Village Treatment, Maya Day, and Antigua

So this will be a little long, but so much has happened!  And there are lots of pictures!!!

Lice and Scabies, oh my…

We have begun our village treatment program of lice and scabies.  We prepared for months by researching and talking to villages.  It was a really cool experience for me to go from research to a huge undertaking of treating a whole village for lice and scabies in one day.  It was also good to use what I have learned in school about developing a community project by talking to community members, helping them to catch the vision, and them promoting it within in their own village.  This is exactly what happened when meeting with the community members in the different villages.  They were tired of dealing with the ever-present lice in their family members’ hair despite treating and re-treating, they were tired of community and family members continuing to have itchy-ness from scabies.  They could tell it was needed and were ready and willing to join forces with us!

For each village we divided all the students and volunteers into 4 groups, with supplies of trash bags laundry soap (to help treat everything in the houses), ivermectin (pills to be taken orally for lice or scabies), permethrin 5% (cream to be rubbed on the skin for small children and pregnant women), and permethrin 0.5% spray (for treating hammocks and linens).   When we went for a pre-meeting with some community members we also had the chance to map out a couple of the villages.  I took one of the maps and created a map on Google Maps (they have a really cool map-making tool, under my places! - https://maps.google.com/maps/msmsid=212612183048058442542.0004d7bc8432d7f1c10d7&msa=0)  I divided the map into 4 equal-ish sections for each group.  One community member went with each group.  We will do our third village tomorrow.  The treatment days make for extremely long days, but it is also pretty cool to meet people in their houses and talk to so many different people.

The Alcalde (village mayor) and me

Putting permethrin on a child

Village Scenes:

Garifuna drumming in Punta Gorda

Girls in Eldrige - down the street from the clinic

I also was able to go to Maya Day.  It was a great experience to see all the cultural events: water carrying races, firewood splitting, cultural dancing, stilt walkers, and the greasy pole (a huge tree they put oil on and raise for people to climb).  I’ve also decided I needed my own Maya outfit! 

Maya Day - dancing and the greasy pole

Traditional Mopan Maya Clothing

For Easter weekend I had Thursday thru Monday off.  A group of the volunteers and I went to Antigua, Guatemala.  Antigua is one of my favorite places.  I feel like God has used it as a place of realizing more of who He is.  In 2006 when I did language school there I had never really been out of my “Christian bubble” and it was extremely hard at first with so many “new” beliefs/people.  God taught me that He is really all that I need, but then also gave me a heart for traveling and for those that also love it.  Going back was bittersweet, none of my old friends were there, but that same love and asking -what is next God -was stirred in me again.  Visiting a volcano that I visited in 2006 was also a great reminder of the sovereignty of God.  In 2006 there was a lava river and it was one of the most amazing things I have experienced.  In 2010 the volcano fully erupted, now the lava is no longer flowing and the area is completely black from all the vegetation that was destroyed.  The top of the volcano is still active, but it is unsafe to go see the lava because it throws rocks.  Things can change in an instant and it is so easy to take them for granted. 

It was also amazing to be there during Semana Santa.  Antigua is primarily a Catholic city, and they truly celebrate the Holy Weekend.  There were beautiful wooden floats depicting the Stations of the Cross, the hopelessness of Friday, and then the joy of Resurrection Sunday.  It was a way I had never celebrated Easter, but it was a great time of reflection!

Belize - Month 2

Sorry that it has been a little while since my last update!  Our internet is very spotty, so it is difficult to update things.  There’s lots of wonderful things going on here, so I cannot believe I’ve been here almost 2 months. 

I’m still in the process of figuring everything out with my project, but I have been looking at charts, visiting villages, and meeting new people.  Hopefully we will start implementing complete village treatment soon!

I helped with my first school-delousing a couple of weeks ago.  It was so different because they were younger kids they all wanted to be checked and then treated…it was a fun experience for them!

 

I also got to go on cultural day with this group of students..  We went to a Mayan ruins site and met with a women’s group that made us cultural food (jippy-japa) and showed us how to make baskets.  We also went cave swimming about 1 and half hours into the cave and then 30 minutes to float out of the cave.  It was a really fun day until…I got an up close experience with a fer de lance snake (venomous, viper family).  I’m so grateful that God gave me the instinct to run like crazy because apparently they chase you!

I’ve also had the opportunity to do health education at a couple more schools.  I’ve helped with some puberty education and diabetes and high blood pressure education. 

This past weekend I visited Placencia, which is a touristy, beach town not too far from Punta Gorda.  It was a great break!  It had many more food choices and the best gelato!

Take it Belizeasy (a saying from our Lime Caye guide)

Village experiences: a family, Garifuna boy, piglets, health education

village road

Last week I got a lot of practical stuff done. It was good to feel like I'm finding more of my place here at Hillside. I've been enjoying the other students and going running with one of the long-term volunteers. The weather has also been much nicer with not nearly as much rain. Last Wednesday and the Wednesday before that I went with a group of students and doctors on two different overnight village trips. It was an interesting experience. It was a long drive down a primarily rocky road.  Rudy the community liason introduced me to some important community members who helped me better understand their community system. Two school principals said lice was a huge problem in their villages. The two other villages said they did not have much of a problem with lice/scabies. They both attributed not having a problem to having good water. In each village there are community health workers who are supposed to help with health issues. I am hoping to be able to work more closely with these CHWs to talk about health education and prevention/treatment for lice and scabies. Also, two Fridays ago I met with the public health director in Punta Gorda. He was really supportive of Hillside and the program of trying to rid villages of scabies and lice. 

We have the same watch!!!

My overnight village accommodation

Lime Caye

Last weekend I went to Lime Caye, which is a private island about an hour and a half away by boat. It was beautiful. The family that owns the island cooks for the guests. The boat driver took us snorkeling and fishing. He would cast for us and then we would take turns holding the pole. Overall we caught 4 mackerels and 3 barracudas. The one I reeled in was a little mackerel. They cleaned them and cooked them up that night. I'm not even a big fish fan, but it was really good! We also saw dolphins when we went fishing, which was amazing. We went snorkeling around the world's second largest barrier reef. We snorkeled around a shipwreck and saw lots of schools of fish, lion fish, little jellyfish- one who stung me (but it didn't really hurt-so a good first jellyfish experience).  It was a fun, beautiful, and relaxing weekend.  I feel like things are going good with the clinic and with all the extra stuff that I get a chance to experience.

Other side of Lime Caye