Dyoos!
Picking up where I left off a month ago (crazy it’s been a
month already, right?), a lot has happened here in CK. First thing first is the
fact that I’ve been living here for about a month and a half now. It’s nuts to
me that it’s been that long, we’re about halfway to our 3 month reconnect
conference. Can’t pretend I’m not looking forward to seeing all the other
volunteers again. It’s pretty wild how close you can get to a group of people
in such a short amount of time through training, and having that ripped away
when we all left for site was pretty tough, so I can’t wait to see them all
again. I’ve been able to see a few people here and there, but only people that
live in Southern Belize like I do.
So when I last wrote, I’d been in my village for about a
week and nothing crazy had happened. I’d gone to the farm and experienced
Belizean Independence Day. Well, things turned up quickly after that with the
“rubella epidemic” that happened in my village. I’ll get to why there are
quotes there later. There was an outbreak of full body rash and fever going
around the village like wildfire, and we had one confirmed case of rubella in
my village, and another in the Cayo district. Since there have been 0 cases of
rubella in the past 15 years, 1 case was enough to be an epidemic, let alone 2.
Because of that, the two weeks following the farm were a whirlwind of activity
working with the rural health nurse, Ministry of Health, and Vector Control to
try and figure things out. We gave out tons of MMR vaccines, did a bunch of
education sessions on rubella, went house to house to interview people, and I
met with a bunch of senior public health people from my district (that part was
pretty cool actually). Even got to throw my (brand new, finally official) MPH 2
cents in at one of the meetings, which was pretty cool since I’m actually
getting to use my degree a bit already! Well, after two weeks of all that
craziness, we found out that the 2nd blood sample from the first
rubella case came back negative, so it wasn’t actually rubella at all, same
with the 2nd case. Bright side is, basically the whole village has
gotten their MMR vaccines now, including all the school-age kids and teachers.
Dark side, it could have been any of the crazy vector-borne illnesses endemic
here (dengue, Zika, Chikungunya, malaria), and there’s a chance I may have
actually had dengue. Who knows, hopefully will be finding out soon. If it did
have it, it was super mild, so that’s good.
While this was all going on though, I started working in the
school a little bit. The principal introduced me to the entire school at a
Monday morning assembly, and told me about 2 minutes before it was about to
happen. So I do, and then she says that I’ll speak a little bit in Q’eqchi to
the folks that speak Q’eqchi, which I also wasn’t expecting. It was actually
pretty cool being able to do that though, and after that, basically all the
kids in the community knew my name. My little brother Fredo also managed to
break his wrist around this time too, so one of my days was spent at the
hospital with him and my host dad. Again around the same time, I started
learning Q’eqchi again with my language tutor here, which actually happens to
be Cecilia (mentioned in the last post), who is also my host aunt (ikana se
Q’eqchi). It’s been good starting to learn again, and have had a couple
sessions with her already. I think it’s getting better, but who knows. Some
days it feels like learning the language is going really well, some days it
feels like it’s going terribly. I’ve been told a few times I know a lot already
and that I learn quickly, so I think it is going well overall.
Other things that have been going on…Well I’ve been in the
school shadowing a little bit. There was a big teacher’s strike here though
that lasted about 2 weeks, during which time I couldn’t really get into the
school at all to shadow. I actually ended up going one day to try, and got
asked if I was there to help out, to which I of course said yes! They put me in
a classroom and asked me to supervise the kids doing their workbooks for the
morning, so I figured okay, it’ll be like a study hall, that’s fine. Turns out,
the kids had no workbooks or homework at all, so nothing for them to do or for
me to supervise. So I ended up teaching them all morning instead of sending
them home or just sitting there the whole time. It was an interesting
experience, and after having barely shadowed and never really teaching kids
before, it was like jumping straight into the fire learning how to do it. No
lesson plan either because of the strike, so I had to wing it for a few hours
until lunch. It went alright I think, but it’s not something that will be
happening again. I’m only supposed to be co-teaching health education and not
subbing, but now I know what to expect in that situation and it won’t be
happening again. Still, it was a heck of a learning experience.
We also do a mobile clinic here in the village on the first
Wednesday of every month, so I helped out with that at the beginning of October
and got to see how that worked. Busy day helping pull health cards, filling out
height and weight, checking blood pressure, and helping organize things for the
nurses. I also got the chance to attend a Community Health Worker (CHW) meeting
in Dangriga the day after that, and that was interesting too. Kind of a long
day, but they fed us lunch (chicken, pig tail, rice and beans and coleslaw),
and we got to learn about some of the resources available to us, so that was
good. Day after that I made it down to Punta Gorda (PG) to meet up with the
Q’eqchi Qrew, which was a fantastic time. It was so good seeing everyone after
weeks of being apart from them, and PG is a cool little town right on the sea.
It felt great to relax a little bit and catch up, and I really enjoyed PG,
gonna be going there a lot I think.
The week after that was probably my roughest week since
coming to site. I went to a village council meeting and met everyone that
Sunday, which was good, but that was about all that was good until the end of
the week. With the strike in full swing, I couldn’t do much of anything during
the mornings, and in the afternoons it rained a lot, so I didn’t go out at all.
I was also sick for a couple days with wicked headaches and pain behind the
eyes (a week after my full body rash and why I think maybe dengue). So it was a
lot of being bored, resting, and being sick. That Friday I went back to PG
again after feeling a bit better, and it was
great to hang out with the QQ again.
That brings me to last week, when things really started to
pick up around here! Sunday I went to Otoxha with the Baptist church, which is
about a 5 hour bus ride each way. I got up around 2:30 am to go with them, and
got home around 7pm. It was an interesting day, a lot of it very awkward and
uncomfortable with a lot of people referring to me as saq (white/gringo in
Q’eqchi), which isn’t super fun. Hopefully that’ll dissipate over time. Got to
speak a fair bit of Q’eqchi that day though, which was good, and Otoxha is
super beautiful. Monday I spent the day working on a lot of things, getting a
head start on the report I have to do for the PC that’s due in December.
Tuesday I walked around the village and met a bunch of people in the morning,
then had language tutoring in the afternoon. Wednesday I was at the health post
all morning helping out with a Ministry of Health focus group session on some
of the materials they’re producing about available health services in Belize.
Thursday I spent the day at the Independence clinic shadowing there, and they
want Morris and I to come back there on Fridays to do health education in the
lobby for the patients, so that’ll be really cool. Friday I finally got back
into the school again to shadow in the morning with the strike ending this
week, and in the afternoon I did home visits with Mr. Ical, the CHW. Spent a
lot of time talking about hygiene, sanitation, hand washing, and a fair bit
about exclusive breastfeeding! It wasn’t exactly what I expected, but it was a
cool experience. We have to do 12 of those a month, and we did 6 last week, so
we’ll do 6 more this week. Saturday I got to go to Placencia, which was beyond
amazing. It’s absolutely gorgeous there, and we spent a lot of time by the
beach, eating, and walking around. I had really, really good coffee for the
first time in 4 months, and I’d legit forgotten how amazing coffee could be
(having drunk instant for the past 4 months…). I didn’t take a ton of pictures
this time, but I’ll be back many times I think, and will take more next time
I’m there. It was super relaxing and a ton of fun, and it was a nice way to
recharge before starting next week off.
Overall, things are going really well and I love it here.
Things aren’t always easy, and there are so many people to meet, and so much to
learn about the languages still. My host family is a little crazy sometimes,
but they’re so much fun and I love them. It’s not always super exciting, but
that’s the way it goes, and I try to keep busy as much as I can. Things won’t
be great all the time, but that’s just how it goes, and it’s fine. Things in
general have been really, really good though.
Here are some highlights from the first month or so in CK:
·
Tried sardines for the first time, that was pretty
interesting actually, I kind of enjoyed them!
Made tortillas with my family a couple of times now and
they’re actually getting better
Fam finally let me wash dishes once!
Learned how to wash my clothes by hand in the creek, not a
huge fan, but I gotta do it
Made a fool of myself learning how to chop the yard with a
machete and shell corn, still not super good at either yet, haha
Got a big log of firewood dropped on my shoulder by a drunk
guy - that was a weird, crazy, drama-filled experience that hopefully will not
be repeated. No worries on the shoulder front, just a wicked bruise thankfully
Been reading a ton down here (13 down already, most of the
way through 14 right now), and that number includes re-reading the entire HP
series
The food here is amazing, and I eat a ton, but my family
asked me yesterday if I’ve lost weight…so that’s a thing I guess. I do walk a
ton here and try to run, so it is what it is
I’ve effectively gotten over my hatred of pictures, because
you kind of just get used to it down here. Not sure if that’s a PC thing, a
Belize thing or both. Either way I take a ton of pictures now and don’t care if
I’m in them anymore. You’re welcome Sarah and Amanda, haha
I play football (soccer) with the kids here a lot and I love
it…actually getting a little bit better at it (I think?)
Been taking people’s blood pressure a lot, so I’ve gotten
pretty good at doing that, which is a random skill to have
Belize is really beautiful, come down and visit me sometime!
Until next time!
Bryan
P.S. No pictures this time, sorry! Maybe next time!
