We will always remember these days.

Try as we might, we simply can’t find it within ourselves to sleep in a single day since setting off nearly three weeks ago (the day after new year’s never counts dad…you should know better). In retrospect I could’ve told you this would be the case considering the wild levels of energy one of us brings to the table, let alone two, but I was hoping she’d let me sleep in at least one freakin day!

Jussss kiddeeeeeng, the snoozer tried her best to beat the odds but I knew just how to foil her plan….Duhn duhn duhhh… Tell her they were about to stop serving breakfast and pull back the curtain to a gorgeous view of Tobacco Caye’s shoreline. Worked like a charm!

After a nice breakfast at the Reef’s End Café, the weather took a turn for the worst so we corralled around the coffee tables and Dr. Doyle and I attempted to trounce Roya and Aiden in a game of spades like we had the night prior (one of Roya’s selective omissions from the previous post.. funny how that happens, eh?). Shoulda check in with Roya and Aiden first, cause they had an entirely differently game plan in mind.

Roasted. No smoked. Cooked? No, none of those will do…because The Docta and I were absolutely slaughtered! A near 7-0 skunking, we managed to pull two lucky games outta the old bag before they closed the curtain, but the 7-2 final score doesn’t do their victory justice. It pangs me to even write this, but they deserve the cred. For now I’m goin to follow the wise words of my old pal Rafiki when he said,“it doesn’t matta, it’s in de past!”

And so is the rest of that day, frankly. After the weather turned sour, we hopped on a boat back to the mainland and prepped for my first day in the clinic. Heyo!

Which brings us to Monday (9th) and Tuesday (10th) of January, 20chwelve.

Let me start by saying this. Had our journey only included the last two days it would have been worth it. Again, I’m stuck wishing for more potency in my descriptive capabilities, because I have been truly floored on all levels of three core senses. Let’s start with, you guessed it, what I saw with my own two eyes.

Love. These students, the doctors that came along for the ride and the people they served all deserve the world for their compassion and the love they put on display for everyone that touched this clinic over the past two days…and I’ve got the pics to prove it (coming soon!). Both days were spent in the blistering heat, inside poorly ventilated concrete buildings/ovens that we often shared with many an insect. But had you taken a look inside, you’d think we were throwing a surprise birthday party for a bunch of over caffeinated soon to be optos, seasoned docs and Belize’s finest. It was like everyone had been one big happy family for ages. Whether it was the students giving out hugs to their patients, the doctors running their tails off to support the young grads in their efforts, or the friendly Belizean folk that waited in line for over two hours in aforementioned blazing sun without so much as a single complaint. Kids included.

Now for what I heard.

Nothing but the sound of genuine souls. Sounds odd, but hear me out. One might think after 4 days of 8 hour sessions everyone would be washed up, tired, even downright crabby at times, but one would be wrong. The entire VOSH team was outwardly passionate in their delivery of optic care, from the way they spoke with patients to the way they held their hands as they carefully escorted them (elderly and child alike) to the BIO stations. And you know how they say you find someone’s true self behind closed doors? Well I did, and there wasn’t the slightest shedding of character by ANY one here. Not a once. I was inspired then and I am now as I write this post from my bed. And my hats off to the people of Belize. For all the hardships many of these patients live with, ones we can’t even begin to understand, they we sincerely grateful and let it be known. And when they couldn’t say it, they shared it with their smiles and their hugs.

And finally, for how I felt.

This one is tough to write and you’re lucky Roya is asleep next to me as I do because I would have cut this off at the last paragraph if not…can’t let her to see the slightest tear well up in my eye! So here it goes.

I’ve never been around this level of poverty. And don’t get me wrong, I know its worse in other parts of the world, but I really can’t thank my parents enough for bringing me up in the home they did; with the love they’ve given and I know they will continue to give for the rest of their lives. And for giving me the confidence to say that abso9lute certainty. I know these words speak to the way Roya feels for her family too.

We saw a little boy who came to the clinic yesterday, maybe 7, wearing his favorite hand me down Michael Jordan’s that were probably older than he was. His eye was swollen and he was having trouble seeing. His mother had kicked him in the face while he was on the ground.

But behind those eyes was a wonderful little man that this world is going to be proud of. How can I know? I’ll tell you.

Because that could have been me. Or Matthew. Or Amir. And yet I can’t say that at his age I would have had the courage to march down to a clinic on my own and have the maturity to give my doctor a hug on the way out with nothing more than a smile and shy wave goodbye.

Alright, I’ll cheer it up, but you can get the point. There were multiple tearjerkers along the way.

We spent today’s session at an elementary school and for this one, I’m actually going to let the pictures do the talking because I can’t even pretend to compete with the message they’ll send. We’ll be sure to email everyone once they go up upon our return. I promise you, they pack the punch that my words lack.

This is likely my final post and there is none more fitting for this.
To Jo and Farhad, you two have raised a very special young lady. I am very proud to have spent these days by her side.

G’night.

Eye for an Eye

I am saving the world one eye at a time…

Not really. I know it seems like we have gotten lazy about posting, I guess yesterday I was feeling pretty lazy but I had a long day saving eyes! Two days completed in my volunteer trip and I feel like I just started school again. During school, I’m not sure if its because I’m always practicing on the same people, but I have had an artificial confidence boost. When I came here I had a rude awakening on all the skills I need to really work on. On top of my rusty skills, we are working with really basic equipment, nothing like the high tech things we have in a normal office so it makes everything a bit harder. Also, I have been fighting a head cold, so that was even more working against myself having a clear mind.

Anyhow, we have contacts that we made in Belize through a non-profit company BCVI and they have been setting up clinics for us in different cities each day. Yesterday, we went to a town called Hopkins and we did exams on about 200 people in a  small church. The clinic was about an hour drive in our “charter bus,” down some bumpy roads, but it was set on a beautiful beach that we got to enjoy during our lunch break. The clinic itself was a bit hectic but we made it work. We rotated different positions, doing everything from checking visual acuity, checking ocular health, and dispensing glasses and eye drops. One thing that made me sad was that we usually had to lower our standard of care, because we either didn’t have the equipment or resources to help. Makes me feel lucky to live in America. But the more I thought about it, I figured that if someone has seen awfully for a long time, even a pair of glasses that is not exactly the right prescription will be better than nothing.

 

Today, we stayed in the city of Dangriga for our clinic. It was nice because it was only a 5 minute ride from our lodge, but it was a tight squeeze! I started feeling a little more comfortable with my skills today and started to actually enjoy it! My first patient today was a younger girl who couldn’t see anything far or near and had never worn glasses before – not sure how she got by – and after I told her she could go pick out glasses she gave me a big hug. Also, I had a sweet old man who was over 80, who only could see out of one eye. He told me his whole story and gave me a very sweet goodbye went I sent him off to the referral table. I could go on, but in the long two days were well worth it! We have two more days of clinic set up for Monday and Tuesday so hopefully its only up from here.

Our glasses selection lined up

You may be wondering what in the world Patrick was doing during these days, and I wondered that question myself! But anyone who knows him, knows he doesn’t take much to amuse him. He claims he played soccer with the locals, did yoga on the beach, told childhood stories with the old men at the lodge, got tons of work done, learned to speak creole, founded world peace, etc. Okay… not really the last few, but you get the picture.

Last night when I got back, since I was feeling sick I went straight to bed without dinner, but tonight we got to celebrate a little bit. The BCVI coordinator took us to the local community center and they had a local group, POWA, perform for us! It was really fun and interesting to watch, and we got pretty into it. They were singing in their local language and doing their traditional dances – which included some serious booty shaking. After their performances, they decided to get the crowd involved with my (least) favorite activity… Karaoke. We had both our group and the Belizians singing together in a plethora of songs. Naturally though, Patrick finished up the evening with the crowd pleaser, “Busta Move.”

Patrick swing dancing with a POWA lady

We are about to go to bed, with an exciting day lined up tomorrow: A doctor and his son are joining us in attempts to go diving tomorrow! Most of our group is going to see some cultural sides of Belize, but since Patrick and I have been knee deep in culture for the past week and a half we decided to journey back to the islands instead. Also, since Patrick and I left Caye Caulker in the form of lobsters due to an unfortunate napping incident, we need to even up our tans. 🙂 Fingers crossed the weather stays lovely for us!

-Roya

Waterworld

Happy New Year everyone!  I hope everyone reading this was able to safely ring in the New Year in style, with loved ones of course. As Roya so tastefully described, this was a New Year like none other for us. Dancing on picnic tables half submerged in a turquoise blue sand bar, all beneath a smiling crescent moon that mimicked the Cheshire cat. It was awesome. Simply Awesome.  Then came the rain.

Five days ago I would have told you that I was most excited to script the blog posts from our journey in Caye Caulker. I’m now begrudgingly forced to smash 4 days into 1 post as the torrential downpour that followed our New Year’s bash kept us cooped up. However, in the very same fashion that Roya and I attacked our past three days, I’m  going to write this post with a fatty grin as if the glass is half full… of rum!

Truthfully, we were blessed to be spending these days with a counterpart that can put a positive spin on anything. When we arose on the 1^st (Roya passed out at 2am and I kept going until 6…so I was snoozed a lil longer) we looked out our front porch, and where a beautiful beach once stood, there was nothing but a thicket of rain drops so dense you could hardly make out the sand. So what did we do? What any competitive couple does, we challenged each other to every game we could think of. Scrabble, Jenga, Gin Rummy, Sports Trivia, Mastermind, you name it. And when the sound of the rain bullets escalated, we played even faster and laughed even harder. This continued until we simply couldn’t take it anymore and we decided that instead of challenging each other we would take mother earth head on.

After tossing our dry clothes in ziplock baggies and stripping down to our suits, we braved the storm and rode through the rain towards the center of town….and it was incredible. After the first splash of mud it was game on. Every puddle was a new adventure and we plowed through them all as fast as we could…and if I timed it just right I could get the splash of my tires to spray all over Roya. As if beating her in every game we played wasn’t enough (I’m definitely getting a knuckle sandwich once she reads this).

We continued the frolickin’ until we arrived at the town sports bar, Barrier Reef Sports Bar, where we proceeded to down nachos, beer, pineapple rum, and greasy burritos all while watching our favorite college football teams battle it out on the grid iron.

Roya sending a friendly message to dad during the VTech game

Okay, that was one day, but replay that two more times and you’ve got a perfect synopsis of our time in on the island. Though the days were filled with friendly matches of every sort, when it came to our days in Caye Caulker there was no contest. We both won big time.

Seeing as Roya’s program starts tomorrow, I’m going to double down and give you a bird’s eye view of our Jan 4^th adventures too! Accordingly, I’m writing this post in a toy-like prop plane on our way to the volunteer site in Dangrigia.

We started the morning off right, with a pit stop at Amor  y Café for some homemade yogurt and granola on our way to the water taxi. Unfortunately the high winds forced a delay, but David the super guide came to the rescue. Instead of stranding us in Belize City, he told the bus to go ahead and he waited with his Jeep Cherokee. I don’t know how it’s happening, but every guide we’ve had since setting foot in Central America has been off the hook. Right from the get go, David was lining up the jokes, educating us on the local vegetation, people, and culture and doing so with a passion that you just can’t fake. Ah, I forgot to tell you why we were in this stranger’s car in the first place. Cave tubing.

The Mayan river we navigated, “Xi’balba,” translates to “Place of Fear” and was known as the “Mayan hell.” Today, Roya and I went to hell and back and now I’m going to tell you…I like what they’ve done with the place!

We don't have the cord for our water cam, so this ins't us...but you can see that "hell" has a nice interior decorator!

I’d let the pictures do most of the talkin’ but the camera can’t capture the tropical explosion of awesome we explored today so I’ll try to fill in the gaps, or should I say gasp…haha, eh, it’s lame but I’m leavin it cause I can! Anyway, where was I?  Ah yes, back to describing the modern day version of LittleFoot’s Great Valley. I’ll start with the river itself.

Imagine the most pristine water you’ve ever seen, then imagine it’s running through King Kong’s back yard and that’s what we’re dealing with. I’ve never seen a river possess the strikingly different shades of blue that come and go with the depths, much like the Caribbean. We dropped tubes about 1.5 miles upstream after jumping off a 15ft cliff and slowly meandered through the most… “jungly” jungle I’ve ever been to in my life (searched for a real adjective there but nothing trumped jungly so again, I’m stickin’ with it). David’s cohort is a 25yr army survival veteran and pointed out dozens of plants/trees, along with their unique traits, from medicinal (pain or burn relief, numbing, fever reduction) to cultural (war paint, “henna” tattoo) to flat out torturous (the mayan’s used to tie prisoners to the poison wood tree then cut slits above their captives until the poison sap ate away at their exposed flesh).

Once inside the caves, the camera was a bit useless, but we managed to snap a few shots with ambient light. The caves are composed of limestone and are among the only in the world that you can explore by water.  The stalactites that speckle the ceiling are covered in a crystalized layer that’s built up from the slow trickling of water through cracks in the limestone ecosystem. The Mayan’s believed this water to be “holy water” and those that were sacrificed in the caves thought it would carry them through the afterlife. Too bad for them, but it sure did feel nice after a day in the sun!

We finished off the drift with a little swim down river then high tailed it over to the Belizean Airport to team up with Roya’s classmates. The flight to Dangriga was so short I think a sling shot would have sufficed but we made it none the less and here I am about to land after a 20 minute flight.

So, how did everyone ring in the New Year?! We’re eager to hear from you all so please feel free to share your stories below.

And that’s all I’ve got, but before I go, here’s to giving the Mayan’s ALMOST what they predicted…a year filled with so much success that the whole planet rocks with joy all year long.

-P

(Way more pictures are to come…)