration, but it is an interesting phenomenon. Everything we give out is free and so is the medication at the P.G. clinic, and virtually all patients walk out of the clinic with at least Tylenol, which if you believe this information they might not even need because they have stores of it at home. Tylenol is pretty benign but it is a little scary to think that they have stockpiles of other medications, such as the scabies cream lindane which can be neurotoxic lying around their houses to use at their convenience.

Anything interesting phenomenon is the market produce here. A lot of it is not from Belize at all. In fact yesterday morning we saw bags of produce from Guatemala being dropped off. Its a little strange as one expects markets to have local produce and the grocery stores to carry the imports. Although the Minneapolis Farmer's Market also has the same phenomenon. I think the issue is more on my radar right now as I just finished Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbabra Kingsolver and The Ominvore's Delimna before coming here, both of which talked about the environmental impact of shipping food across long distances. Granted shipping food to Belize from Mexico and Guatemala is not the same as shipping produce to the US from New Zealand and Argentina, but it is the same concept. I find myself wondering if it would be possible to be a local-vore in Belize. I think it would be quite hard. As for the above books, I highly recommend them as reads. They are fascinating and make you re-think your particular eating habits whatever they may be.

I also want to put a plug in for A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah and They poured Fire on Us From the Sky by Deng, Deng, and Ajak. Both are true stories out of Africa. Beah talks about the war in Sierra Leone, and how he was sucked into becoming a boy soldier. It makes you realize you never know what you may become under difficult circumstance. It also shows how vulnerable children are to war and violence. The second book is about the lost boys of Sudan and again another touching story about children torn apart by war.

Anyway, enough typing for now. I have a little over a week left before returning to the cold of Minnesota. That is definitely going to be a shock to my system.

sick.

Since I last wrote you we had an internet malfunction. Last night the internet was so slow. It wouldn't load anything and we were scared that we had overused our quota for downloads and uploads for the month and perhaps may be doomed to no internet for the rest of our stay. But it seems to have resolved itself and hopefully will remain online until I leave.

Yesterday Kara and I went on home visit with Pat. It was interesting to see how many of these patients lived. Most of the patients were elderly and homebound. They suffered from diabetes and hypertension. The homes were often in a state of quasi-disarray and not as nice as most American homes. I realize though that many of the patients I have taken care of in Minnesota especially at HCMC lived in similar conditions or even worse. The plight of the family-less elderly person in America is often a sad one, and I wonder if they even have it worse as it seemed that at least the people here had not been abandoned. They still had family and friends who cared for them, even if they were poor themselves.

The biggest thing in my life however right now is the gastrointestinal bug that had hit me with a vengeance. It is not nearly as bad (yet... fingers crossed) as what I got on my peds rotation last year nor the food poisoning I suffered after eating Shawn's chicken last winter, but bad nonetheless. I skipped evening clinic today and may not make it out to mobiles tomorrow, especially as the bathroom situation in the villages is not always amiable to bouts of gastro. I am also missing out on birthday celebrations for Matt, one of the Brits, who is turning the ripe old age of 21. I know, its not a big deal for him.

I should probably go back to resting, and drinking water. Hope none of you are afflicted with what I have,