12/28/17
day 2
Waking up was HARD today, for some odd reason. I absolutely LOVED the Belizian breakfast. Belize already reminds me of when I visit my family in India, but when I ate the jacks in the morning, they are almost exactly what my aunts make in India. I really like jacks I think I’m gonna get them every morning lol.
We took the van to go to the BAHA wildlife health center. Splitting up into two groups, we first went with David, the young guy who has only been there a year so far, and he showed us how they did fecals. He explained that usually a mix of feces from a herd is sent, so it is hard to determine which animal is sick, but usually it is better to check and treat just the ones that are sick. He told us that maybe 30 a month fecals are done. We got to guess what the parasite was that was in the feces (I think it was called strongyl?) and then after we just talked to David and amongst each other. He told us about the Royal Rat, that Queen Elizabeth ate, that is now a delicacy in Belize, and also about how iguanas are called “bamboo chicken” and are also a delicacy. We switched with the other group and then we learned how to blood smears which was pretty cool. 
I went to Hodes for lunch, the restaurant next to Midas, with some of the girls. I love the fresh juices in Belize – watermelon, orange, and lime juice! We also saw this lady who was selling her bracelets that she makes and they were all so pretty 🙂 I also love chilling in my hammock amongst the greenery.
In the afternoon, we went to a farm with some horses that we checked out and did our first physicals on some horses. My first patient was Terra Bella, and I checked her out with my friend Stephanie from UF. It was pretty cool being able to apply the knowledge that I somewhat retained from yesterday onto the horse. I was also surprised, because although I have some experiences with horses butnot that much, I was pretty confident throughout the exam. It was almost like we were playing with the horses haha. It was so fun using the stethoscopes.
She was a big beautiful healthy racehorse. 5 or 6 of 9, 30 HR, 30 RR (kinda high but knowing breed and status as racehorse is good), temp 100.1, listening to the gut sounds was funny, and I couldn’t hear the airflow too well in the thoracic cavity and much better in the trachea, but that isn’t a good reference for respiratory rate. Her musculature looked amazing and every where else she looked great. In anatomy this past semester we learned about the eye as well, and how horses have this thing in their eye called the granula iridica, but I never understood it well in my textbook pictures. Stephanie shined her pen light into the eye because she thought it was a tumor lol, but it was the granula iridica and it was SOO cool to see in real life. I never have a pen light on me when I work with the horses at school so I would’ve never known. The baby horses were also really really cute. I’m not sure if I’ve seen foals that up close before and they were beautiful, and really beautiful to see them suckling on their mother as well. Some of the horses were notin the best condition, like a lot of ticks in their ear and one was really skinny, but its understandable in this country because of the climate and the types of grasses that grow because of them. The farmers and caretakers do a great job with their horses and they care for them really well. Along with seeing this and seeing some horses tied along the side of the road, some people in the group were being not respective of the country’s condition and how life was different here and were pulling a PETA situation. It made me upset. Being in Belize, it makes me feel really homey. It reminds me a lot of when I visit family in India, which I haven’t done in 6 years. Life is different here, but life is also simple and great, and the people do care for their animals and the doctors like Dr. T and Ruben are amazing. Of course there are exceptions, but there are these same exceptions in the states and all of the world as well.
After coming back, we went to dinner at this really fancy place and the food was sooo good.
After coming back to Midas, a bunch of the girls bonded over a couple drinks and it was a great way to end the night.
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