Shrimp festival June 19th

It's been a quiet week blog wise but to be honest we have not really done anything new this week since the impromptu church service the other night. It has been a busy week at the clinic as the head nurse has been gone on holiday and that means I have to stay several hours longer than usual. This week we had a few really sick patients but I was so frustrated because for one lady we didn't have any emergency meds for her like nitro or labetalol so we had to ship her to the hospital, however there really isn't an ambulance service here and it took her family almost 30 min to pick her up. The fun part was three days later she came back to the clinic had been released from hospital and was so grateful to everyone. I got to sped a lot of time with her as she now a newly diagnosed, diabetic, HTN, CHF I did lots of teaching on meds and lifestyle and disease process etc.
The thing I love most here and am going to have such a hard time with when I get home is the sheer gratefulness of all the patients. They are extremely polite and patient and just so grateful, they are full of please and thank yous, smiles and hugs. Some of these people wait from 5am to be seen sitting in the heat and never complain at all. It truly shows how wealth, conviencance and expectation brings out the worst in us, I would like to bring every patient here who tells a nurse or doctor off at home leaves the hospital screaming and swearing because they have been there for 20 min. It puts everything into persepective watching people who have soooo much less than us behave sooooo much better.

After clinic we took in a local annual festival which the locals have been raving about for weeks. Apparently the island has missed the last few years for this festival so everyone was really excited. The festival is a fundraiser for island needs and this year it was to put bathrooms in all the schools. Apparently not all the schools have bathroom facilities. the was lots of dancing, singing, eating and drinking happening. It took place at a local resort on the other side of the island, they even had "famous" bands from the main land and the crowd was pumpin. I even got hit on by a local!!! He wanted to do a lot of dancing - most of which was slightly inappropriate, and when I refused to dance he says - "what you no drink?" thank goodness we worked the next day and weren't drinking!!! It was all lots of fun.

Today Dan and I had a long day at the clinic and didn't finish up until 2pm while Ashley and most of the other volunteers took in a shark dive. They had sharks swimming all around them as there guide fed them meat. Ashley found a sharks tooth in the remnance of the feed. While Ashley dove with sharks Dan and I took a taxi into Coxen Hole (yes something we were told never to do) and snooped around. We found a local fish market at the docks and bought some fish for supper, also did some shopping amongst the locals - we were not bothered by anyone.
After our Coxen Hole adventure we headed out for an evening kayak and snorkel right in front of our condo. The crazy cool thing about Roatan is that the reef is literally right out your front door, unlike Australia where we took an 1 hr long boat ride to get to it. After actually getting hung up on the reef with our kayak we navigated ourselves backwards out of the apparently really shallow part (apologized nicely to the coral that I am sure we destroyed) and carried on, we then hopped out of our kayak and toured around with our snorkel gear. We saw tons of schools of fish, conch, huge starfish (that looked different than any other star fish I have ever seen), urchins etc

After a lovely fish and shrimp dinner and some drink we are settling in nicely for bed.
Funny thing of the day - it was so nice and cool and not very humid - slightly overcast. I said to Dan wow it's actually kind of chilly today I must only be like 25 or something-Dan agrees. We get home I check the temperature and it was actually 29 degrees and with the humidex felt like 45 as opposed the regular 32 degrees feeling like 50!!! Oh man we are sooooo going to freeze when we get home.

Night folks!!!




The shrimp festival














Dan patiently waiting for the bathroom



Ashley being not quite as patient - you get the drift





Ceremony at the festival


Maxin and relaxin


A two month old who was laughing at me while I was teaching her mom about the meds I was giving her (and I though my Spanish was getting better)


A little guy who was sooo tired waiting - he and his mom had been waiting since about 4:30 am this was around 10am. We triaged him right there from the scale!!


Our walk to the clinic


Still our walk


Still our walk


Still our walk


The fish market in Coxen Hole




A little bit of Coxen hole


Supper

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Arrrgggg

Wrote a huge blog last night and it was all erased before it uploaded, I was to tired to try recreate it so I will try again tonight


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Impromptu alley church service

So we were saved tonight! As we were sitting down to our meal we heard some commotion from the alley, at first we thought it was the downstairs neighbors playing the piano app on there iPad (there's an app for that)- on further examination we found an impromptu church service taking place, right outside our back door. Thats right people - we have ally roosters, alley stray dogs and cats, alley children, alley crabs, alley geckos, and alley church. The alley filled with locals from the colonia with there children and bibles in tow and they began singing enthusiastically, dancing, clapping etc. It was so random but kinda cool. The songs and service were first sung in and spoke in Spanish then English.





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Got me a Coconut . . . And a gecko!!

Today was another excellent day at the clinic, it is amazing how all the volunteers and regular employees work together so well, we are now fairly comfortable with each other and work even has it's laughs! I have to give the regular employees LOADS of credit for putting up with us volunteers on a regular basis - imagine being at your work and having a constant stream of volunteers in and out most of whom don't speak your language or know how things really go. They are ever so patient and gracious - and always pleasant and helpful even though some days I am sure they could do without us! So a huge Thanks to all the regular employees who enrich our time here as volunteers.

After clinic we were really hungry and tired and headed into town for some nachos and did some souvenir shopping, follow by a mango and papaya smoothy from a road side stand and two bags of fruit from the back of some guys truck!!

We were good little children today and made our own supper - while eating Ash noticed a new little friend had made his debut on our wall. Looking up I saw a tiny little gecko staring back at me with big mischievous eyes, so ensued the great Central American gecko race. It's small but super fast. Ash and Dan did a great job catching while I photographed safely from a chair. We did eventually catch it and set it free outside. Only we let the wrong person set it free - as Ashley let it go back on the side of the house instead of on the ground somewhere, so we all decided when the gecko ends up right back in our living room Ashley is on her own.

















A few days ago I bought a coconut - I have been curious to try it as it always looks so good on survivor, they drink the juice up and fry the coconut in a pan saying it tastes like popcorn. The coconut has been sitting taunting me from the counter so tonight was the night to give it a try. After a few very unsuccessful wacks with a knife we decided we were in need of a little outside help so we enlisted u tube (you can find anything on there). We found a very informative chef who very swiftly and easily cracked right into that coconut - well I don't know who helped him but ours did not go that smoothly. It took all three of us wildly swinging a very large knife at this thing, finally we were successful. Here's a fun fact for you - coconut water while is one of the highest natural sources of electrolytes is really very disgusting. Getting the white flesh out of the coconut was no easy feat either but with a little elbow greece we got it. Another fun fact - raw coconut flesh is also really unsatisfying, so our last attempt was the frying it to make like popcorn - while the house smelled amazing the taste was really not quite there - but it was better fried than it was raw!






















And that was our day today!!

After reading past blogs I realize the spelling and such is really quite poor but I am using my iPad which has this really annoying autocorrect and sometimes completely switches words around on me - so sorry I guess just use your imagination when the writing doesn't make sense.


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Random thoughts of the day

* Pulling teeth and giving medical care on the beach is kinda cool

* I throw the odd PVC when thinking I'm being captured by Caribbean pirates

* Machine guns are scary

* Roosters actually do crow at dawn - EVERY MORNING even when there wild random back alley roosters

* A person can get used to constant sweating and having totally soaked clothes ALL THE TIME

* You need approx three litters of water a day to adequately replace the fluid lost from an average day of sweating here

* Fish cooked with there heads on are more tasty than they look - as long as you turn the plate so it's crispy eyes are no longer staring you down

* Huge crispy beetles landing on you make finding your zen during yoga rather difficult

* While we are on the subject - so do bats

* SPF 60 is not enough for this Lilly white skin

* Sea water makes you gag

* When stuck on the crazy hot, cockroach infested island of Utilla, trying to get off the island 12 hrs before your scheduled boat is IMPOSSIBLE

* when approached by a creepy guy in an alley saying "hey ladies are you first timers" one should keep walking and avoid eye contact

* Sand in your bed sucks

* They don't refrigerate eggs here

* They don't refrigerate milk here

* The people staying the suite below us are from Regina and Yorkton

* When someone pukes into there regulator while scuba diving you attract lots of tropical fish

* Walking to the clinic is a little like the video game frogger

* Cruise ships are big when you are kayaking near them

* Wild dolphins are cool

* Getting called "pussy's" by the local children after refusing to give them a dollar is rather liberating

* Luxury yachts in Canada and luxury yachts in roatan are two very different things

* Thank goodness for skype

* The beer is never cold here and if it is, it's not for long

* Not sure how I'm gonna handle working 12 hrs IN A ROW when I get home

* Happiness knows no race, age, or income level!!!!!





Hanging in the pool today on our day off


Snorkel pictures





Beach volley ball





Me snorkeling


Me and the evening sunset

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Cayos cochinos - June 11th

First off a BIG CONGRATS to. My friend Heather who got married last night back in Canada!! Heather I thought of you all day, and we toasted you over a candle lit meal! Hope all was well - can't wait to see pics!!

Yesterday was pretty cool - it pretty much summed up why we all came on this trip and the type of people we are hoping to help. Yesterday we were off to a very little group of islands called Cayos Cochinos to set up a makeshift clinic and treat the islanders. It was a very wet 1.5 hr boat ride to the islands due to wind and rain and the lack of a proper boat. We were told the day before we would be on a yacht to get there so were all pretty hyped about the trip. The morning of I had my reservations about the yacht situation and said to Ashley, "do you think a yacht in Canada is the same as a yacht here"?? Well I was right as we were all standing in anticipation of this excellent yacht a lovely fishing boat pulled up. so in the pouring rain we loaded up the boat and climbed on ready for a wet n wild ride.



After we loaded all of our stuff (which was a lot) and loaded ourselves, the boat driver took one look and scratched his chin and said "I don't think we are going to make it in this" so off we got and unloaded our stuff to load it back on to a slightly larger boat with a tarp to cover!! The tarp didn't do much to help us, between the Rain and huge swells splashing over the boat we were all nicely covered in salt water huddled into a corner trying to stay somewhat dry. After the boat driver saw this he kindly brought out a HUGE blue tarp that we could all get underneath



At this point it's all just funny and we laughed the rest of the way to the Island. Well. . . Okay maybe I wasn't laughing that much, but I wasn't grumpy which I was pretty proud of. I think what helped the whole situation was the pod of wild dolphins that came to play along the boat on our journey - it was absolutely amazing. They look like they get so excited to have company and they squeal and jump all around the boat for attention!!

Once we arrived the island was a lot smaller than I thought, it was Basicly a sand bar with some huts on it, there were several of these sand bar islands in a grouping each only inhabiting about 60 - 100 people (and I thought Luseland was small). For those that were at my wedding - it was smaller than paradise island the island that we went snorkeling at.







Once we got there we were swiftly met by a boat of armed men (and by armed I mean very visible and very huge machine guns) who would wanted all of our personal info - for a minute I thought "oh great we are being taken over by Caribbean pirates, and I envisioned the news cast at home and people shaking there heads at it saying - stupid tourist going were they shouldn't be" anyway turned out to be Honduran military phew!! After unloading our gear to a local fisher mans boat we set up clinic. We had a triage area, a dr.s treatment area, a pharmacy area, a dental area, an eye testing area, and an area for aids testing and condom giveaway. Outside the pharmacy we had an area for giveaway of boxes and boxes of donated clothes. We saw quite a few patients, tested for HIV and gave away lots of condoms and clothes, tested for eye problems and then gave people donated glasses until they found a pair that helped them see the eye chart better, Ashley and Dan pulled rotten teeth, and I kinda assisted with what I could. Give credit to your dental people everyone because I now know I am super glad I did not do anything with dentistry - it is sooo oo gross!!





Unloading our gear



Setting up clinic





Ashley getting ready to extract


Giving away clothes and lining up for clinic


Tying out donated glasses


Me giving away toothbrushes and trying to teach the children how to brush there's teet


Our first customer - it took all of us to hold him down while Ashley extracted rotten teeth! And yes she did freeze him first he was just so scared


Dan getting ready for extraction


Me sterilizing equipment in my makeshift dirty service area


Some of the huts


Once we were there for the morning the locals came and told us lunch was ready (even though we had all packed our own lunches) so off we were to have a local lunch, which was a fried whole fish and rice and beans, it was a little scetchy looking but we thought it was going to be rude not to eat it seeing as this was the only way they could show us gratitude. It was good and always interesting to eat a local meal however, once we we're getting back on our boat to leave they came and told us we all owed 150 each for lunch - damn locals scamming us for money.




After we closed up our clinic we had about half and hour to swim and explore then back on the boat. This time loading our stuff from the beach to the boat was an even smaller local fisher mans canoe that was more tippy that is was stable. We all has visions of dental equipment medication and electronics on the bottom of the crystal clear ocean. Those who could swim chose that mode of transport to the boat and those that could not rode in the boat (Dan said it was one of the scariest rides of his life)!!





On the way back home the ride was much sunnier and a little less wet but again included playful wild dolphins.

All in all an amazing and humbling experience!



















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