Roatan Cultural Park - Herbal and Bush Medicine and a History Lesson

On Tuesday, Eric and I went to the Roatan Cultural Park to learn about the different herbal and bush medicines that are used on the island. We went on a walking tour and were taken around by Clive (pictured below), who was born and raised on the island. Clive is very proud of his culture and some of the island's history.

I have mentioned before in my blog posts about our trips to Punta Gorda (where I got to dance the Punta!) and how much we enjoyed learning about that area. The people who live in Punta Gorda are the descendents of the slaves brought over from the Carribbean Islands of Saint Vincente by the British. The British brought them to Roatan because the white British people living on Saint Vincente, Saint Lucia, and some other islands said there were too many black eople and some of them needed to leave. There was also war breaking out and the British did not want the Garifuna's to assist the French in the fight over some of the Caribbean Islands. This was in the late 1700s, and this group of people is called the Garifunas. They were essentially stranded on the east coast of Roatan with no resources and were forced to learn how to live off the land and make their own way. They still live today in the same town where they were dropped by the British almost 200 years ago.

The other group of slave descendents are called the Afro-Antilleans, and they do not identify with the Garifunas. They are slaves that were brought over by the British from Africa 180 years ago (actually 181 to be exact, as Clive will tell you). This is the group of people that we learned about on Tuesday. The Garifunas and the Afro-Antilleans do not like each other, even today. They have a very tense relationship because when the British were fighting to keep control of the islands, they pitted the two groups against one another which erupted in war. 

(On a totally unrelated note, but since I'm on the history train, we had an interesting conversation with a boat captain the other day who informed us that the British were forced to give the Bay Islands to the Honduras government in the mid 1800s in order to keep Belize... which they retained until 1981. When this happened, all the people that had been living on Roatan and the other islands went from being British citizens with British passports to Hondurans. Some of the locals here are still very bitter about this, as they envision the life they feel they could have had if their ancestors had been able to maintain their British residency.)

Anywhooooo, back to our walking tour. So Clive told us a lot about what I explained above, and also filled us in some on his religion. He is a Rastafarian and is considered a prophet in this religion. He went into an elaborate story about something vaguely related to the Rastafarian's establishing an independent nation but I had no idea what was going on and rather than tell a totally incorrect story I am just going to leave it at that :)

Clive was incredibly knowledgeable about the different plants and trees that grow on the island and how they can be used for different medicinal purposes as well as other things. The Cultural Park sits on 130 acres and in addition to the walking tour, you can also do a 1.5 hour hike and see all the other plants and trees that they grow (mostly cashews, corn, marijuana... which they use a lot medicinally apparently, etc). On the tour, we learned about, touched, smelled, and even got to taste a variety of the different plants that grow around the park. We learned about the Nut Tree, which grows huge nuts that can also be used to make plates and bowls. We saw and touched the Fence Bush that is mashed and used to treat wounds when you step on a rusty nail. We learned about and tasted plants that are used for lung and kidney infections, laxatives, and to make women more fertile.  We smelled herbs like sage that are used for cooking and teas. We got to eat sugar cane, which was cut fresh by Clive that day! We also got to try what the locals call Island Bubblegum, which is a fruit with a large nut in the middle that you slowly chew on. At the end of the day, we even sampled a little cashew wine, made directly from the cashews grown in the park.  

The Cultural Park itself is interesting.... think Living History Farms... but yet not at all. It's built in an old resort, and you can still see the old pools filled with dirty rain water, pool tables, a painted submarine for children to climb on, etc., that they didn't have the money, time, or desire to move or disguise. The park is kind of built around this stuff, and people actually live in some of the thatch roofed houses in the park... (which made me envious that Living History Farms doesn't let it's volunteers stay there because that would be AMAZING).  Overall it is so perfectly Honduras with the random combination of things.

So, below is a picture of me holding the lemon grass that you boil in tea to make you relax. Clive suggested drinking it before you go to bed. The other picture is Clive and I eating the fresh sugar can he cut. Eric thought it was funny how Clive just bit into it with no problem, but I tried to be dainty about it. You can see all the sugar cane on the table.

Above is a picture of a kind of plant that is found on the beach. I can't remember the medicinal purpose of this, but what I do remember is that the children rip of the leaves and use the thick stems as a jump rope. Below is a picture of a kitchen they built at the cultural park. These kitchens are actually very common - most people here have a kitchen in their house and one outside. There are a couple reasons for this. Stoves here use propane, which is expensive. This helps save a little money, especially with things like beans which can take more than 2 hours to cook. Also, cooking outside is cooler sometimes because you can get a breeze. The oven is made out of mud and then they make a stove by putting a piece of metal (or tin? I don't really know) over the top. As you can see below, Clive was boiling some of the different plants to make a tea. There were 5 plants in the pot - according to tradition, you only put in plants in odd numbers, so all mixtures have to have either 1,3,5,7 plants and so on.

I just thought this was neat. These are nuts that are very similar to coconuts and even have a little coconut "meat" inside them. But they use the oil from the nut to light their lamps with. He said it was very effective and obviously much less expensive than using electricity (which I think I have mentioned before, costs an absolutely FORTUNE on this island).

So, we have learned a lot about the history here and have loved learning about the island's past and the different groups. Depending on who you talk to, the story always changes a little bit (as I'm sure it did above in my own personal rendition as well), but the big parts always seem to stay the same. At least my version had some pictures included :)

Scuba diving!

Eric and I finished our open water scuba certification the other week and are now working towards our advanced certification. Currently we have completed 3 of the 5 classes. Our dives have included a  ship wreck dive, a night dive, and today we completed our fish identification dive where we have to identify some of the different fish we see. There are over 21,000 fish species in the world and 4,000 of them live on the reefs. During today's dive we saw over 30 different species including a sting ray, 2 sea turtles, a moray eel (all in one dive!), angel fish, fire worms, groupers, and much more. We had a great dive! This afternoon we are going on a catamaran with the other clinic volunteers for a clinic potluck and also to do some snorkeling. We still haven't seen an eagle ray, which is a type of spotted sting ray with a wing span of more than 5 feet. I also want to see a whale shark, which are sometimes spotted in this part of the world!

 

Below is a picture of Eric's second Lion Fish kill. You can see better in this picture how their spines float outward and upward which creates (somewhat) the effect of a lion's mane, hence the name.

                                                               Scuba Diving love <3  :)

In other news, last week when we went to Infinity Bay (as we do every Sunday), a little girl nearly drowned. She was submerged and unconscious, but she had been revived by the time she was brought to Eric. With the help of a nearby dive shop, Eric was able to give the little girl oxygen and help get her into an ambulance to go to the local hospital (the hospital is the only 24/7 facility on the island). After it was over, the owner of the resort asked Eric if he would be willing to design and teach a CPR/First Aid class for his employees, as this is the second non-fatal drowning they have had this year. Eric is working with two PA students on creating the class, and he is also putting together a list of all emergency supplies that resorts should have available in case of emergencies. It's an interesting project and something that could really change how resorts operate on the island with respect to medical situations.

Life at the clinic is going well. Peggy has been visiting relatives in the United States for the past 3 weeks and she will return next week. The number of volunteers is slowly dwindling as school starts up again, but luckily there are a couple long term nurses who have arrived or are arriving soon who will be able to pick up a lot of the work load. I am still working with the dietician on collecting data in the communities regarding what foods children are eating and where families are buying their foods. It has been really fun working in the communities and getting to meet people that I would never otherwise get to interact with. Some of them have even invited us to lunch! It's also a great opportunity to work on my Spanish, which has been incredibly helpful. Eric continues to see a lot of patients every day at the clinic - his only consistently "slow" days are Wednesdays when the cruise ships are in so all the locals are working trying to make money. He has found he really enjoys when a child he previously saw returns for his follow-up visit and he gets to see how much better the child is doing. Primary care at it's finest!

Lately Eric has also been strongly considering applying to two different schools that offer a Diploma in Tropical Medicine. One of the schools is Baylor in Houston, Texas, and the other is in Liverpool, United Kingdom. Both programs can be completed in about 2-4 months and would be finished by April at the latest, giving him plenty of time before his residency begins. The program at Baylor is particularly intriguing because the diploma works closely with Baylor's International Pediatric AIDS Initiative, which would give Eric additional experience and specialization in pediatrics. There is a lot to look forward to and work towards!

We hope all is well in the United States - we are doing our best to follow the pre-season football games and we have even kept up on the Alex Rodriguez scandal :) Eric is mentally preparing for the first Greenbay Packers game and has asked essentially every patient and employee of the clinic if they want to watch the first game with us. We'll have an island of Packers fans before you know it! Miss you and all and talk to you soon!

$4 million in donated medications from Direct Relief International

This will be a relatively short post, but I wanted to share some exciting news! We have been waiting for months for a shipment to come in from Direct Relief International that we knew was holding a ton of donated medications. The clinic was fully stocked with meds when Eric and I arrived in June but the supply has slowly dwindled and they have been running out of even the most basic and necessary medications.  Today, the medicine finally arrived - $4 million dollars worth! They were all donated to Miss Peggy at Clnica Esperanza, but she in turn donated some of the medications to other clinics and hospitals in Roatan and on the Honduras mainland that needed them. The medications were taken from the ship and put in the parking lot of a church where they were separated into 9 different piles. Each pile was to go to a different hospital or clinic that was scheduled to receive some of the donated meds. Below are some pictures of the medications that came to the Clinic - we could not BELIEVE how many materials arrived! The bottom pictures is all of the medications once they had been unloaded into a waiting room that we are currently using as a storage room as well.

The website for the organization if you want to check it out is www.directrelief.org if you want to check it out. It's a non-profit organization that was founded in 1948 and it serves both the U.S. and international communities when faced with extreme poverty, civil unrest,  and/or natural disasters. They are a non-partisan group and most of the donations they make to places such as Clinica Esperanza are made possible by donations that were originally made from pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers. We are really excited and so thankful to Direct Relief International for their donation!

Dancing the Punta and the Keyhole rope swing

Hi everyone!

Sorry for the long lapse of time between posts. The last week has been pretty low key - once Eric and I finished our scuba diving certification we went on a night dive as well as a ship wreck dive. Both were pretty amazing. The night dive was great because at the very end of the dive, you turn off your underwater lights and get to see what they call the "string of pearls." It looks like you are swimming through a starry night sky and it was absolutely beautiful! Then we swam back to the boats without our lights. It must be the closest possible feeling to what astronauts must feel like when floating in space. The ship wreck dive was neat as well - it was a huge steel ship that sunk about 100 yards off the coast of Roatan. On our way out to the wreck dive we saw a pod of about 8-10 dolphins, so the boat turned around and followed them for awhile. We even got to jump in and swim with them briefly - one swam about 2 feet in front of Eric.

This past Saturday Eric worked on some things for his residency applications so I went with some volunteers on the island tour for my second time. Once again we stopped in Punta Gorda for lunch, but this time our tour guide had called ahead and they were ready for us! They had prepared a whole song and dance performance and even wore costumes. It was absolutely amazing to see - I even got to get up and dance with them for a bit! Another neat thing was they gave us a brief presentation this time on the history and culture of Punta Gorda, which I think I mentioned in a previous post is a former slave colony from centuries ago. They have a drink that they make out of herbs and plants (with added rum) that used to be bush medicine but now they used it as an alcoholic drink as well. The locals call it Gifity. We got to try some of that although I thought it tasted closer to rubbing alcohol than a delicious cocktail :) Some pictures of the dancing are below.

 Last Monday we went to a pool party at Lands End, a resort that is near to our apartment. While we were there we got one of the best sunsets we have seen yet on this island. Often times the sunsets are blocked with a haze because the sun sets near Belize which apparently always has a slight fog around it (I don't know how accurate/true this is, but this is what the locals told us). Anyhow, these are some pictures Eric snapped of the sunsets.

Last weekend we also went to a rope swing that is on the far West side of the island in a little area called Keyhole. To get to the rope swing you have to cut through a small forest, go under some barbed wire, and walk across a vacant field. It's a bit of a trek but once you finally arrive it is absolutely beautiful! The rope swing is huge too - It's about 15-20 feet high. We went with a local boy who volunteers at the clinic - he gave us all "instructions" before we went and helped the girls get out of the water once they jumped because it was a bit wavy. After some major persuasion I did finally jump - it was a lot of fun and not nearly has hard as it looks! Below is a picture of Eric out over the water, as well as one of me getting ready to jump (and Eric looking on). The third picture is our friend Tyler after jumping, hanging on to the bottom of the rope.

 Yesterday we went to West Bay again as we usually do on Sundays, and Eric and I went snorkeling in the afternoon. After weeks of searching, Eric found his first lion fish hiding underneath a rock! He had to dive down to get to it, but he was able to spear it on his first try! We brought it back up to the beach so we could get a few pictures of it, and then Eric took it back out to the ocean so a grouper or another large fish could eat it. The snorkeling in West Bay is absolutely phenomenal - you can see almost 20 feet down to the bottom and there are reefs everywhere! It is amazing how clear the water is on that part of the water. Below is a picture of Eric with his first lion fish kill :)

We are hoping next week to go to a place called Frenchy's, which is really inexpensive to visit for clinic volunteers. They have baby jaguars and cheetahs there that you can play with (which seems odd to me) as well as monkeys and other animals. They also have great snorkeling and a nice little bar and restaurant there. It's located on an island off the island of Roatan, so we have to take a boat to get over there. If we are able to go I will be sure to post pictures right away!

We miss all and talk about you guys often. We walked past a TV the other night that was showing the NFL preseason game of the Dolphins vs. the Cowboys and I thought Eric was going to faint with joy! He also found a bar that was hanging a Greenbay Packers game so we will sure to check that out for the first game.

Talk to you all soon!

More pictures of the clinic!

I realized that there aren't many pictures on the blog of the clinic, so I wanted to post a few more on here today to you could see more of the environment where we work. The land the clinic is built on was donated by a man everyone calls "Murphy." He lives across the street and never comes out of his house, but he has the friendliest dog I've ever met if that counts for anything. In the front yard, the clinic has one of the only playgrounds that is on the island - there aren't any parks, but this is at least a jungle gym with swings where kids can play while they wait for their appointment.

The building used to be only 1 floor but a 2nd floor was added in the last 2 years. The second floor currently holds a birthing center that isn't in operation because there aren't enough full time doctors and nurses to staff it. In the mean time, the rooms are used by the gynecologist and also rented out to a psychologist. The psychologist comes from the mainland once a month - she is the only mental health care provider for the islanders, so if they need something related to mental health outside of her once monthly visit they have wait.

There is a room dedicated to dental supplies and procedures. There are two part-time dentists and a number of hygienists and  and assistants. They do simple procedures such as teeth cleanings and more complicated ones such as tooth extractions. Unfortunately they can not sedate patients so they aren't able to pull wisdom teeth, but they do have an X-ray machine! This is the only dental care available on the island.

There is also a pharmacy where all medications are dispensed. Hundreds of thousands of medications are dispensed each month - mostly children's vitamins, prenatal vitamins, and medications for hypertension. Any females over the age of 13 automatically get prenatal vitamins as teenage pregnancies here usually start around that age. There is currently a 4 million dollar donation from the World Health Organization of medications that has been donated to the clinic that is stuck in customs because the government is demanding an outlandish bribe that the clinic is refusing to pay.

Lastly, there are a number of rooms where the doctors, med students, and PA's see patients. There are approximately 75 patients a day - both adults and children. Island events and the weather will affect how busy the clinic is every day, but overall the flow is steady. The clinic sees 75% females and 25% males with a pretty even split between adults and children. There are often translators available to help as you will see in the bottom picture. The first floor has a waiting room (where patients have waited up to 5 hours to see a doctor), a triage room, 4 patient rooms and a laboratory. This is also where the dental room is.

Lastly, the upstairs also has 2 offices where the administrators and Miss Peggy can often be found working. This is also where staff meetings are often held. Volunteers can also work in these offices as well and use clinic computers for various tasks.

This concludes your virtual tour folks! More can also be seen on the website at www.clinicaesperanza.org.

Hola

The title of this post originally inspired me to try to write the first paragraph of this blog in Spanish. That quickly failed after I realized I didn't know the second word of that sentence, "title," so I quit. And went and ate some guacamole - which let me tell you, I have mastered the recipe (it is potentially the only recipe I have mastered since we've been here). Speaking of cooking, I still haven't figured out the heat situation with our oven. Everything is gas heat so I can't tell it to turn on to 375 degrees, I just have to turn it to a number on the dial and hope for the best. Yesterday I attempted to make chocolate chip cookie bars for our spanish teacher and instead I made something more similar to black bricks. I had to throw them out but not after I of course tried to eat them first... I mean throwing out chocolate is just inappropriate.

Sorry for the ramblings. I think the heat is getting to me as it is not only 1 million degrees here currently but we are also out of power on the island (i.e. no fans) and have been for 3 hours. So I am sitting on our couch in my swimsuit as close to the window as I can get. I stayed home today due to a sore throat and so far my day has consisted of reading, a nap, making spanish flash cards, and swimming in the ocean. Roatan productivity at it's best ladies and gentlemen.

As for the clinic - I finished my class on adolescent reproductive health and we are going to pilot it at the clinic and a methodist school on the island that has agreed to teach it. If all goes well, we are going to try to get it into more schools as time goes on. My next project will be a grant application from the government for funding - the clinic has 501c3 status in the U.S., so we can use that to apply to USAID. Eric is still enjoying the clinic overall, although he has noticed more and more cultural barriers as time goes on. It's difficult for him to get hard facts about what is happening with the children sometimes because the parents here tend to significantly over state what is happening in hopes for extra medications, etc. For example, a mother brought in a 6-month-old child the other day and told Eric he had been throwing up daily for 4 months straight and wouldn't eat a thing. The child was laughing and of a healthy weight - so obviously these facts are not quite accurate. On the other end of the spectrum, he saw a 14-month-old child last week who was the size of a 2-month-old, and he said the parents both looked as if they were about 12 or 13 (he actually asked the dad if the baby was his brother). They said the baby wouldn't eat so all they had been feeding it for months was rice. This is likely also because they don't have any money to buy other food, but there isn't any kind of food bank or food donations on the island. Now of course I have been brainstorming how I can start a food bank...

On a happier note, Eric and I started our scuba diving certification this past weekend. We finished 2 of the 3 days, and have 2 open water dives remaining (we finished 2 this weekend). We both really, really enjoyed it. On our second open water dive we saw a sea turtle eating! We got to hang out right next to it and watch it eat, and then it swam away and surfaced. We have also seen more fish than I can possibly remember, such as angel fish, parrot fish, grouper, sea urchins, a flounder, eels... and so many more. My favorite thing (other than the turtle) was the school of Dorrie fish (from Finding Nemo) that we saw on our first dive :) I am easily pleased with fish it seems.

Some random pictures are below for you to show you we are still alive and well :)

Yes, those are iguanas below and yes, it was disgusting. We were at an iguana farm. Never again.

 A shrimp boat used for shrimping, which is a huge industry down here.

And the power literally JUST came back on. Nothing like a good 'ol fan to complete the day :)

Happy Wedding Sara!!!!

Well this post is a few days late due to internet issues, but one of my best friends, Sara Larson, was married this Saturday! I wasn't able to be there but luckily got to skype with her for a bit on Friday before her rehearsal dinner. I've also been sent a lot of pictures and got a play-by-play from my friend Katherine, so I practically feel like I was there! The bride looked gorgeous and it looked (and sounded) like everybody had a blast. Congratulations Sara!!!

The second most important thing to note is it is 7 million degrees here right now. Literally.

Even thought it has been about a week since my last post, we don't have a ton of new things to tell you all about. During the weeks we have continued to be extremely busy. We were supposed to get scuba certified last weekend but Eric was feeling a little under the weather again (street food is evil) so we took it easy instead. He was feeling better Saturday evening, however, so we went to our friend Kelly's house because it was her birthday! We had a great time - it was a small gathering of people but she had one of the island chef's come over to teach us how to cook Lion Fish. Eric even got to play video games!

Speaking of Lion Fish, Eric recently got certified to legally spear fish for Lion Fish :) They are an invasive species here so they are constantly trying to fish them and kill them. These fish eat everything on the reef and really hurt the underwater ecosystem here.  Luckily Lion Fish tastes amazing so the people here love to eat it. He has yet to kill one yet but he has been trying! Last night we went night snorkeling with some locals who showed us where on the reef are good places to "hunt." Before we knew it we had all been out there for 2 hours!

Last weekend we also went on an amazing island tour. It started at 9am and went all day long. A local named Billy led the tour, and we went with some other volunteers at the clinic. We started at the West side of the island and slowly moved East throughout the day. It was a great experience to see lots of parts of the island that we wouldn't see otherwise. My favorite place was Punta Gorda. Our driver told us the people in that village have very little but they are very happy- and he was right. They were so welcoming and wonderful. We were served Manchuca there which is an authentic island soup made with white fish, conch, and lobster. We also got to dance the "Punta" or "Point" with some locals. They were so excited to have us in their restaurant they went and got their drums and maracas they played music for us and danced. They they asked all of us to dance with them! We had a great time and were sad to leave there. We don't have any pictures from there though because our camera died :( We also went on a cool boat tour and saw some towns called Oakdale and Jonesville. These towns are only accessible by water - think Venice but it all sits on an ocean instead of canals... and not as nice. There are also a lot of mangrove trees that you tour around.

This picture here at the bottom is my favorite - this is how they fish on the East side of the island. They use little wooden canoes and canoe paddles. Then they just use string with a hook and bait and use that to catch fish - no fishing rod or anything. They seem to be pretty successful at this method - Eric took this picture of a local fisherman.

Tonight we are going to get together with some other volunteers for a lobster dinner :)

Hope everything is going well for everyone at home!! Miss you all and I will try to post again soon!