Sunday, October 23, 2016

A Month in CK: "Rubella", Ups and Downs, and Maybe Dengue?

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!

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