Makeshift Medicine

Ok. Yes, I am still somewhat addicted to Diet Coke.  It is a bit more expensive and more difficult to get here and we are trying to live frugally but I still like to drink one in the morning if we have one.  And now I have justification....

We were in the village of Na Luum Ca today and had a mother bring in her 2 year old twins.  They were born prematurely and are quite small for their age and both had recently developed respiratory infections.  Mom had walked with them from another village for them to be seen.

Both girls did have viral upper respiratory infections but one was quite tight and wheezing.  We gave her a couple of treatments of nebulized albuterol using the Land Cruiser to power the machine and knew that she would need albuterol treatments over the next couple of days.  We had inhalers with us but we don't really have spacers.  Here is where the Coke bottle came handy.

I do have to confess that it was originally Bill's idea last week that I just worked on perfecting.  A Coke bottle with either end cut off and then foam tape secured with more durable sport tape to make a soft mask and help seal the other end around the inhaler.  It seemed to work.

School Days

School started in Belize this week and so our family has been transitioning back into the school year.   Caelan is starting again back on his online high school studies and we have been trying to help Quinn adjust to his Belizean school.

The Belizean school system is based on the British school system as they were a former British colony but it is definitely affected by the fact that it is a third-world country.  English is the official language in the schools.  Education is provided through "Standard 6" grade which is equivalent to our 8th grade.  Each student is responsible to pay the school fees, have a uniform and basic supplies.  The fees are not high - about $20 U.S. per student but this can be a huge amount for a family with 6 or 7 school aged children out in a village.  High school is on a merit basis and costs about $400 U.S. per year.  This makes it unobtainable for a lot of Belizean kids.  Often a village is only able to send one or two children at a time.  We have had one villager come to our house weekly since we arrived selling coconut shell carvings and other handmade items to pay for his son's books for high school this year.  I ran into him in town last week at a hardware store and he showed me the list of books and was excited that he was going to buy the last one that day.

There is not a "public school system" like in the U.S. but most schools are affiliated with a church and the government subsidizes their operating costs.  The only real "government" schools I have seen are in remote villages where churches have not established a school.  The Methodist and Catholic churches seem to have the most schools in the Toledo district.  For the most part, children attend the school closest to their home although in Punta Gorda the Methodist school's fees are the lowest which attracts a lot of families.  All of the schools seem to be short on teachers, space, books and supplies!  Quinn immediately noticed that there are no school playgrounds either.

Both of the schools in Punta Gorda are very large and so we opted to enroll Quinn in the school closest to our clinic in the small village of Forest Home - Forest Home Methodist School.  We purchased fabric for his uniforms and paid a lady in Jacintoville village to sew them. You cannot buy ready made uniforms and it took me a while to find a seamstress since all of them had their hands full with orders.  I thought about doing it myself since I brought my sewing machine but there are no patterns available, they just take the child's measurements and know how to cut and sew them.

Quinn's Classroom

Quinn was very apprehensive and a bit overwhelmed at first but has done remarkably well.  We figured he should be in Standard 1 by age but was placed in Standard 2 due to his previous schooling.  There are 9 children in his grade who still cannot write.  His class of combined Standard 2 and Standard 3 is 34 students and taught by the principal.  She has great English skills and her accent is very understandable although Quinn has struggled to understand her when we are not there since they often speak in the Belizean street language, Creole.  He also has been surprised that there are very few books and no workbooks.  One of the students are called to read from a textbook and the others write the information down.  A lot of their work involves drawing pictures as well as writing paragraphs about the subject. Even though it is so different from his previous school experiences and a big adjustment for him, each day he has done better and we have been so proud of him!

An update on Slim....we were able to buy a plane ticket and get a lawyer from Belize City down here for the continuation of his trial last week.  Apparently all charges were thrown out within minutes.  The lawyer also picked up at least three other clients as people whose cases were also scheduled in court that morning were really happy to have a lawyer in town.

Listening

Sometimes we get so caught up in our daily activities that we forget to listen.  I have really been working on listening....  Yesterday I went on mobile to the village of Crique Sarco.  It is definitely one of the most difficult mobiles that we do.  Not only is the village very remote but there is not a road all the way into the village.  After driving over an hour on very rough road, you have to park by the river and carry all of the supplies and medications for clinic across a footbridge over a river and then about 1/2 mile into the heart of the village where the clinic building is.  This is not an easy 1/2 mile hike but one that is at least ankle-deep (and sometimes much higher) in mud.

Medical students carrying clinic supplies on the hike to the clinic in Crique Sarco

We saw a good number of patients in Crique Sarco including a home visit to see a 8 year old boy who was still healing from a femur fracture.  The day was particularly sunny and hot and so by the time we got everything back across the river in the afternoon, we were ready to go home.  As we started our drive, we passed the house of a premature child.  The baby was born at 32 weeks in Belize City and because there is no real neonatal care, was sent home at 2 days of life to see if she could make it.  We have been stopping by the house every time we are in the village to check on her.

Clinic building in Crique Sarco

As we passed the house I thought that we really did not have to stop.  She was well over 2 months of age now and had been doing ok.  We had jumped in the river to cool ourselves off before starting the drive back and were wet, still hot and really just wanting to get back.  Then I listened and something told me we really needed to stop.  Mr. Rudy humored me and went back to the house.  We were relieved to hear that the infant was thriving, was 12 pounds now and was actually in another village visiting her grandparents.  We were getting ready to get back into the Land Cruiser when a man asked us to see the baby's cousin.  They brought a toddler out of the house and she had a large fluctuant abscess on her left face and neck.  We got down our equipment and were able open it up and drain it.  We were getting her antibiotics as well as Tylenol out of the rooftop carrier when they asked us to also take a look at her older brother.  He too had a fluctuant abscess on his thigh which needed drainage so we did that as well.  We were able to give him a course of antibiotics and talk with the family about bathing and wound care.  It was very clear by this time why we were to stop at this house as they had not sought medical care for these two large infections.