Day 27 - 29/1/10

In the past few days, the rainforest has shined its colors for us. The mornings have been slow in clinic since nobody leaves their home when it rains. It makes sense though... would you leave if you had to walk a couple miles in the pouring rain? They say afternoon delight, and in Belize our delight is a few hours of sunshine! By the time dusk hits, the rain follows shortly after. You get pretty used to it down here because it's still warm so you dry off at rapid speed.

Last night was our last group dinner together. Our grub of choice was a small, hidden restaurant called Earth Runnin's Cafe and Bukut Bar. The owner, Giovanni is another Rastafarian gentleman who stocked the bar up with a live reggae band... I was in heaven. The menu, if you're wondering, was grilled fish and papaya daiquiris - delicious again.

Not much has been going on down here though outside of a few crazy moments. We all know it's the last week and I think the consensus is to savor every bit of it. Two days ago, Nurse Paulina from the Belize Family Life Association (BFLA) brought us a large pan of gibnut that she had marinated over night. Gibnut, also known as the Paca, is a nocturnal rodent that is supposedly very fun to hunt for. I dared to try a little bit of it and it tasted very similar to pork. I can't say I'll search for it very hard when I'm home but it was nice to have tasted once!
Yesterday in clinic, one of our two patients was a young female who is living in Belize for a year on a mission trip and she got a bug bite a week ago. (and the plot thickens) It looked like a botfly bite!! For any of you who don't know, botfly was the one bug I was dreading before my trip down here. They lay their larvae underneath your skin and the procedure to get it out is not so appealing. Unfortunately for me, fortunately for the patient, it was too early to try to get the botfly larva out from under her skin. We treated her with some antibiotics to cover infection and instructed her to apply Vaseline daily in a thick layer to try to suffocate the larva first. GROSS HUH?

TODAY'S THE LAST DAY OF WORK.... ahh! I'm spending the morning at Belize Center for Visually Impaired (BCVI) and then the crew heads out to discover a Mayan chocolate "factory" and have our last official lunch together. We're kicking it around town tonight and packing and then the bus out to Independence (heading north) leaves at 8am. We'll catch a ferry from there and spend the rest of Saturday into Sunday in Placencia. It's bittersweet really but I know that this last month was one-of-a-kind and next month will bring it's own new set of adventures so I can't complain one single bit.

SEE YOU ALL IN TWO DAYS!!! Don't get excited or anything... ;)