Welcome to the Jungle!

We dove right into the jungle, with its abundance of wildlife (snakes, birds, rats, monkeys, butterflies, etc..) plants, water, fungus, BUG bites, illness, head lice, mold and mud! The night time is filled with strange, mysterious noises and creepy crawlers. The first couple of nights were long, as I tried to identify every noise and convince myself that my mosquito net would protect me from any invader. Just as I was finally getting used to sleeping in harmony with the critters , I encountered a HUGE tarantula in my bed that Dominic proceeded to kill. It wasn't until the next day after the 'sacrifice', we found out that yes the spider bites and yes it is very poisonous. Yikes. I had probably been sleeping with my little friend for a week before I happened to lift up my pillow before bed that night and it jumped out at me. In the early morning, the jungle greets us with a 5am wake up call from the howler monkeys and the hundreds of birds and frogs. I find the mornings much more enjoyable.

Casa Guatemala lies right on the Sweet River (Rio Dulce)... and its name holds true. The river is magnificent.  In the afternoons, we go swimming with the boys (whose house sits right on the river) in the relatively warm but refreshing river and marvel at the pelicans diving head first into the water. When its not raining (our second week here it didn't stop raining for 6 days), it is breathtaking. No sunset measures up to those in New Mexico, however the Guatemalan sky has proven that its beauty is comparable.

The clinic, where I spend most of the day, is located right on the river with its own dock, secluding it from the orphanage/school and its 250 children.  The clinic is very simple and basic. It serves not only the orphanage and the students, but the outlying Mayan villages that inhabit near the shores of the river. It is equipped with a somewhat decent pharmacy and two examination rooms. Doctors and nurses from Canada and the United States come as volunteers for days to weeks at a time and provide full examinations and medications to the people. Myself and another nurse from the states are two semi-permanent nurses there now who basically run the clinic and live close by in case of an emergency either at the orphanage or in the village. It has definitely been a challenge for me, given my unfamiliarity with third world tropical diseases and most of all, lack of resources. I am learning an incredible amount not only about treatments of fungus, scabies, parasites, tropical ulcers, etc.. but about the Mayan culture and the people.

Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks Michelle (the other RN) and I will be spending a lot of time in Brisas, the village close to Casa Guatemala. We plan to build relationships with some of the locals and investigate the healthcare needs of the the community and what kinds of public health education would be most beneficial and realistic to the area.

 A group of residents came from the states to visit and provide basic healthcare to rural villages along the Rio Dulce. I went along with them to a secluded village, about a two hour hike from the river banks in the dense tropical forest.

We converted the villages main classroom into a 'clinic' 

This 17 year old mom and her 2 month old have a severe case of scabies. You can see the scarring on the mom's arms and baby has lost her hair from the infected scabs and mite infestation. This particular village has had many problems in the past, with over 80% of the 300 people who live there infected. 

Casa Guatemala Clinic

PAZ,

Yasmin