Friday, May 27, 2011

Last week of placement

Well here we are almost 5 weeks later...we have had an unbelievable experience which ended in a great last week! We spent our day on Tuesday at NARCIE (National Resource Centre for Inclusive Education) where we had to assess two little ones with CP to determine their readiness to enter the schooling system, as well as the supports they will require


Our first little guy was a client we had visited before named RJ. He is a 5 year old boy with cerebral palsy, his lower limbs were affected with little difficulty in his upper limbs. He is non verbal but able to make sounds and has the cutest smile any of us have ever seen. We put on our OT hats and got down to business. We assessed various areas including: communication, balance, affect, coordination, reach-grasp-manipulation, interaction as well as ADL's which were explored through speaking with his mother. It was great to be able to use the skills we have learned throughout our OT education. We also learned that our understanding of kriol is getting much better! We were able to understand RJ's mother compared to when we first arrived and couldn't decipher one word.


Next we ventured to another clients house since he wasn't feeling well due to an infection in his g-tube. His father picked us up from the NARCIE office and was the nicest man. When we arrived at their home we met Joshua who had severe CP. He currently attends a pre school around the corner from his house but he is 9 years old so entering primary school is the next step for this little one. Due to his difficulty with communication coupled with being irritable due to the infection, much of the assessment was done through his father. We spoke about his readiness for school and the concerns that his father has regarding his abilities in school as well as a plan for his transition from pre school to primary. There was so much love in this household it made us feel welcomed and happy that this client is so well taken care of. It was a great experience getting to make recommendations to this family and NARCIE. We felt that we had made a small contribution and that these children will be able to engage in school and build relationships with their peers. 


The rest of the week was spent working in the office. We had to finish some projects we had been working on including a hand out on the task oriented approach which is becoming more popular in occupational therapy. The hand out will be distributed to the RFO's and will hopefully give them new and fun ideas! We also had discussions with some people who work here regarding recommendations that we think would be beneficial for the organization.


We feel so lucky to have been able to come down here to Belize and work with this amazing organization. We have learned so much and have experienced things we never could have imagined. The children and families are amazing, tenacious and resilient in the face of many difficulties. This organization is making a large impact on the communities they work with and will continue to have much success in the future. Yesterday we got to see the site which is being built for the first rehabilitation clinic in the country!! It was history in the making and we feel privileged that we had the opportunity to see it! We plan on coming back in a few years for the grand opening :)


There are not enough positive things to say about our experience and returning home is bitter sweet. We all feel that this experience will make us better professionals in our upcoming careers!!


Thanks for following us on our Belize Experience and we look forward to seeing everyone when we get home :)


Much Love 
xoxoxo


Catherine, Laura and Jennifer 

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Hopkins and Placencia

This weekend was a long one as we got Friday off as well as Monday for Victoria Day (God save the Queen!). Since we had four days to dedicate to travelling we decided to make the 5 hour trek down south to a small village named Hopkins and a larger more touristy area of the country, Placencia. After debating and researching ways to avoid taking the beloved city bus (plane or boat) our diminished bank accounts made our decision for us...so on the bus we went down to Hopkins.

Hopkins-

It was another hot bus ride but we finally made it and trekked around the village to find a place to stay. We ended up at a placed called Lebeha which is a drumming school as well as accommodations. We scored a great beach front cabana which was spacious and filled with our friends the trusty ants of Belize. After our trek to find this place sulls commented "okay I think we are all feeling a bit down" so we decided to ball out and get some amazing pizza and quesadillas from a beach front restaurant. After this we were feeling much more rejuvenated. We spent the day lounging on the beach and met some local kids who we made a trade with, our Canada frisbee for their mango wrangling abilities. They came back with shirts full of mangos, the only downside of this trade was that they decided to eat most of the mangos and left us with only one. I guess thats how they roll here. They also put on a show for us, doing flips off logs on the beach as well as singing and dancing our fav song Tornado! They ended up loving us so much they tried getting into our cabana but the wrath of their mothers came into play and they scurried home.

That night we got to go see a garifuna drumming show which was unreal! The 3 guys drumming were around 18 and were amazing, we have video evidence to prove it! We also got to see a little boy dance punta to the drumming (poh will show this to everyone when we get home!) In addition to the drumming the owner of the school was playing an instrument out of turtle shells, not something you see everyday.

We had to get up early for our next adventure so we hit the haaaaayyyy.

Placencia-

Our Placencia adventure began with a ride on the Hokey Pokey water taxi...that's right, the hokey pokey taxi,  We got to our destination and began deliriously searching for a place to stay.  We ended up at "Evans Place" and were treated to double beds, mini fridge and AC (hello sleeping through the night!  Sully did not even have her usual angry night thrashes).
We took our hungry bellies to lunch and were sadly disappointed.  We had ketchup nachos and wilted soupy salad...and expensive to boot!  Cat's cheese level has never been so high.  However, we tried the local conch (even Sulls) which was tasty.

The rest of the day was spent shopping, reading on the beach and researching scuba/snorkeling places for the following day.  That evening's dinner was a hearty bowl of Cornflakes and bananas topped off by the best gelato of life!  Outside of the gelato place, Poh was in her own world "punta-ing" and unbeknownst to her, "John Wayne" was fast approaching in such a stealth manner.  Sulls and Krust just observed, quite amused.  John Wayne as he called himself showed Poh how to feel it, and shimmy around.  The lesson ended in a dance-off which Poh claims she won.

We continued on to the Barefoot Bar where we enjoyed some Lighthouse lagers and salbutes..yum!  Sulls' heat rash was consuming her life.  Poh was scared as she was hit multiple times by a lady claiming to be the ex-wife of a Vancouver Canuck.  Kit couldn't wait to go home and watch The Voice on t.v.
The next day was the first separation of the 3-headed Canadian monster.  Sulls needed medical attention which consisted of frozen wash cloths and vitamin E gel which frankly did nothing.  She chilled hard on the beach and got some solid t.v. time.  Kit took the plunge (literally) for her first saltwater scuba diving trip at the Laughing Bird Caye (literally the most beautiful, tiny magazine worthy island).  She had a solid guide and saw some beautiful coral, fish and crazy ass jellyfish.  Poh trekked out for her second snorkeling adventure (due to her panic-ridden first trip) and thoroughly enjoyed herself.  Kit and Poh claimed they both felt like Ariel.  We were all reunited and vowed to never separate again.

Alas, we were all starving by dinner time (shocking we know) and were in search of some much anticipated local seafood.  Went to De Thatch, right on the beach and dug into what became one of our favourite meals.  Poh almost peed herself in excitement from mashed potatoes.  Sulls was most happy to chow down on BBQ chicken and we finally got salad sans mayo (note:  Kit rejoices).  Then, we went to gelato again, obviously, and outside we met..picture this:  a French Canadian, an Israeli dude (hilarious!) and guy from Oregon traveling together. Hilarious conversation ensued.

With our new friends we decided to head to the Barefoot Bar again and shared some laughs and some beers. Sulls had a most interesting night with her French Canadian companion who admired her wrinkles (yep! for real) and lovingly described her as "mango blueberry icecream with dark chocolate chunks" in contrast to Kit as keylime and Poh as lime sherbet "because it is sour" (thannnq u).  At one point during the night, Kit tried to save Sulls, but Cat literally had the chair pulled out from under her and her belongings were thrown onto the table (what a gentleman!).  The Frenchman was ensuring that his beloved had a place to rest her weary limbs much to her dismay and disgust.  After multiple refusals to beach invitations and mothering of children, Sulls got tired and we decided to end our evening.  We went home to our sweet AC and t.v. and passed out hard.

The next day we bussed back to our homebase and were pleasantly surprised with one lag of the trip being on a coach bus.  Ballin!
That's all for now...

love,
The Belizean Trio

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Rice & Beans, Beans & Rice, Chicken, Stew beans & Rice, Stew Chicken

We wanted to explain a little more in depth the local fare that we have experienced during our stay in Belize. The title really says it all...


In Belize, there are four main food groups consisting of: beans, chicken, mayo and rice. You can cook them different ways but the same thing tends to end up on your plate no matter what way you slice it. 


Initially, rice and beans was good... but after weeks upon weeks of this things have changed for the worse. Kit now has a Pavlovian dog gag reflex to rice and beans. She immediately begins to gag the second that an enormous heap of it ends up on her plate.

We have been on the hunt for veggies each day. It really is difficult.

After hearing multiple times on the news that Belize is experiencing a sugar shortage, Kit one morning spilled the entire bowl of sugar all over the table, her lap and the floor. She froze in fear of Leiva's wrath and was quickly trying to decide if there was any way to clean it up before she saw. Unfortunately, there wasn't and she received a mean backhand... just kidding, but it was close.

Also, we must mention the little pests that bother us each and every time you sit down for a meal at the table. It has become very unnerving. At first, you may feel a small tickle on your forearm, wrist or hand. Then by the time you look down, your entire arm will be covered in an army of miniature ants! Sure does wild things to the appetite. Sulls finds this particularly troubling.

Breakfast is always a treat with new dishes each day, but not really. We awake to the sounds of sizzling heaps of butter which our fried eggs are cooked in. Poh has subsequently experienced some GI difficulties.

In addition, Poh has  been craving mashed potatoes since the second we had arrived and was blessed by God himself when we discovered a pot of them in Leiva's kitchen. Unfortunately, she made sure to tell us that we shouldn't eat much and to save lots for the boys.

We shouldn't complain too much, we have actually had some really great food and Mrs Levia is quite the cook! Some of our highlights include:

-BBQ chicken
-eggplant parmesan
-salbutes
-flour torillas
-impossible cake
-pineapple pork
-pandora's iced coffee
-fresh, delicious local fruit
-delcious soup made of broth, chicken, rice and copious amounts of onions
-Mango salad!

Wonder what is for dinner tonight...It is always an adventure!!

Love,

The Three Canadian piggies

Stella Maris

Our next two days were spent at Stella Maris, which is a school for children with disabilities. We were not ready for what we were about to experience...

We each got separated (against our will) into classrooms of varying ages. Sulls was in the youngest classroom of 5-8 years olds with disabilities including down syndrome, CP, and hearing impairments. Cat had the hooligan classroom of 6-10 year olds who were basically the most rowdy group of children possibly in all of Belize. Poh had the tamest class of all with angel children who sat quietly and listened intently to everything she said (sulls and cat were beyond cheesed when they found this out). Recess is just the wildest time we have ever experienced. Some highlights include:

-playing frisbee with a metal hubcap
-poh getting attacked and subsequently had a heat related freak out
-being introduced to a new childs game here in Belize City the rules are simple...shove your friends face into the dirt, as hard as possible, pull out your plastic automatic rifle, hold it to the back of their head and pretend it goes off....we think this has a lot of due with the new casts we hear each night over dinner
-another game included throwing cement rocks at each other...nice and simple

Kit and Poh got to attend a violence lecture, with 30 kids crammed into a boiling hot classroom. It was put on by the Belize Police police department (aka sketch). It consisted of extremely graphic photos of bullet wounds and the police saying "sometimes we gotta rough dem up real good". Another line was "so daddy got extra woman, den momma points gun at dadas head" "wat kinda abuse dat"? needless to say the children all got this answer correct.  Overall it was quite the experience for kit and poh bear.

On a more serious note most of the teachers at the school are saints as the classrooms are very difficult to handle, they do the best they can with very limited resources. It is very different from what we are used to in Canada where a child with a disability has an EA with them at all times. This is not feasible in Belize due to lack of training and funding. The children all have so much potential and this was an eye opening experience for all of us.

That is all for now loves

xoxox
Cheesy-Pie, Krusty-Pie, Poh-Pie

The Day of Hades

Well we all feel more bonded now after going to hell and back today with a visit from the grim reaper in the form of vendors on the bus in Orange Walk. Okay let us explain further....We went back to Orange Walk aka Hades to visit an amazing prosthetic/orthotic clinic put on by some people from the US. They come down to Belize twice a year to custom fit both children and adults with AFO's (ankle-foot orthoses...like braces) as well as prosthetics for amputees. It was such a great experience to see them in action and we even got to see some of our little cutie clients who we had visited during our home visits with Hilda! Although we had a blast at the clinic we all began to feel the delirium set in in the clinic as there were limited fans and basically no where to sit down. Hilda realized we were melting and decided we should get lunch and do some home visits.

We trundled off from the clinic into the blazing abyss. Had a great lunch minus the "vegetable salad" which in actuality was made completely of soupy mayo...poh cried when it came because she couldn't distinguish between the clumps of so called veggies. Post lunch we walked to the bus terminal, all the while discussing with Hilda how Orange Walk seems to be at least 20 degrees hotter than Belize City. It got much worse as we boarded the trusty school bus only for it not to leave for about 30 minutes. During this time we all experience extreme heat, profuse sweating and each of our first panic attacks. The bus was packed (as always), children were screaming, vendors were bustling up and down the crowded aisles selling anything and everything. At one point cat looked down the aisle to see poh deliriously trying to flagged down the vendor selling a shotty slushie in a plastic cup, but due to her exhaustion she couldnt even lift her arm or speak loud enough to get his attention. Luckily Krust saved the day and yelled to the man, while at the same time passed him the 50 cent coin. Poh claims she would have died had this not happened....we all believe her.

Finally we got to a little town called San Jose after almost losing sully on the bus, she could have ended up in Mexico. The heat continued to rise as we trekked down the dusty roads of SJ to two home visits which were great minus the lack of concentration, at one point sully turned to poh and said "It looks like you went swimming". We also experienced our first belizean squirrel which was being kept hostage in a cage in a clients kitchen...strange. After this Hilda told us she didn't want us to die in her care so she decided to get us back on the bus so we could get back to Belize City. Luckily this bus ride wasn't as bad but it was still about 125 degrees Fahrenheit.

We made it back to the city with quite the saga to tell our family as well as a vow to never step foot in Orange Walk again....except maybe to go for tacos and salbutes.

Thankfully we are alive to tell this tale...

Love xoxox

Charlies Angels, risen from the dead

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Weekend of The Zoo and Lamanai

Hi everyone!

FRIDAY

Our weekend started with a bang when we took the bus straight from work to the Belize Zoo for a night tour. The zoo is for injured animals or animals that have been kept as pets, like a natural rehab centre for wild Belize animals.

We had to wait a wee bit in the dark on the side of the road before the guide finally showed up with flashlight in hand!

During our night tour of the zoo we got the chance to see Belizian-native animals including:
     -the Harpy Eagle (HUGE weird looking tuxedo guy)
     -Junior the Jaguar
     -Carlos the Puma who we got to feed raw chicken claws (oopsies, salmaonella)
     -Gibnuts (aka The royal Ra)- they are huge rat things that are a delicacy to eat here- creepy
     -a clan of Howler Monkeys- We couldn't believe how LOUD they were. They sounded like haunted lions              (Poh has perfected her Howler Monkey mating call).
     -huge, smelly pig-like creatures that have an extra smelly hump on their back which you need to cut off before you cook them or it will contaminate the meat-eww
     - saw HUGE crocs held back by a shotty fence that was like two feet high. Our guide told us that they hadn't attacked humans.....yet. We decided to move on quickly.
     -Tapirs, the national animal, one of which was blind. They look like a cross between a horse and a rhino kinda. They have a weird snout. We got to feed them veggies.
     - On our way out of the tour we came across a little visitor- The most poisonous snake in Belize (Fer de Lance) It was just roaming free on the zoo path. Could've died. A weirdo lady from Slovenia was convinced she could wrangle it no problem. She was prepared to grab it with her hands and put it in a bucket. She also proceeded to poke it with a stick. "Oooooh!  I love de snakes!  Let meee have it!"
     -At the end, we held a boaconstrictor!!

Trusty Mr. Gomez took us in his cab home. It was a great experience.

SATURDAY

To the Mayan ruins we go!  Shockingly, we had to get up at 5am.  Got to the boat dock for Lamanai, joined by an annoying family and bratty (yet cute) child "Excuse me! Excuse me!  Um, what is that leaf?"  Saw some cool things on our boat ride including "Jesus birds" that walk on water and spider monkeys.
        Once we got to Lamanai we toured and climbed the multiple temples.  Due to our rapid physical deconditioning we have been experiencing here, we almost collapsed from severe exhaustion and heat.  Climbing up temples + 100 degree weather = Poh sweating out half her body weight, Sulls' heat rash blossoming rapidly and Kit's heat induced delirium resulting in vision loss, limb weakness and loss of reactive balance (almost fell off the temple side).  Had a lunch of rice and beans (shocking) to revive ourselves.
        Best part of our entire Belize experience:  the annoying family gave us a pimp AC ride home to Belize city.  So happy!

The Leiva Girls

Friday, May 13, 2011

End of the work week

Back in the office for the last two days of the week, wildness has occurred which needs to be explained in detail:

Remember when we went snorkeling and met those two characters? We showed up to work on Thursday to a surprise bouquet of flowers with the note which said "Thinking of you..." they had been delivered to sulls (laura), poh and kit DIED laughing. Then while speaking to our director, we found out that he in fact did not know any of our names and had thought that kit's name was laura. Therefore in actuality the flowers were for kit much to sulls relief!! They were from the Belizean news activist from the boat. Please note that none of us made any effort to speak to this guy while snorkeling. Also the creep factor increased when he called our directors cell phone to get the name, which he shouldn't have given out. Ms Levia, being the good Belizean surrogate mother that she is was disgusted with this, but loved the flowers which she displayed as the center piece on the dining room table. Kit has now found herself in quite the predicament, although we are all hoping that a box of chocolates shows up next!!

Poh also had an adventure last night when she decided to go to "thirsty thursdays" with our other house mates. She sassed herself up using one of Ginny's outfits and strutted to the bar. Sulls and Kit are grandmas as we all know and needed sleep therefore did not join poh on her evening outing. She had a grand time chatting with some belizean's and brits who seem to infiltrate every part of the world. She is currently running on 3 hours of sleep but has had a wonderful nap before the work day ends!

We are heading to the Belize zoo tonight with Ginny for a night tour and then to Lamani tomorrow for a day long trip to visit the Mayan ruins!! Sunday will be full of relaxing, hopefully by the Radisson pool if we dont get caught :)

Love Love Love
xoxo

Kit, Sulls and Poh Bear

Medical Mysteries continued...

We have begun to experience more heat related conditions including:

-heat induced narcolepsy (at work by poh...she just woke up from an afternoon nap)
-a rare skin condition called "quesoblanco", we have been given this title by the local residents of Belize we are trying to remediate this through extended sun exposure
-kits feet continue to be an issue, its touch and go most days....at times the bones of her feet are no longer distinguishable leaving her with bricks to use as walking aids
-we have also discovered that poh is very susceptible to mosquito bites, she says she has the sweetest blood
-we tentatively congratulate sully for overcoming the heat rash on her arms....fingers crossed this doesn't come back
-kit's room is infested with geckos we are speculating that the weird discoloured bites on her legs are due to nibbles in the night

Thats all for now little ones!
xoxo
S, P and K

Thursday, May 12, 2011

Orange Walk Visits

Awoke crazy early..again.  Successfully made it on our bus to the Orange Walk district.  We were picked up by gems Shar and Hilda who took us around for home visits including a little 10 year old girl who is not yet walking independently.  We evaluated her ability to ambulate and gave ideas to her mother on using a walker and motivational cues like music.  We spoke about grading her standing tolerance and the importance of engaging her in meaningful activities.  Here, we felt like we might actually be useful.

We experienced other great visits during the day including the cutest boy ever who was managing so well with fused fingers and toes.  We learned a lot throughout our day about CBR and how the rehabilitation field officers (RFOs) manage to reach out to the entire family right in their own communities.  One example of this was a family with two children with disabilities and two without..their eldest recently passed away.  These people had no electricity, no running water but were managing through help of CARE and the work of the RFOs.  CARE has helped them become more independent as a family by providing them seeds to create their own food as well as helping them build their home.  The RFO also helped facilitate the one girl with a disability go to a normal school.  Kids in her class take turns pushing her wheelchair to and from school everyday.  These visits were both eye opening and overwhelming in seeing the difficulties and extreme poverty that people face here; especially families with children with disabilities.  We've learned about how RFOs often need to address the families' basic needs like food, shelter and water before any type of clinical therapy for the children can take place. Despite all of the difficulties and barriers that most of the families face, it was obvious that the parents' love for their children was what enabled them to support and carry out the interventions that the RFOs provided. Most parents were so welcoming and open when we entered their home- always wanting us to provide them with any information we had or suggestions and even offering us drinks and fans to relieve our sweatiness.

While in Orange Walk district, there was a big difference in the landscape! Tons of sugar cane fields and extremely bumpy roads. The people also spoke mainly Spanish in Orange Walk when compared to Belize City. There is also a really huge Mennonite community that provides most of the dairy for the country. Cat and Sulls were told they would fit in better there. haha

We got to experience Belize's form of a ferry! Much different from the Wolfe Island one in Kingston. The ferry we drove on to was made of wood and had a tiny hut on the side that housed the manual crank to move the ferry across the river. We had the opportunity to try cranking the ferry ourselves! Couldn't imagine doing their 12 hour shifts. Kit also spotted our first croc while crossing.

We stayed with the director's in laws who were unbelievably welcoming and hospitable- such amazing food!  They also had two adorable puppies that kept us entertained.

Back to the city we go (Belize style)- crammed into a pickup truck.

Miss you all!

The queso blanco crew

Caye Caulker!

Our second weekend adventure began bright and early (seems like a common theme) as we strolled to the water taxi to get to the island. Finally made it after the most annoying boat ride filled with obnoxious tourists...(note: we do not consider ourselves tourists anymore, we are straight up Belizean). Got off the boat and were greeted by a rasta with an orange 3 ring binder full of hotels where we could stay, we walked us along the beach to the tropical paradise hotel. A tiny room with 3 beds about an inch apart with little room to move in any direction, thats how we roll.

Next rasta man took us to the snorkeling shop where we geared up, N95 mask fit styles. Our tour guide Salvador took us out, but first we picked up two other people. One older man who looked about 112, tall, gangly, 100 lbs, transparent skin, long toe nails and extremely awkward. He was accompanied by a stronge middle aged fellow who worked for a news station in Belize and we will return to him in our next blog :) Due to the extreme heat/sun shine the older geratric fellow so kindly asked us to apply sunscreen to his back region. Both sulls and kit conveniently looked away into the abyss while poh was stuck taking on this task. During the application process kit whips out her camera to document this endeavor and so kindly states to poh "I think you missed a few spots" ensuring she got the best picture possible. She massaged it into his white back like a PRO!

Moving on to actually snorkeling, it was AMAZING!!! The best stop was at a place called "shark ray alley" where we were snorkeling in shoulder deep water with tons and tons of string rays and nurse sharks swimming around us. Touching our legs with there stingers, we had a bunch of steve irwin moments. We all got to pet the string rays and poh held one like the champion that she is. Side note: our tour guide had to hold us each like babies when we first got into the water due to extreme fear, he may have copped a feel one too many times. Poh liked it...just kidding...but not really (poh is cheesed at this while we are writing this, doan care)

During our next stop while looking at coral gramps panicked in the water, despite the fact that he had multiple life jackets keeping him afloat. He turned to the guide and sulls and proclaimed "I feel disoriented" while flailing his toe nails about in the sea. Salvador had to tow him back to the boat and we thought we may need to bust out our CPR C skills. Finished snorkeling and went back to the hotel where we met a bunch of nice people travelling as well. Had a few drinks on the beach then we all went to dinner, poh had a near death experience when a massive crab crawled across her feet, luckily she made it through this. Next we ventured to a reggae roof top bar with swings for seating. Met an aussie guy who was petrified when he found out sulls was a ging, including hissing and doing the cross sign with his hands.

Overall had a blast and our sunburns started to creep out so we went to bed. Experienced severe fear whilst sleeping due to the rickity wabbily fans going at hyper speed and we thought we were going to become chop suey....we made it.

Woke up on sunday and had a relaxing day on the beach (in the shade) and made our way back to the city to have a family dinner.

THee you
xoxo
BG

Friday, May 6, 2011

Work Week #2

Tuesday
We are concerned that breakfast just keeps getting earlier and earlier! Sully fears that if we give in today we will be eating at 4am very shortly. What do we do? Do we give in or hold out until 7? Poh says we should hold out but we are currently afraid of getting slapped by Mrs. Leiva. As of right now, we are hiding in our room. Cat is planning on using her extra time to do our standard morning shower consisting of wiping ourselves with wet naps. We will let you know how it turns out.....

Ok, so we held out and everything was ok. We made it to work and our presentation went surprisingly well. We can thank Queen's for giving us great improv skillz.  As we went on to the second half of Tuesday's presentation, all of us contracted Poh's extra long blinks- SO SO hot in the room!

Met an amazing, inspiring (and hot) guy named Jerome with a SCI. He has a hand trike and Rick Hanson's his way across Belize. Also, he could bench press all of us. Also, Poh is stunned by his beauty. Jerome also showed us his car that he adapted to drive himself- so cool!

On way home from work to mitigate the delirium and heat stroke, dehydrated our bodies with half price drinks at the Tavern! Also, they had airconditioning which made our day!

Met Mrs. Leiva's three grandchildren. They are super cute and come every day after school.

Poh continually talks to us about her need to marry Jerome in the near future. She also hope to carry his child.

Good Day!

Wednesday


Our morning stroll to work began with a glowing compliment from Mark: "Wow, your workplace must be very casual."  in reference to our attire (Cat's shorts have been worn everyday for the past 3 weeks, Sully was wearing her poum poum shorts-which will be explained later, and Poh was rocking her sneaks much to her disgust).  Thanks Mark.  The walk continued to be coloured with a guy yielding a sword, letting us know "dat he likes da slim gyals" and Sully especially being offered half-price tours on account of her ging factor.

Got to work and proceeded to present in yet again in 90++++ degree weather, with 20 people crammed in a room with no windows.  Awesome.  Blah blah blah...Jerome gave us "I Refuse to Lose" t-shirts and bracelets...Jenn refuses to lose the battle for his love.

Learned a few Kriol lines and vocab including "Me no no noting bwai!"  and a few odd words here and there including "poum poum shorts" which are bootie shorts that make your bum look extremely famished.  Sulls got told she was wearing these right before she had to present.  Needless to say, she went tomato blotchy red.  Please note, her shorts were not short at all.  However, we are all  on the hunt for these shorts used to win votes in local political campaigns..they are worn by people known as "caliente girls" aka strippers.  Thee you!

Thursday and Friday


Okay so we finally got to do some more home visits with our gyals Inga and Jher. Visited four little ones. all with varying degrees of CP. Attempted to use some shotty OT skills to try and assist them with their seating difficulties. The heat is at an all time high, with our bodies slowly turning into "crispy Canadian back bacon" as Poh so eloquently put it.

Lunch was an adventure as we were introduced to tamales....yikes...made of lots of corn, chicken and some other questionable ingredients. Needless to say we ate about 58 starbursts each post tamales extravaganza. Finished work and decided to go for happy hour at Tropicana with Mark. 2 for 1 beers which was a slippery slope resulting in accidental drunkenness coupled with a scolding from our house mom. Apparently it is more important to be on time for dinner (note: we were 15 minutes late) than arriving home before 5am...go figure. Also we blame this scolding on our good pal Mark, who has been living here for 4 years and knew that we would get in trouble for being late but decided note to tell us that. Dinner was littered with inappropriate drunken laughter sandwiched between cut eye from our mom and Poh making fun of Jon's british accent. Slinked off to bed...

Finally made it to Friday and met Inga at a local school for children with disabilities. Spent the morning being extremely overwhelmed especially when in a classroom of 8 children with autism. Felt pretty useless at times but we tried our best. Had an amazing three course lunch---main course, three different desserts and mango's to top it off! Assembled a PET cart which is a cute little car/wagon which the kiddy propels with their arms...cat got in it and rode around the office. We are trying to figure out how to upload a picture of this. so stay tuned...

Heading to the cayes this weekend to snorkel with the sharks and lounge on the beach so we will have much to update on Monday!

Love
xoxo

STEAKETTE, LIL POH KIM & KRUSTIE THE KLOWN

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Weekend Addendum

Oops sorry forgot to add that we had a holiday on monday so decided we needed to go swimming to help with the extreme heat. Got in our suits and trekked to the Radisson for some pool time. Strutted in and pretended like we were staying there...so stealth. Enjoyed the refreshing water and cold belikin. Such a GRAND day and way to end the weekend

Theeeeeee

xo
S, P and C

Weekend Adventure

Finally the weekend including visits to ATM and Mountain Pine Ridge.
Bright and early we had our driver Mr. Gomez  drive us to the bus station with Johnny cakes in our backpacks. It was a little sketch as we had never ridden the bus and weren't too sure where we were headed.- Tea Kettle. Cat made sure to tell the bus driver we were going to Tea Kettle but he had no clue what she was saying! Luckily a guy behind us translated in a Kriol accent. We all passed out extremely hard on the bus and were in a state of extreme panic when the driver said "Last Stop". To get the bus divers attention to figure out what was happening- Poh: "Um, excuse me sir.."- No response. Cat wide-eyed in her best Kriol accent yells "HEYY!" which finally made the driver turn around ( we were right behind him the whole time).

Got off the bus, waited on the side of the road in Tea Kettle for the tour to pick us up. Fortunately we had Johnny cakes to eat while we waited.

ATM (Actun Tunichil Muknal) was AMAZING! Google it! We had to make a trekk through the jungle including walking through knee deep water, almost tripped like 100 times on the slippery rocks! Finally got to the cave entrance and strapped on our helmets and head lamps...we all looked so hot obviously! The adventure began and lasted for 2 hours within the cave. We had to swim, walk, crawl and contort our bodies through the craziest rocks. Highlights included: the neck chopper, cliff hanger, human remains and mayan artifacts. We had a 4 ft tall mestizo tour guide who was amazing and gave us the history of the mayan culture! We have amazing pictures which will explain the wildness of this experience! Afterwards we had to trekk back through the jungle/rivers and were so dehydrated....cat started hallucinating mirages of water/rolled her ankle due to lower limb weakness and sulls almost punched a girl on our tour for her water. We had an amazing lunch and drove to San Ignacio, a small town an hour from ATM. We spent the night there in a hostel called tropicool (great play on words) and went for pizza at a local restaurant where we met some older gentlemen aka cradle robbers with very very young wives...cat's response "youre kidding me right?!!?" nope not a joke! Once back in the room had our first gecko experience which resulted in screaming fits by both sulls and poh.

Woke up bright and early to start the next adventure to mountain pine ridge. Had the best tour guide who gave us the history of Belize and told us some very questionable jokes! We got to experience another amazing cave..where cat had a 127 hour moment! Next was two stops at different waterfalls, poh took a swim in the water but got scared of the potential anaconda! Made our way back to San Ignacio to catch the bus to Belize City. Another packed ride where poh and cat had to take turns standing, we all passed out again on the bus which included mouth breathing, head bobbing and a lady falling asleep on poh.

Finally made it home after a sketchy walk and went to the local park with our "brothers" mark, jon and tony for some tacos and papusas from local street vendors...oops sorry OCASP! Went back home to experience some gold rum and coke yummm. We will bring some home with us!!

Overall amazing first weekend, counting down the days until next weekend. We are planning on going to the islands for some snorkeling (with sharks) and beach time!

Until then puppies,
 xo 

Steak, Poh and Krust

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Friday Fun

Woke up and ventured out for our first walk to work.  Success!  Sully wins mvp for directions.  We had our best morning so far.  We got to hang out with our buds Jher and Inga to do some community visits.  Our first visit was with a little cutie girl with cerebral palsy.  We had velcro, padded straps, needle and thread, and a stapler to modify her wheelchair which was about 3x too big for her.  We whipped out some crazy, makeshift OT skills to make her more comfortable in her chair.  Upon reflection, through our OT lens, we unpacked the piece from our toolbox and gave ourself an "A".
We were greeted at our second visit by what we can only describe as a stray, rabid hyena/dog (Nat might have lost it).  We saw a little girl who was 8 years old and still crawling, has feeding difficulties and is non-verbal but has good verbal comprehension.  We have made a plan to make a picture board for her to communicate with her family.
Got back to the office and Jher caught Jenn "tornado-ing".  Oopsies!  The tornado is a dance by this local guy, Lova Boi (not sure if it's Boi or Boy?).  There are two versions of the dance: slow tornado and fast tornado.  Youtube it baby!  Poh's specialty is, well, she says both.  We'll leave it up to your imagination as to what it is.
Practiced Queen's style for our presentation later that day aka not at all.  We hope your appreciating our posts as we are sweating and delirious.  Sweat factor has reached new heights.  12 baby.  Later.  Thee you soon.

Medical Mysteries...

We thought you would share with you all the mayhem the heat is doing to our bodies...

We all have strange thing going on including:

-Sully and Poh both suffering home heat rashes...sulls got it on her face and inside of her arms and poh's on her back, arms and elbows
-Cat, because she's half black didnt get heat rash but instead had been battling extreme foot edema (huge bricks-super painful but hilarious to see!!) She has fashioned elevated foot rests out of all of her luggage...including filling a ziploc bag with air, unfortunately it deflated during the night
-Poh has also been experiencing a bout of psychological traveler's constipation (just for you Nat!!)
-All of us also have dehydration contirbuting to bouts of delirium involving inappropriate laughter....we cant think of the actual diagnostic term for this oops sorry OT education!

We will continue to update on our medical mysteries throughout the trip!

xoxo

First Day of Placement!!

6:30am wake up!! Poh wakes up MEGA cheesed because she couldn't catch a wink of sleep for two reasons, the cucaracha  and extreme hot flashes throughout the night. Added to her cheese level was the fact that sulls slept like a baby! We all finally hot up and organized to eat breakfast which included eggs, beans, fried jacks and bananas, delicious! VIP pick up by the director of CARE, the weather is hot hot hot we were all sweating like crazy and it was only 8am uh ohhhh

We worked at the office in the morning and had an information session on CARE and the services they provide...all very OT!! We went on our first home visit in Belize City which was quite interesting and very different from Canada! We trekked to get lunch, our first solo outing! We survived and had another great meal (rice and beans, chicken, cole slaw and fresh juice). Back to the office to prepare for the training session next week with sister bev. SF through the roof and sooo tired. Poh's eyes started shutting while sister bev was talking to her, including very long blinks!! Cat and sulls couldnt stop chuckling in the background. Long weekend coming up so we are organizing our trip to ATM which is a wild cave adventure!

Had an amazing dinner at home, yet again then decided to brush out Cats hair which looked like a lions mane or diana ross. We made her show our mom, we think she was scared but she laughed pretty hard! We went to Birds Isle a local karaoke bar right on the water with the people we live with. Dscovered everyone here LOVES country music especially Strawberry Wine! Listened to tone deaf girl #1 #2 and #3 the  Poh got convinced to sing Michael Jackson, Man in the mirror with Virginia...so cute!! Trekked it home and passed out so hard!!

Until next time little ones! xoxoxo

Love,
Sulls, Cat and Poh