Elective Attempt 2

Elective attempt 2

There is a Gillette razor add playing on cable right now. A guy gets given a razor and backpacks for 5 weeks, the razor reliably lasting the entire time. During that time he learns a few life lessons: never say no to a gift, take every opportunity and fun is universal. These are the lessons I’ve learnt in the last week. I am sitting in a hostel garden on a beautiful wooden table, colourful lanterns above my head, the morning light streaming through the tropical, green foliage and waiting for my avocado shake. I am in Florres, Guatamala and I have just had the most incredible week.

In my last blog I’d just arrived in the place I’d promised never to go back to, the dangerous, dirty Belize city. That night Milagro took me to buy food for everyone, 20 people for 1 week, and also gave me a little tour of the city. She told me what I knew, people don’t come to Belize city unless they are visiting someone and never walk outside after the sun goes down. We headed back to her beautiful, perfectly matching and tasteful house where I met my new roommate-Rowan. Rowan is Milagro’s 13 year old son. His life, he quickly informed me, was Harry Potter and Adelle. He loved animals and ecosystems, was top of his class in most things, had climbed a mountain that year to raise money for the blind and was, himself, blind. We had fun rooming together and I learnt a lot; you can’t just leave stuff lying around on the floor, always put knives handle up anywhere, brail is really hard to read and we make references to our sight all the time. Luckily, Ro was chilled and laughed when I said things like ‘what are you watching’ and ‘running without music, I’d be running blind’-my goodness, talk about foot in mouth!

My Brail lessons

The family was amazingly generous; Milagro opened the house completely to me and it was crazy fun. Everynight a different brother or friend stayed, it was a social and fun house and I felt immersed for the first time in Belizean culture.  At night, when we weren’t partying with the team, we would cook up a storm of Belizean delicacies; chicken salad Belizean style, stewed chicken and rice, desserts-it was awesome! Milagro used to work in the family business, a bar, before she took on saving children’s lives. For this reason she is perpetually fun and every evening meeting would involve rum punch, a pool and really good food with plenty of laughter mixed in. She is also proper Belizean and speaks proper creole; everyone is either ‘gurl’ or ‘mun’.  Her husband, Jo, is a carpenter who makes the most beautiful mahogany furniture. He is obsessed with animals and is building a habitarium for reptiles. He once travelled to Australia to look for a snake and his children share his love of animals. He grew up in Jamaica but left because it was dangerous. He was pretty cynical about Belize city and pretty much laid down the rules: no running after 6, no wearing ipods out or carrying money unless you want to get mugged.

Rowan and Milagro

Tostada night with Milagro

The Medics of American Paediatrics and all that Jazz

On Sunday, after a cinnamon coffee and a jog, I went to Mayra’s house to meet the medics. Mayra’s house, it turns out, is a bright orange mansion with a pool and spa complete with a bride, a private pier, boats and a huge patio. The medics were a team of 11 paediatrician and medical students from Norfolk, Virginia. They were loud, social and fun. They’d planned one week of outreach clinics up the Belize river, deep into the jungle in the little villages. The week started with a pool and tamales party with much rum punch. It was crazy different to anything I’d experienced so far but so much fun.

The week of clinics that followed were incredible. 

A small gathering

We would get up nice and early, pile into a van with 10 suitcases of supplies and travel between 1 to 2 hours through the jungle to set up(stpping for a morning coca-cola on the way-crazy Americans). On arrival there would be at least 20 people waiting. In the morning, I was in charge of oral hygiene. My prop was Danny the dinosaur, a fluro green dino teddy with a set of human teeth. My speil was ‘show me how to brush danny’s teeth and you win a prize’. In  some towns he was a hit, a celebrity, and children would fight to brush his teeth over and over. The more well-off villages he was less awesome and I really had to sell him to get any contenders. There was always one kid who fell head over heels in love with Danny, we had to chase a 2 year old in Caye Caulker who managed to run out the door with him. It was fun though, by the end of the week most of the children had been re-educated on how to brush teeth and got a free toothbrush. 

Danny the dinosaur and friends

In the afternoons I would sit in on the consults or run my own (supervised) consults. Very much the usual- rashes, URTI’s and obesity with a lot of poverty in the mix.

Waiting for clinic

A typical clinic

Post clinic clean up: Dr. Rick checking his BP 

My charge 

Las Fiestas

Every night we would have a different form of gathering. One day it was a BBQ at Dr Eck’s(our Belizean Dr contact) family house on a beautiful river amid ricepatties. The sun was setting and illuminating the rice paddies with their iris’s and the occasional cow. The food was amazing with chicken BBQ, cole-slaw, amazing rice and beans and even chicken feet for those who were game(like pork-crackling but made with chicken). Another night we had a salbutes party at Mayra’s mansion, swimming in the pool and macheting open coconuts to mix with rum. It was very, very fun and the Americans were awesome.

Caye Caulker: the luxury edition

Our last clinic was in Caye Caulker and, even though I didn’t have accommodation, I decided to go along and try and find a bed somewhere. The clinic was full on, busy but good with lots of Spanish only consults.

Clinic in Caye Caulker

Once we’d finished I was struggling to find a place to sleep when a doctor couple, Ashley and Scott, offered me their other double bed. Despite the threesome jokes this turned out to be the party room. Our hotel was amazing with a giant pool complete with water features and a spa, a deck overlooking the ocean and amazing, giant rooms with their own kitchen.  We headed to the lazy lizard for afternoon drinkies before getting our last meal from WPP, grilled fish, rice and beans, potato and chocolate cake-beautiful. That night the party continued in our room with coconut rum, lying in the hammock and a bit of latin dancing(Jesus attempting to teach me). It was a good night but very loud.

Scott and Ashley

The next day involved me getting up at 5:30am, hung over, and heading to the deck. For some reason I can never stay in bed past 5:30 after I drank too much. On the deck was Dr. Rick-an ex-vascular surgeon now retired who had teamed up with me a few times last week to see patients and also was the only one game enough to try chicken feet with me. We sat on the deck chatting about life and watching the beautiful sunrise over Caye Caulker. Everyone left for a tour and Scott, Ashley and I headed for a breakfast where Scott passionately discussed the problems with todays nutritional practice and I ate my sugary cinnamon roll. My soul reason for going to that cafe was because the grandmother of an obesity consult patient I saw the day before baked the most incredible pastries(the families reason for the childs weight)- I had to try them!

Chilling

That afternoon Dr. Rick talked me into going somewhere else I’d said I wouldn’t return to; San Pedro. Last time I was there I’d felt trapped and needed to get out. This time, it was more beautiful and relaxing than I remember. Dr. Rick and I drank Sangria and ate fish, enjoying the breeze and chatting about specialties, his family and the world in general. We dodged golf carts and headed to the rum factory where the guy recognised me, how embarrassing! He fed us his usual rum but this time got out the 95% proof-my god it was like drinking paint stripper! Dr. Rick definitely handled it better than me. After some more sangria I thought maybe San Pedro wasn’t as bad as I remembered.

Sangria times with Dr. Rick

The rest of my time was a blur of beaching, lying by the pool and getting sunsoaked. The highlight was when Jesus, Dr. Rick, our new friend Sarah and I did a sunset sail. The boat cruised around the island in the perfect, balmy breeze as we ate salsa and chips, drank rum punch and a little of Dr. Rick cream punch and just enjoyed being alive. That night we went gambling at the chicken drop: a famous island game where you drop a chicken on a grid of numbers and the number it poos on is the winner. I was 33 and luckily I was very drunk as the chicken stood on 33 and pooed on the number next to it! Sigh, $500 almost won! The whole experience was loud and very full on but very, very fun and a good way to end my time here. The next morning I watched the sunrise again(another hang over) before packing up and saying goodbye to my new friends.

Sunset Sailing

Chicken Drop

Our Hotel Room

Sunset Sailing

Our boat

   

This whole week has been an incredible, incredible experience and such an adventure. I met some really amazing people and had such adventures. I also learnt so much, experienced new things and broke many of my personal promises. This is what travelling is about.

Sunsets in Caye Caulker