I am now into my second week at my second placement, and over halfway done this trip. I am still working at the La Loma Luz Adventist hospital in Santa Elena, but now we are not doing maintenance.
This week we have been given the opportunity to work inside the hospital, and to shadow some of the doctors, lab technicians, and pharmacists that work here. Today, in the morning, I worked with the x-ray technician, who also takes the vital signs of all the patients that come into the hospital. Midway through the morning I began shadowing the pharmacist and she gave me access to the hospital’s entire inventory list. I watched her as she ordered new medicines and as she filled prescriptions for the patients. Nathan worked all day with Steve, the x-ray technician, and he was actually taking the x-rays by the end. During the morning while I was with the pharmacist Poppy, a boy from the King’s Children’s Home, came by to get his elbow x-rayed. I had the pleasure of reading the x-ray and help him. His elbow did turn out to be broken, apparently it happened when a team came down and took them to the park that I used to take the kids to every day and he fell off the top of the monkey bars. So now that we had determined that he had a broken elbow he needed to be casted. So I now had the opportunity to help put on his cast. They still use the paper Mache like casts here, so it was pretty messy. The entire time I was helping them out Poppy kept smiling and saying, “Your Ben!” I was glad that the children still remembered me.
On Monday, on the way back to drop everyone off to their placements we stopped off at the orphanage so that Laura could do some filming. This gave me some time to go into the home and say hello to the cooks and some of the kids that were home. I got to see Amelia again, and she still remembered me.
So throughout this week Nathan and I are being given the chance to work inside the hospital shadowing different people. On Wednesday we were supposed to watch a surgery which was postponed until May, so we will be unable to see it. I was able to shadow a doctor during one morning, but most of the week was spent helping with the vital signs and x-ray technician.
Looking back on this placement I enjoyed it a lot. This was the placement that I really wanted to do, and I have now been able to complete it. These two weeks have flown by; we are now more than halfway through our trip, with somewhere around 40 days left to go. We now head into another break from placements, where we are all living and working together.
thats all for now
Friday, April 20, 2007
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Update 7
Hey everyone thought I would write you an email. I am now into my first week of my second placement, which is at La Loma Luz hospital.
I am only two days into this placement now, and it is pretty good so far. Mostly I just work in maintenance. We do tasks such as paint houses, wash cars, and clean up sheds. We are hopefully going to have the opportunity to sit in on some surgeries in our time here. Some of my scholastic tasks are to look into the medicinal inventory of the hospital, and possibly do some lab work, and talking to the hospital director it seems as if these things will be possible. At the hospital all the trucks are standard shifts and Nathan is beginning to teach me how to drive them.
This is my first time living off the YWAM base; I am living with a host family in Santa Elena. Santa Elena is right next to San Ignacio, and is where the hospital is located. Our home is now a ten minute walk away from the hospital, which we walk both ways every day. I am living here with Nathan Lamont, a student from TDCH. We have our own guest house, and live very comfortably.
This placement will only be for two weeks, because we worked during our two week break making this a shortened placement. We are able to walk to and from the store down the road if we need to, which is more freedom here than in roaring creek.
After work the one day, we went with a couple of guys from work to swim at a waterfall. At the base of the waterfall the water was about ten feet deep, and the height of the waterfall was about thirty feet. We jumped into the water from the top, and we also swung from a rope swing hanging from a tree over the water. This spot was very beautiful, the water was clean, and it wasn’t very busy.
So far this placement has been good and I hope it continues this way. I am excited to be able to experience some of the work indoors in the hospital, and to watch some surgeries. I am enjoying living off the base and living with Nathan. I will write again later.
bye
I am only two days into this placement now, and it is pretty good so far. Mostly I just work in maintenance. We do tasks such as paint houses, wash cars, and clean up sheds. We are hopefully going to have the opportunity to sit in on some surgeries in our time here. Some of my scholastic tasks are to look into the medicinal inventory of the hospital, and possibly do some lab work, and talking to the hospital director it seems as if these things will be possible. At the hospital all the trucks are standard shifts and Nathan is beginning to teach me how to drive them.
This is my first time living off the YWAM base; I am living with a host family in Santa Elena. Santa Elena is right next to San Ignacio, and is where the hospital is located. Our home is now a ten minute walk away from the hospital, which we walk both ways every day. I am living here with Nathan Lamont, a student from TDCH. We have our own guest house, and live very comfortably.
This placement will only be for two weeks, because we worked during our two week break making this a shortened placement. We are able to walk to and from the store down the road if we need to, which is more freedom here than in roaring creek.
After work the one day, we went with a couple of guys from work to swim at a waterfall. At the base of the waterfall the water was about ten feet deep, and the height of the waterfall was about thirty feet. We jumped into the water from the top, and we also swung from a rope swing hanging from a tree over the water. This spot was very beautiful, the water was clean, and it wasn’t very busy.
So far this placement has been good and I hope it continues this way. I am excited to be able to experience some of the work indoors in the hospital, and to watch some surgeries. I am enjoying living off the base and living with Nathan. I will write again later.
bye
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Update 6
The last week has been crazy, it has been our break week, and so 21 people have been living together instead of the normal 10 on base. For the first couple of days, we did work on the base and we set up for the VBS camp that we will be running this week. From Wednesday to Saturday we were off on a road trip.
I will start off by telling you about the first couple days and preparations for VBS. They were a little bit discouraging because this was supposed to be our two week break, and now we were doing base work such as raking leaves, digging holes, sweeping, and bleaching walls in around 5 buildings. We had to cobweb the ceilings in these buildings as well, which was basically sweeping the ceiling. With some complaining we got this done.
Corozel, what a great time we spent there. We were there to be near the beach, but also our main purpose was to paint a house at a school, tear down another building, and dig a trench for the school. When we arrived we met a family that had just moved down there, they sold everything because they felt God calling them to start a small seminary school. Mr. Kamphuis asked them if there was any way that we would be able to bless them, and they said that their house hadn’t been painted in the two months they had lived there so far, and that would be a great help. So there was another side project and we had a team of girls to go there and help them with that. Albert Zantingh, our contact in Corozel, told Mr. Kamphuis that he didn’t think that we would be able to finish the three jobs he had for us, but at least it would be a start. Not only did we finish those three jobs, but on the house that we tore down the back half we repainted the remaining house, and painted the house of the people we met there.
We also went to the mayan temples that were nearby to Corozel, this was our trip home as well. It was amazing to see these temples; we also swam in the water nearby. After seeing these temples we were off to Belize City. Why? To go to the only subway in all of Belize, yes, subway. It was about a 1.5 hour detour, but it was worth it. I tell you a sub never tasted so good. Sitting there eating subway made me and a couple others realize that at home we take EVERYTHING for granted. Honestly though, we really do.
During our time in Corozel we passed sugar cane fields many times. In those fields are the cane cutters, working long hard days to fill the trucks which can hold about 15 tons of cane. They are paid about 6 Belizean dollars per ton, and that works out to about $90 Belize, which is split amongst the workers. One Belizean dollar is equal to fifty cents American, so these workers are extremely underpaid. We have sugar in everything, and we complain when prices are raised. We bought these workers a drink, as well as brought them pancakes from our breakfast, from the little we gave them they were so thankful. These men were Christians, and they needed to be. The ages of these men were 52, 68, 71, and 82. If you ask me they do more work in one day than any of the students from either of the high schools we attend. They are covered in soot from when they burn the remaining foliage out of the cane field. We also took up a free will offering from the team, and we were able to raise $312 Belize for these men to split. They then prayed for us and we in turn prayed for them. Just seeing these elderly men that should have been retired working in such hard conditions was enough for me. That made us realize that we take way too much for granted.
We then came home from our tiring road trip, exhausted but fulfilled. We did the jobs we came to do, and we went above and beyond what they asked of us. I know that I learned a lot on this little four day trip. That is all I have to say for now, but we are all doing good here, hope all is well at home.
I will start off by telling you about the first couple days and preparations for VBS. They were a little bit discouraging because this was supposed to be our two week break, and now we were doing base work such as raking leaves, digging holes, sweeping, and bleaching walls in around 5 buildings. We had to cobweb the ceilings in these buildings as well, which was basically sweeping the ceiling. With some complaining we got this done.
Corozel, what a great time we spent there. We were there to be near the beach, but also our main purpose was to paint a house at a school, tear down another building, and dig a trench for the school. When we arrived we met a family that had just moved down there, they sold everything because they felt God calling them to start a small seminary school. Mr. Kamphuis asked them if there was any way that we would be able to bless them, and they said that their house hadn’t been painted in the two months they had lived there so far, and that would be a great help. So there was another side project and we had a team of girls to go there and help them with that. Albert Zantingh, our contact in Corozel, told Mr. Kamphuis that he didn’t think that we would be able to finish the three jobs he had for us, but at least it would be a start. Not only did we finish those three jobs, but on the house that we tore down the back half we repainted the remaining house, and painted the house of the people we met there.
We also went to the mayan temples that were nearby to Corozel, this was our trip home as well. It was amazing to see these temples; we also swam in the water nearby. After seeing these temples we were off to Belize City. Why? To go to the only subway in all of Belize, yes, subway. It was about a 1.5 hour detour, but it was worth it. I tell you a sub never tasted so good. Sitting there eating subway made me and a couple others realize that at home we take EVERYTHING for granted. Honestly though, we really do.
During our time in Corozel we passed sugar cane fields many times. In those fields are the cane cutters, working long hard days to fill the trucks which can hold about 15 tons of cane. They are paid about 6 Belizean dollars per ton, and that works out to about $90 Belize, which is split amongst the workers. One Belizean dollar is equal to fifty cents American, so these workers are extremely underpaid. We have sugar in everything, and we complain when prices are raised. We bought these workers a drink, as well as brought them pancakes from our breakfast, from the little we gave them they were so thankful. These men were Christians, and they needed to be. The ages of these men were 52, 68, 71, and 82. If you ask me they do more work in one day than any of the students from either of the high schools we attend. They are covered in soot from when they burn the remaining foliage out of the cane field. We also took up a free will offering from the team, and we were able to raise $312 Belize for these men to split. They then prayed for us and we in turn prayed for them. Just seeing these elderly men that should have been retired working in such hard conditions was enough for me. That made us realize that we take way too much for granted.
We then came home from our tiring road trip, exhausted but fulfilled. We did the jobs we came to do, and we went above and beyond what they asked of us. I know that I learned a lot on this little four day trip. That is all I have to say for now, but we are all doing good here, hope all is well at home.
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