Do You Want Some Floss With That Chicken?

The chicken bath

Well per usual the last part of the trip flew by and before I knew it I was on a flight back to the states.  I kept meaning to find a computer and write one last blog post, but somehow I was just too busy relaxing.  I flew in to Portland on New years eve after a beautiful 10 days in Honduras with my good friend Ahiv. Though I hate to admit it, after 5 weeks of rustic living In Guatemala I was pretty ready for some first world comforts and a little gringo vacationing.  I was doing pretty well with the 3rd world living until my last week in Guatemala.  I'd had some stomach troubles and wasn't quite feeling my best.  We only had one sink in my house so bathroom, kitchen and laundry needs were all being done interchangeably.  This inevitably led to me brushing my teeth one morning while starring at a bucket of raw chicken that was sitting in the sink waiting for the evening frying.  It turns out that no amount of Crest Cavity toothpaste can override the smell of raw chicken on a fragile stomach at 8 am.  I decided right then and there, while willing myself not to reduce the sales margin that weekend by puking on the chicken, that while I don't need much in my life, I need 2 sinks.

practicing some weaving with my Host Mom Cruz

Doctor Craig and two of the three awesome assistants

My work at the clinic got much easier towards the end of my stay.  I am now able to take a medical history in halfway understandable Spanish.  I am pretty good at recognizing the 15 or so main drugs we used, knowing what we used them for, and was able to diagnose about 3/4 of the patients that came through the clinic.  (My crowing achievement was correctly diagnosing a kid who's toes and foot were going numb.  He needed bigger shoes).  I got to give shots my last few weeks which was weirdly fun.  The assistants trained me and there instructions pretty much just consisted of them saying over and over "soft, find where it's soft" while they prodded the patient with their fingers.  We gave injections in the butt cheek though, so as far as I was concerned it all seemed pretty soft to me.  The doctor later saw me give an injection and was horrified by what they had failed to tell me. I think he just didn't want to be held accountable for my lack of medical professionalism.  Turns out there's a tiny bit more too it then finding the soft spot, but they definitely have the basics covered.

One of three exam room at the clinic

My host family got their first Christmas tree ever
this year so I taught them to make paper chains
and snowflakes

The Christmas season arrived with a punch this year.  I'd done a pretty good job of completely forgetting it was almost Christmas because only about a 3rd of the people around the lake in Guatemala celebrate it, and even less have money to spend on decorations or gifts.  Then one day about a week and a half before I left the local church started playing Christmas songs. The churches around my town in Guatemala blasted music most nights until 9 or 10.  Up until that evening the Latin beats had added a whimsical charm to the evenings; a background noise easily enjoyed and ignored all at once.  Turns out it's a lot harder to ignore tunes you know.  It felt like I had been condemned  to spend every evening in a holiday time shopping mall.  They only had about 10 songs and they played them on repeat for 2-3 hours a night.  I decided it was some sort of cosmic retribution for my ancestors forcing God upon the local populations.  Paybacks a bitch.

Our new hotel

I made it to Honduras on the 21st of December after what I thought was going to be a 6 hour bus ride. Turns out I was off slightly, it took over 12 hours. The whole bus was full of Hondurans going home for Christmas.  They were a very excited bunch. Everyone was chatting and sharing food like they were family, singing along to the bus music and generally shouting at every possible opportunity. As we go into the outskirts of our final destination, San Pedro Sula, things got really crazy and everyone started singing what might have been the national anthem and then shouting ahy ahy ahy ahy ahy.  As this was my first time in Honduras, and I had been a bit slacking on the research front (hence the surprise 12 hour ride), I have no idea if this is just a country of very enthusiastic people or if everyone got drunk at 4 am before they got on the bus and didn't tell the gringo.  I think it might have been the former as there was lots of shouting the next day on our ferry ride.  Ahvi and I made it to the Island of Utila the next day and spent the next 4 days diving.  We accidentally booked ourselves at a gross hostel full of drunk 20-30 year olds, so after a day of that we decided in the spirit of Christmas we deserved an upgrade.  We spent the rest of the trip marveling at how much nicer it was to relax when you aren't afraid to touch things for fear of getting hepatitis.  We went to the slightly larger island of Roatan after Christmas for a few more days of diving, and then headed for home.

Hammock time at our hotel

 

Christmas Eve drinks and chocolate courtesy of Ahvi

The view from out porch

After 2 lovely months i'm back in Portland. We landed and the pilot said "welcome to Portland the current temperature is 33."  I had been expecting raining and 50, I actually turned to the guy next to me and said "did he say 33?"  I have been avoiding looking at the Missoula weather as I think it might scare me off.  I am searching for a new car and will head home to Montana as soon as I have wheels.  Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Years!  Looking forward to seeing many of you soon!!

Tortillas in the Blood

Another lovely week in Guatemala.  I am starting to settle into my routine here.  Most days I work at the

tortilla making

clinic from 9-2 and then spend the rest of my day studying, reading, napping, or knitting.  This week I've been trying to learn how to make tortillas.  You know it's meal time here when you start to hear the rhythmic clapping of hand slapping tortillas into perfect little circle.  My host mom, Cruz, probably makes upwards of 150 tortillas a day.  My first few attempts were pretty terrible, and after the 5 year old produced a better tortilla then me I told Cruz I though it was in their blood and that's why Audrey had made one so easily.  She laughed and we kept working and a few minutes later I produced a tortilla that almost looked normal.  At this point Audrey turned to me and said very seriously "tienes un poco Sanger", you have a little blood.  Me and Cruz just about died laughing.  Maybe there's hope for my tortilla making yet.

Audreys perfect tortilla

A tortilla made by Cruz on the Left and my creation on the right

 Every meal here, no matter what it is, is accompanied by hot, handmade tortillas. I am slowly but surely becoming addicted, and the Guatemalans most certainly are!  You should see the look on a patients face when we tell them they have diabetes and can only eat 4 tortillas a meal.  They never seemed to concerned that we are telling them they have a serious health problem, they just keep say "4.  Just 4?"  Other then tortillas there is a lot of meat, beans, potatoes, eggs, and weirdly enough, pasta.  Most is accompanied by some sort of tomato sauce and lots of salt.  Recently a giant gunny sack of avocados showed up at our house (the family tree was ripe) so we were having avocado with every meal  for awhile which was pretty great.  The jocote fruit is also in season currently.  They are walnut sized and taste vaguely like mango.  My family puts them on a skewer, dips them in chocolate and then freezes them and sell them to the local kids for 15 cents each.  So yummy!

The wood stove.  Most people cook on these
here but we also have a gas stove.

As I am the guest I generally get a heaping bowl of whatever is being served.  I have finally managed to talk my hostess down to just one egg a morning instead of the original 3.  It was hard work, but after a bought of stomach trouble I told her that the doctor said I couldn't eat so much and she finally accepted it. Along with my egg I also get a cup of oatmeal or cream of wheat every morning.  It's a little different then at home; they grind it incredibly fine and make it extra liquidy and then you drink it, and yes, it's kind of weird.  Everyone here seems to greatly enjoy it including the kids which completely baffles me. You can't even get kids in the states to eat the stuff covered in sugar and fruit, let alone drink it.  There is also coffee which they grow, roast and grind themselves and everyone from the 3 year olds up drink day and night.  I will never get over the 5 year old demanding coffee at dinner time and then chugging a mug of it without anyone batting an eye.  I don't drink a lot of coffee so the first morning I had some my hands started shaking and I think it scared my host mom because she never offers it to me anymore.  "Can't trust the crazy gringo, she might drink too much and give herself a heart attack."

After all the eating I've been doing I've been trying to exercise a bit, but it has proved to be difficult as the town is on the side of a mountain and the only road it generally over 45 degrees steep, aka past my running abilities which are lacking to say the least.  I have resigned myself to running in circles around a soccer field, which is pretty much the only flat place around.  The other day some kids came down and stopped to watch me.  After I stopped running they shyly came up and asked "are you exercising?"  In the same tone you might use to ask someone "are you flying?"  When I said yes they just stared at me in awe.  After that I had to climb back up the hill to town and about 2 minutes into my 15 minute climb I realized I had greatly underestimated the amount of energy I was going to need for the hill.  I guess maybe that's why no one exercises here, they need their strength to make it home.

The sauna!  I have to stoop to get in!

Other fun oddities of rural Mayan villages include the bathing situation.  There is a shower in our house but I've never seen anyone actually use it besides myself.  Instead everyone has a sauna in their homes.  3 times a week they heat up the sauna along with a giant pot of water which they scoop from and dilute with cold water and then pour over themselves.  The sauna is heated by an open fire in the corner and can consequently be a bit smoky.  The whole room is only about 4 feet wide by 4 feet tall and 6 feet long and the ceiling is covered in stalagmites of black soot.  The first time I went in all I could think about was this study I read once about how women in China are all getting lung cancer from cooking over coal fires in unventilated spaces. The doctor assured me however, that their isn't a particularly high rate of lung cancer here so I have come to greatly enjoy the tri-weekly sauna now that I know it's not going to kill me.  Luckily it is the "cold" season so it's in the 50s at night and actually feels nice to be warm.  I can't imagine going in there in the hot season, seems like you might sweat so much you'd counter act the benefits of bathing. When I told them we have saunas too in the states but their for relaxing in they just laughed and laughed.  Silly gringos don't even know how to use a sauna!

I guess I'll leave it at that.  Only 2 more weeks here.  On my to do list before I go are, hike up a volcano, and give someone an injections! Love to all.

Watch Out For Snakes

someone headed down to the boats from town

After my second week at the clinic I am starting to get the hang of things.  Most people have either a cold, an intestinal parasite, arthritis, diabetes, or nigua ( an insect that get inside your skin and lives there.  I'm always impressed by how calm people are when we tell them it's an insect causing the bumps.  I'm not sure if they just don't get that the insect is INSIDE their skin or they just aren't worried about it).  It's amazing how different their concept of health is.  On one hand they will come in with a cough they've has for one day with no other symptoms and want medicine.  Then on the other hand they'll come in with a bad case of nigua with itchy bumps covering their entire body including inside their mouth and throat and when you ask them how long they've been like that they will casually say "oh on and off for two years."  They do to seem to have a good understanding of what is and isn't a health concern.

my room

the town of Santa Cruz from above

The meds are free though, and we give them out generously, so people come from all over the area.  There are other clinics around but they either cost money or have no meds, so we are a local favorite. We start seeing patients each day at 9 and are usually done by 1 or 2.  People line up from 730 on to get a number and we try and cut people off at 40 patients a day.  We had one lady last week who got there late and they told her we were out of numbers for the day and she did not like that answer so she sat there all day giving us the dirty eye, determined to be seen.  Unfortunately for her the lady in charge is just a stubborn and took great joy in sending her home at 2 when we closed without letting her see the doctor.  There is definitely some bias towards people from our village versus other villages.  This lady was from San Pedro, a town know for its pushy citizens so she didn't have much of a shot at getting an exception.  Gringos on the other hand get bumped up in line, but they pay a hefty fee, just under 30 bucks for a consult and whatever meds they need.

growing some veggies

the fields on the side of the hill

I have been trying to exercise and went for a hike up the hill behind town last week.  Mostly I just got lost trying to find the trail up the hill and ended up walking around in people's fields.  They grow corn and squash and a few other things on the side of the hill which has to be at least at a 45 degree angle.  After my fail hike we had a guy come in whose dad had been bitten by a coral snake (incredibly poisonous) and was trying to find anti-venom.  I had no idea that there were poisonous snakes here.  The ladies at the clinic assured me if I stuck to trails I would be fine and of course all I could think about was my hour spent bush whacking around the hill. I think I might be done hiking here?  The doctor tried to tell this guy to take his dad to the hospital but the guy went on some rant about how the hospital wanted too much money for the anti-venom and how he wanted to find it cheaper.  As a very cheap person myself I understood where he was coming from but thought maybe this wasn't the time for saving 20 bucks because as he said "my father will be dead by 6 pm if i don't get the venom."  It was 130 when we saw him.

Besides now being afraid to go in the forest because of the snakes (we don't carry the anti venom at the clinic in case your wondering), I have also treated enough cases of nigua  that I am trying to avoid plants as well (the insects live on the plants and transfer to you when you touch the plants).  There is also apparently a big algae bloom in the lake that has caused a spike in cyanobacteria and is making people sick, so I have yet to swim.  It seems medical knowledge is putting an end my fun!  The good news is whatever I get I have a free supply of meds!

Well that's all the exciting things I can think to tell you about.  I am in the city of Antigua for the weekends, photos below. I found a tortilla thing stuffed with cheese for breakfast and topped with guacamole which was pretty exciting.  I have my heart set on a big Juice smoothly for lunch.  

repurposed old school buses from the states are decked out for a second life all over the country

early moring flower delivery in Antigua

a local woman and her kids in Antigua for the day

another hillarious bus

a particularly amazing fountain in Antigua

Where are you Rhinita? Come home, I love you!

A tragically appropriate photo of the lost hero from last fall.

         I left Missoula a few weeks ago and headed to Seattle to see some friends.  It was a fun stay until the last day when I went to leave and my car was gone along with my carefully packed backpack for Guatemala that was safely hidden in the trunk.  I made it down to Portland via my dad and instead of relaxing for 6 days before my flight to Guatemala I spent the time frantically scouring the goodwills of Portland for all the things I needed.  Bit of a rough start to the trip to say the least.  Luckily I have wonderful friends and family who kindly donated items and spent countless hours driving me around portand buying things.  Rhinita (my car) has not yet returned.  I am hoping she has escaped her captors and is homeward bound as we speak. 

looking back at Santa Cruz from the lake

I made it to the tiny village of Santa Cruz de la Laguna Sunday.  The village used to be down by the lake, but after one to many floods they moved up the hill.  Since then the gringos have taken over the lake front property.  They think the locals are crazy for living up on the hill and the locals think they're crazy for living down by the lake, so really it works out pretty well.  The town is just a bunch of houses, a school, our clinic and a couple of tiny tiendas that pretty much only sell Coke.  Their's one guy who has a cart selling fried chicken, and on the weekend my host family also sells fried chicken.  Apparently people really like fried chicken, or maybe they are just happy to have something they don't have to cook.  I would have though 2 chicken stands directly next to each other would have saturated the market, but no one seems to think it's a problem.

my house

I am living with an older couple.  They have 7 kids and all but the last one is out of the house and married.  They are incredibly kind and are very polite about my terrible Spanish.  This is a Mayan village so everyone speaks ketchecal, the local dialect of Mayan.  Everyone who has gone to school speaks Spanish as well, but it is there second language and at home they speak ketchecal.  It's fun to listen too and I have so far learned to say hello, so I'm of to a roaring start with my ketchecal!

the clinic is on the 2nd floor

The clinic is run by an American Doctor name Craig.  After 11 + years runny the clinic he has a lot of insights to share.  His method of teaching is throw you in and see what happens.  I managed to get him to let me shadow another student for my first 3 days and now I am taking medical histories and doing the reporting. Basically there are 3 awesome Mayan ladies who are trained to take the medical histories, then report them to the doctor who tells them what meds to give and he also examines the patient if needed.  When there are students here the poor assistants have the unfortunate task of translating into ketchecal for us and sitting there while we slowly and painfully butcher both Spanish and the medical process.  They are incredibly patient and kind.  I intend to buy them gifts to make up for my Spanish.  The worst is when you have a patient that speaks Spanish so you have to speak directly to them and can't hide your terrible Spanish behind the translator.  Most people are pretty polite about it.  I did have one lady my first day give me a look like, um is this a joke?  Why is this "Doctor" person not capable of speaking?

the offending church

There are about 3 or 4 churches here in the village all of whom enjoy blaring music like it's fiesta time all the time to encourage people to come worship.  We keep getting patients in the clinic complaining of hearing loss and if they're under 80 then inevitable they live next to a church or are in a church band.  We have at least a block buffer between the churches and our house, so up to this point I've found it charming.  So far it had only been at night, but apparently the Catholics think that Saturday morning at 6 am is as good a time as any for party worshiping.  They went non stop for over an hour complete with a lovely 5 minute bell ringing session just in case anyone anywhere was possibly still sleeping.  So, thanKs to the Catholics I got an early start to my day.  I took the boat across the lake to the thriving metropolis of panajachel to see the sights.  Mostly I am just enjoying gringo people watching.

Hope everyone is well and has a happy turkey day!

          

I had a great last week in Palau!  We climber a hill, and then a old metal gunnery tower to get a view of the islands.

Julia and I are pretending to be afraid of heights, while Chris is actually afraid.  We had to do a lot of peer pressuring to get him to climb the old tower

 and we caught a great sunset from the tower

 I got in some nice last boat sitting time and enjoyed the view

 I made the local paper.  Don't worry, I made lots of copies so everyone can see and remember the time that Katharine was famous.  Actually they have so little to write about in Palau that all PICRC has to do is send the paper a press release and it goes into the next addition.  Still, I like to think it's special.  I would have preferred the front page though.

 I went on my last dive, which was 2 hours and 23 minutes long (I was freezing by the end) and I found a coral recruit that my boss missed which had never happened before.  I think I should probably retire from coral recruit finding after this, I like to leave things at my peak.

Me counting things on the final dive

I left Palau in the dark, just like how I arrived, so I still haven't gotten to see the Islands from the air.  I had a layover in South Korea and was planning on seeing a few sights since I had 6 hour to kill.  However, it became apparent from a quick glance out the plane window that I had made a grave error in clothing selection for my sight seeing mission.  I guess Korea has winter, who knew?  Well luckily I am an Oregonia on my way to being a Montana and a little cool weather never stops us, so I went sight seeing in flip flops, a skirt and a long sleeve shirt.  I was proud to say that I made it out long enough to get a stamp in my passport, eat a few fried items, and walk around a market before I lost feeling in my toes.

Dad and I on a hike in the redwoods.  Notice the down jacket!

Dad picked me up Monday in San Francisco, so the Palau adventure is officially over and I already miss the warmth, islands and wonderful people.  I think I would be really sad if it weren't for adventure stage two (AKA Mexico with Katy Reed) which starts on the 9th.  I have had such an amazing 3 months and I even managed to learn a thing or two about science and resource management!  I am leaving my computer at home for the mexico adventure, so this is the end of the blog.  Thanks to everyone for all the emails and letters and for keeping me updated about life outside the islands.  I am excited to catch up with lots of you in the next month or so!  Much Love,

Katharine

Red snapper spawning!!!

In my last few weeks here I have been diving a ton.  It all started with a spawning dive a few weeks ago.  We got up at 4 am to be out in the water by 6 in the hopes of catching a red snapper spawning.  It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The spawning takes place near the deep outer reefs, so there is a shelf at about 90 feet and besides that it is just open ocean.  The fish swarm in these big schools of 1000s of fish and then every now and then one fish darts out of the cluster to lay eggs and a herd follow to try and fertilize them.  It's all very frantic and dramatic and the current was pretty strong so it made for an exciting dive.  Every direction I looked there were fish. it was almost too much to take in.  During all this someone points out a big bull shark that was cruising by.  It was by far the largest thing I have yet to see under water, maybe 8 feet long and very big around.  After that I pretty much felt like if I never dove again I could be happy!

The foreigners from work, plus a few others

So I followed this amazing diving experience with a really big cultural even a few days later.  In Palau there are two big ceremonies, funerals and 1st birth ceremonies.  My co-worker sherly's big sister was in Palau from the states for her 1st birth ceremony and all the foreigners from the office got invited.  Every Palauan woman has one of these for her first baby and traditionally it was a ceremony just for women.  The woman is given a ceremonial hot bath for 10 days or so (depending on the clan) leading up to the 1st birth celebration.  The baths consist of her being  covered in oil and then has boiling hot water thrown on her.  The oil keeps the water from burning, but apparently it still doesn't feel great.  The actually 1st birth ceremony is kind of like a giant baby shower but way more fun!  Instead of presents people give money, and lots of it.  Now days men come too, and the only reason I could get out of anyone for this change was that they are still not really welcome but they want to see the dancing and no one stops them.  

Guests at the 1st birth

offerings for the husbands family.  Notice the koolaid and salt!  There was also wine, some Japanese liquor and soy sauce. 

initial dancing with Lisa, aka the lady in red
 who spear headed the singing

Yes that's right, dancing, and lots of it.  Basically the first hour or more of the ceremony is spent eating and dancing around a live singer and stuffing money in her shirt.  After awhile the woman who has just had her baby comes out in traditional dress and then stands for another hour while people dance around her and give her money.  Eventually she gets to go back inside and sit down, and by this time people were pretty drunk and then it was just a lot of dancing for the fun of it.  

Shirley's sister being walked out on grass mats

Aunties dancing around.  I think the wine was getting to them because they grabbed some fruit from the big bowls and started dancing with it on their heads and everyone seemed to think it was pretty funny.

husband and baby

The yellow color of her skin is the oil they use to keep the boiling water from burning her.  The head dress and color and pattern in her skirt are determined by family clan and rank and made by aunties usually or local artists.  The leaf she is holding is one of they herbs they use for the hot bathing.   I could not believe how long this poor lady had to stand in the boiling sun.  Various Aunties and sisters came and fed her little sips of water and the ever essential Beetel nut that everyone chews here




Once Shirley's sister went inside things got a little more crazy.  The dancing had been pretty sexual all day but it got down right dirty by the end.  Shirley brought out the foreign ladies for a dance towards at this point and the lady next to me kept insisting that I poke the singer Lisa in the side.  She just kept shouting "poke her!  Like this" and then she would poke her, so eventually I did just to get her to stop shouting and she thought it was the funniest thing that had ever happened.  You can see her in the picture below.  I'm the one in the purple shirt and she is the one on my left with the sunglasses on her head that is laughing hysterically.  I do love to entertain.  We stayed and danced for awhile and then eventually our ride was ready to go, so we left the real partying to the Palauans and called it a day.

fish on the way to blue corner

So as if two amazing days of Palau fun wasn't enough,  three days later the people at work decided to take the 5 of us who are leaving in December out for some fun dives as a thank you for our work.  We got to dive blue corner, via blue hole, which was the last spot on my dive wish list for Palau.  Blue hole is a big hole (hence the name) in some rock about 20 feet across and 100 feet deep.  You jump in and drop down this tub to a half cave that open up to the ocean.  pretty spectacular!  from there we swam along a big wall until we reached the corner, which is open ocean and a spot with lots of current, meaning lots of sharks, turtles and big schools of fish.  It did not disappoint!  At one point these two sharks were swimming around a school and corralling them and I kept thinking we were going to get to see a shark feed, but no luck.  Ah well, I guess I can't see everything on one trip!

Grey reef shark (I think) at blue corner

Well That's pretty much it.  I am just finishing up a few things at work and mainly trying to have as much fun as possible before I leave.  I went out diving 4 tdays last week and should get about the same this week, plus there is a Karaoke party Wednesday at work for all of us that are leaving, Thanksgiving Thursday and a camping trip on the weekend.  I figured I might as well end on a good note.  Hope everyone has a great Turkey day! Look forward to seeing some of you soon!

Hey Everyone!  I just wanted to let people know that I survived typhoon Haiyan.  Where I am in Koror there are lots of downed trees but nothing too serious.  The eye of the typhoon passes 15 miles north of here over the northern most island of Palau, where it leveled all the buildings except one.  Luckily that was the building all 80 residents had chosen to hide in, so everyone is okay.  Most of the damage is in the north of the country, but besides flooding, some lost roofs and a few blown down houses things are more or less okay.  I wish I had pictures of the storm to show you how crazy it was, but it came through around 3 am and my night photography skills are not that good.  All I can say is it was very loud and Palau is very luck it wasn't more devastating.  The internet is pretty slow but from what I have gathered the Philippines was not so lucky.  I weathered the storm with some friends at my house sitting apartment which has generators, water storage tanks and is very sturdy, plus we had enough food to last a week (the photo is just my portion of snacks).   Anyway, just wanted to say I am fine and thanks for those who sent emails!

Typhoon necessities