Archives for May 2018

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Going to Belize!

May 26, 2018 by Donna Climent Leave a Comment

5/25/18

It is the night before my flight to Belize! My flight is at 6:35 AM, with a layover in Charlotte, North Carolina. I should arrive in Belize at 11:30AM, to 95 degree weather. I am in contact with several girls that will be on my flights, which is helpful since this is my first time traveling alone and out of the country. I spent all day getting prepared and packing and I think I’m ready. Even though I’m a little nervous to leave my family and pets, I know that this will be an amazing opportunity for me that I can’t pass up. It’s a new and exciting experience and I hope that I will enjoy every second of it. I am so excited to learn new things, see amazing animals, meet new people, experience a different country and culture, and absorb the beauty that is Belize!

Spays, Sutures, and Snorkeling

May 25, 2018 by Kayla Luis 1 Comment

Hey!! It’s been a while!! We are now on Day 13 here in Belize and the first program is coming to a close!! However, I will update you guys on Day 6- Day 11 so I can save some to talk about later!!

Day 6: 5/17/2018

Thursday we got to go to a cattle farm and perform vaccinations on the cows (who were much bigger and scarier than they look) and also got to vaccinate their horses and their dogs!!! The cows proved to be a challenge since they all received intramuscular shots which go straight into their muscle and is quite painful! Even though they were placed in a shoot, they were flighty and would move in every way possible to get the needle out- I don’t really blame them. We had SO much practice since we needed to do about 70 cows! Afterward, we got to vaccinate horses, which were a little less flighty, and their farm dogs who only had received one shot but were whining for about 5 minutes after(drama queens). It was exhilarating to have so much practice! After we were all sweaty, we got to go cave canoeing in one of the most BEAUTIFUL caves I have ever seen. Some people went cliff diving and we got to experience “pitch black” within the cave, which was frightening and relaxing at the same time. You could literally wave your hand in front of your nose and not see a thing.

Day 7: 5/18/2018

Friday was the beginning of the long-awaited trip to the beautiful peninsula of Placencia. After a very long, and sweaty trip in the back of a cramped van with packed backpacks, we arrived at the Placencia Humane Society. This has been my FAVORITE day of the trip so far. The Friday clinic was free, so not only did we get to observe countless spays and neuters, but we also got to interact with owners and ask them if we could take their dogs to a free clinic. We had gone out in the back of a pickup truck and drove around neighborhoods asking owners if we could bring their dogs in for free healthcare with the promise to return them home safely. It was so impactful seeing the direct impact you have on the quality of the animal’s and their owner’s life. But nothing was more terrifying than having to be in charge of the recovery of a puppy just neutered. Skippy was his name and boy was he TERRIFIED. Not only that, but I wasn’t aware that puppies panting had a significantly higher heart rate ( almost 200 per min) than normal, and I was so scared he wouldn’t wake up from his anesthesia. Ruben not only calmed down my worries, but explained that the process is different for everyone, and wow he was right. Out of five dogs, I observed coming out of anesthesia, each one had a different temperament afterward and took a different length of time for it to wear off. After the 10 hour day of work, we finally took a swim in the ocean, settled into our condos for the night, and got to eat delicious food at the Barefoot Bar. It was such a heartwarming day to see all the volunteers coming together to better the quality of life of these animals and improve the neighborhoods in general.

Day 8: 5/19/2018

Round 2 of the clinic in Placencia! Because of this low-cost day, you got to see the difference in the number of customers. We ended at 2 pm (about four hours earlier than the previous day). Because I skipped breakfast, I got to participate in the spay of a pitbull/labrador mix (which is my favorite breed) and was able to fall in love with Angel. She was the sweetest dog I have ever met and I almost cried as she left- I swear I am normally not THAT attached. Her neighbors were the ones to bring her in after watching her have one litter already at the young age of one. It was her first trip outside of her small, chained yard, and she was so happy and playful and wanted to sniff everything. Unfortunately, because she was such a healthy dog and was probably exercising before the surgery, she kept waking up and whining during the surgery from metabolizing the anesthesia too fast. It shattered my heart until she was given ketamine to sedate her. Her owners also didn’t follow the pre-surgery instructions, as anesthesia clears the stomach of its contents, and she threw up three times. The poor baby girl will never want to leave her backyard again! 🙁 Later in the day, we got moved to our hostel for the night, dipped in the pool, and then dressed up to leave for the Barefoot Bar, where we had good food and took a few shots- alcohol is very expensive here and make sure you drink responsibly!!! There I also met the second dog of my dreams, a little chubby and friendly dachshund named Buster that would get on the dance floor with us!

Day 9: 5/20/2018

Sunday, a few people got ill from the food and weren’t feeling well, but we still all went snorkeling anyways. In the morning right before snorkeling, we ran into a puppy we neutered on Friday named Skippy- what a coincidence. When we got to the island to snorkel, after a 30 minute boat ride to the island, it was absolutely beautiful. This was my first time snorkeling and to be honest, the first time we went out I felt like I was permanently drowning, but the second time was amazing! We saw so many fish and got to explore the second largest barrier reef in the world (in case you didn’t know)!!! However, don’t be like me and think you are invincible to sunburn on the back of your legs or your back, because I was a TOMATO when we got back to San Ignacio. I have never been more sunburnt, and you don’t even wanna see my booty. It is burnt to a crisp, I say as I am painfully peeling. Other people got it worse so I can’t even imagine, but wear your sunscreen kiddos!! That’s the moral of the story.

Day 10: 5/21/2018

Back to our regularly scheduled programming, we got to go to two sheep farms Monday and give vaccinations and castrate a few young sheep and meet their super sweet owners who reminded me of my grandparents so much :(( I miss my family back home :((( But new adventures!! I also met the third dog of my dreams- I know I keep saying that but you HAVE to see all these cute doggos and then you will understand. These doggos reminded me of my doggo back home and made me miss home EVEN MORE- can you tell I was feeling homesick this day? They were german shepherd and chihuahua mixes and were such good boys for their vaccines. But by far, the best part of the day was trying to catch the sheep to castrate in a big open pasture. How many people does it take to grab five sheep you ask?? About 15. With battle scars of jumping sheep.

Day 11: 5/22/2018

Well, Tuesday was a day for sure. A good or bad one is up to you to decide. We visited a pig farm, and wow that smell was SO delightful. We had to castrate 5 screaming piglets who were surprisingly hard to keep down and needed about three people just to grab them. After a very demoralizing attempt to castrate the testicles off a piglet, I found my calling- pig wrangling. The high pitched squeals and the dramatic gestures of the pigs surprisingly don’t faze me and even though I may have been close to slipping in poop a few time, I have a 90% success rate in holding them down for an intramuscular shot. This was by far the best experience ever, followed by a really unfortunately smelling car ride on the way to a beautiful waterfall so we could rinse off all the filth from our bodies. This was followed by a quick lecture on artificial insemination and palpation in cows.

To all of my family and friends- I miss you tons and I can’t wait to come back to you all!! And I hope Kelsey has the BEST time recovering from her wisdom tooth removal LOL.

Tune in next time for my hand up a cow’s rectum!!

Days Left to Go: 15 days 🙁 (Simultaneously miss home but never want to leave)

“Night before the most awaited trip”

May 23, 2018 by Niketkumar Patel Leave a Comment

Hello viewers and readers!!

Few hours left before boarding the plane from John F Kennedy International airport to France. Will probably not be able to sleep due to excitement and dreaming of how my trip will be? I am going to Cluny, France where I will be taking a course called “Microbiology and Culture of Cheese and Wine” offered by Rutgers University. Cheese and Wine what else you need, to have a terrific summer. I will be learning the science behind the production of cheese and wine. So, embrace yourself for exiting virtual journey with me in the world of cheese and wine. Thank you to the SEBS International Programs office for making my travel possible in some ways. Au revoir!

–Niketkumar

Dandy Departure

May 23, 2018 by Dianne Le Leave a Comment

One of the last spectacles any passenger should want to see before boarding their flight is an officer walking by them with a giant rifle, on top of hearing the announcement that all incoming and outgoing flights from their layover destination have been postponed due to a severe storm. I also unsurprisingly observed a couple furiously (yet silently) hate each other as they sat across the table from me. Apparently, the husband pulled out a chair for his wife, takes a seat two chairs down from said seat, and then berates her for sitting down in the chair right next to him. He actually had a very intense staring contest with her, only she was sitting in silence staring ahead while he coldly glared at her for at least 7 minutes (or until I left the table). I honestly wasn’t too bothered by this besides feeling some sadness for the wife whom probably had been abused by the flaming husband.

On a relatively more positive note, my disinterest in the still predominantly patriarchal sanction of marriage had been reaffirmed. However, I do still find great fulfillment in teaching, mentoring, and sharing resources with students. Then again, I do apprehensively shudder whenever I imagine ever having to raise a narcissist child.

—

It felt surreal to leave the U.S. for the first time in my life, yet after all, what is a national border other than merely a social construct? (perhaps, with the exception of island nations)

The first flight to Iceland connected to secondary flights into Europe and ironically, I was seated next to an Asian dad and daughter. They held hands during the flight takeoff and while they slept leaning on one another, and the father constantly replied to his daughter in an endearing, friendly, and nonjudgmental tone as far as I noticed. I have never had a close relationship (or perhaps any more than a few recounts of positive memories) with my own father, but noticing their loving and silly friendship was healing in a way to experience as a bystander (technically, “bysitter” since we were on a plane). Cue those 5 people this past month whom reckoned to me that, “everything happens for a reason.”

After receiving my first passport stamp at border control, I grinned ear to ear as my curiosity piqued while seeing so many signs that I did not understand, recognizing Euros for the first time in person, and hearing the overwhelmingly indistinct chatter of languages that I could not immediately interpret. There was also a pretty intriguing facial recognition procedure for existing EU passport holders at border control. EU passport holders would step into a booth where a photo of themselves showed up on a screen and they would have to match their face to that photo through the camera in the booth. This reminded me of the Hunger Games movie just a bit.

https://ftnnews.com/aviation/26490-easypass-speedier-border-controls-for-passengers-at-tegel-airport.html

—

My eyes watered as I walked down the aisle.

Of the plane.

After roughly 12 hours in travel, I was in Germany!

—

I felt like a young child receiving candy when the bank ATM dispensed colorful euro bills to me.

Next to the ATM was a food stand and I decided to stock up on food for the rest of the day. A veggie sandwich costed 5€, so I reckoned it was a reasonable price but I was just hungry as well. My first difficulty in interaction as a foreigner was at this food stand when I tried asking for change in coins even though I later realized that I would have received change in coins anyways.

I called for a cab because my Airbnb host had class soon and I did not want to make them wait. My cab driver spoke very limited English, but I still respected that his capacity of English was much more than how much German I knew (which was nothing at all, aside from knowing that under directly translates to under in German). He swerved through traffic and almost drove onto the sidewalk at one point, and I kept hearing him mutter a word repeatedly under his breath throughout the duration of the drive.

“Shizer, what does that mean?” I asked.

He looked over and made a high pitched gasp with wide eyes.

“What does it mean in English?” I clarified.

“Shizer means shit! Shizer means shit!” he laughed.

He also encouraged me to keep trying to pronounce “Technische Universität Berlin” until it could be recognizable at minimum to another German, and also reminded me that dollars were not synonymous to euros. I also learned that apartment meant apartment in German.

When the drive concluded, I asked the cab driver what a good amount to tip him would be. (in hindsight, a very counter-intuitive question)

“I don’t know,” he replied, while holding his wallet open. I gave him 2 euros.

—

My host welcomed me into my Airbnb and I learned that Food Technology requires a sophisticated physics skillset, not just mainly chemistry. After I unpacked into my room, I showered, practiced self care, and watched the German sunset from my window while admiring a green roof over a gas station. I tried my best to be present with where I was, the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the calm wind. The warm pink and soft orange accents of the sunset progressively bloomed to full vibrancy and eventually disappeared into the dim, bleak sky around 21:00.

I placed an old photo of my mother and I at the corner of my desk to serve as a constant reminder of how and why I am able to have an education and be able to study abroad this summer. And most of all, for resiliency.

Flying and Fry Jacks: 5/12-5/14

May 22, 2018 by Deanna Bullock 1 Comment

I can’t believe that I have already spent four days here in Belize. I’m going to try to make this as engaging to read as possible, I know it’s pretty boring to just read through someone recounting their day.

Getting into Belize wasn’t too bad. I luckily coordinated with someone who is in another course but also had to travel to Belize on May 12th, so we were on the same two flights to Belize. When we got into Belize, exiting the plane was surreal: It was a staircase down onto the runway! I’d only ever seen that in the movies. Once I was reunited with my luggage (!!!) and through customs, I was greeted by the humid air of Belize!

After we landed, the director of CELA took us to an outdoor food table where I got rice and beans with some stew pork meat. I’ve never eaten a meal that included the vertebrae, but I told myself that I wasn’t going to limit myself during this trip. We ended up waiting in the parking lot of the airport for four hours waiting for everyone else to get in, but the bus had A/C so it wasn’t awful. It was a great opportunity to talk and get to know everyone.

San Ignacio, our host city is a four-hour drive inland from the airport in Belize City. We got to see the terrain change as we moved more and more inland. Once we got into San Ignacio, we were introduced to our beautiful new home of Midas Resort. My new roommate and I got situated and we were then whisked away to dinner at this amazing restaurant just a two minute walk away called Hode’s Place. I got the most delicious chicken quesadilla I’ve ever had!!

The next morning, I woke up to a spectacular view. Instead of trying to put it into words, I’ll just show you:

Like?? Yes please. Sunday was an orientation and tour day. For breakfast, the place where we are staying cooks our breakfast and gave us a “Belizian Breakfast”: scrambled eggs, bacon (that was shaped and tasted a lot like taylor ham), refried beans, and fry jacks. The star of that show is the fry jack, a delicious pancake batter like tasting delicacy. Our orientation of the program was nice and we all received a bracelet with local seeds that help unite us and also ground us. Then we had a tour of San Ignacio so we would feel more comfortable navigating the town. San Ignacio has a beautiful market that people come to sell things like fruits, vegetables, handmade jewelry and so much more.

After the tour, we had were taken to an Archeological Site of Xunantunich, a Mayan site that archeologists are still in the process of restoring. We were taken on a walking tour through the jungle and led up a steep hill. We were then told that the steep hill we climbed had Mayan buildings underneath, and all of the hills around us with trees and life growing on it also had Mayan buildings underneath. To an uneducated eye, you would have thought it was just hills. Then as we were walking, we heard howler monkeys and were standing right at the base of the tree. (For anyone who doesn’t know, they used howler monkeys for the sound effect of the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. So it was a little weird hearing them at first just walking through the jungle.) We took a nice set of stairs to the top of the largest structure, where we were clearly able to see Guatemala (since we were only a few miles away!) After the tour of Xunantunich, my roommate and I went back to Hode’s and I got a nice bowl of spaghetti and meatballs with an oreo chocolate cake for dessert.

Classes started on Monday, so we were all dressed in our scrubs and ready to go to the Paw’s Vet Clinic! We had a class that was like a basic introduction to the course. Then we had a presentation from a head veterinarian at BAHA, or the Belize Agricultural Health Authority. For lunch, we went into town and tried one of the local restaurants. I had rice and beans with stew beef. The restaurant, Mickey’s, also serves chicken stuffed fry jacks (mentioned above), so I’m definitely going to go back. When we got back to the clinic, it was what we had all been waiting for: suturing. We were each given a chicken leg to practice suturing on. I was extremely nervous because I had never sutured before. But Dr. T, Reuben, and Stephanie, the people instructing us during our course, took their time making sure we all understood what was going on. I learned four knots in total: a simple interrupted, a continuous, a hidden, and a hunter’s knot. Then I joined a group of three and we observed Dr. T perform a spay. Mid-surgery, I held the uterus of the female dog as Dr. T tied off and cut what he needed to. It was such a surreal feeling– I could feel the dog’s pulse through the uterus. Then once he finished the surgery, he took a step back and said, “Okay girls, suture her up.” We each took a turn and did one knot on the dog. This was an experience I never thought I was going to get to experience, yet I did it! I did that!

I’m already behind on posting about my trip, but I know there will be time to catch up soon. I can’t wait to continue to share my experiences here on my corner of the SEBS blog! :^)