Bocas and beyond

First of all, apologies for having not posted for a while; since joining Floating Doctors I feel like I have been swept up into a whirlwind of adventure and am in a permanent state of ecstatic exhaustion.  It's currently six thirty am and the coffee is hubble-bubbling away in the background, filling the room with that familiar aroma of morning as the world awakens around me.  Every day is different here and today we are up early to pack for a multi-day clinic at Norteño, a large village on the mainland (one of the few non-island communities we serve). Having been on a multi-day clinic in my first week I have a few extra experience-based additions to my rucsac, loo paper being the most valuable! It is amazing what people (and in this context I mean volunteers) will trade for a few sheets of cotton soft luxury upon the realisation that the community has no plan to provide for our creature comforts.  Tinned sweetcorn comes a close second and is an immense morale booster when, tired and powerless over the food being served, we are faced with the third bowl of rice and beans for the day. But do not mistake my list for complaints.. far from it.  It is actually a complete joy to derive such immense pleasure from these simple things. It brings life into sharper focus, highlighting the immense privilege we experience day to day without even giving it a second thought.

Another treat on multi-day trips is that of living in a Ngobe village for four days. We arrive, set up our clinic in some form of structure: a school house, an open sided barn or a library, and set about making our homes. This, for the uninitiated, is quite an entertaining spectator sport for hammocks and mosquito nets are not the easiest in the world to set up and invariably at least one or two people end up on the floor part way through night one. Fortunately I lived in the Belize rainforest in a hammock for six months as a teenager so, after hearing the familiar squak and thud of a midnight hammock catastrophe, can pretty quickly and easily sort it out even blindfolded by the rainforest's velvety darkness. 

Following a restful, rocking sleep we rise early and are in full swing seeing patients by eight thirty and do not stop until nightfall save for a quick bite here and there to keep energy levels up. The Ngobe people are absolutely wonderful; open hearted, playful, inquisitive, earnest and exceptionally hard working. There is very little alcohol or drugs in the culture and even smoking is a rarity. 

 Baya Azul was the village we visited for one such multi-day a couple of weeks ago and, it being my first week with FD, was a baptism by fire into the whole process and I am still grinning like a goofy school child at the memories. Packing gargantuan amounts of medical supplies, food and coffee into Elvis' boat (yup, that really is his name!!) a group of twenty of us - some medical and some with absolutely no medical experience at all - climbed aboard and out across the archipelago of mangove Islands to receive patients from across the region. It would take a very long blog to detail the experience so I will tell it through photos in my next entry. (To follow imminently!) 

As for this last week, we have been living and working from 'home' in Bocas, going out on day clinics and doing ward rounds at the local old peoples home. This elderly care facility by all accounts was a pretty dismal place to be up until FD partnered up with the locals.  It still has a long way to go but the residents now at least are clean, fed, have regular medical attention and probably most importantly they have people that come over and spend time with them, shower them with affection and take them on outings.  After all everybody needs love.

So here I stand, on the brink of another multi-day adventure, my complete heart and soul open and engaged. But let's not romanticise here, I'm absolutely pouring sweat as I sit here in the early morning sun, my balcony overlooking a grim shanty town that was created when the govennment displaced an entire village to make way for a runway. It is a relentless, tough environment here with challenges coming no only from disease but from the diseases of power, greed and neglect. We are making a hugely important difference but it is a grain of sand in a desert of need.