C.E.L.A. Belize

1/3/20

This was a long but amazing day! My roommate and I slept through our alarms and woke up at 4:32am – we needed to be at the front of the hotel at 4:50am in order to drive to Placencia from San Ignacio (about 3 hours). We ran out of bed and luckily made it to the front by 4:50am. I ate a granola bar in the car, since we were not able to get breakfast at the hotel’s restaurant this early. Today was the first day at the spay/neuter clinic. We were in a large, open concrete building. When we arrived, there were already people lined up with their dogs waiting for general exams and surgery. Our large group of 20 students was divided into two groups of 10. One group was in pre-op and surgery while the other group was in physical exams and post-op. Today I was in surgery, and we performed procedures on 36 dogs! Six additional animals had TVT, which stands for transmissible venereal tumors – this is an STD in canines spread through blood. While TVT can be cured, the treatment takes a long time and is expensive, making it difficult for owners to treat their animals, so many of these TVT-positive animals were euthanized.

There were three tables set up for surgeries, and Reuben went around to each table performing pre-operation tasks, including putting the patients under anesthesia, shaving, and scrubbing. Dr. T went around to each table afterward and spayed or neutered the animal, then left the students to suture the dogs, with supervision from our TA and a few other volunteering vets. During the surgeries, I liked monitoring the animals for their pulse rate and respiration rate, but I also helped hold instruments and cut tissues for Dr. T. We were at the clinic from about 9:00am-3:00pm.

When we finished at the spay/neuter clinic, we all went to our hotel. Since we were such a large group, we unfortunately had to split up the group in different hotels. I stayed with five other girls at the Mariposa resort, which was a pretty nice and quiet hotel. We had dinner at 7:00pm and I had a cheeseburger.

TIP OF THE DAY: **Bring lots of snacks with you to Belize. There will be a few days where you will be waking up very early like today, such as when you have to be at the dairy cattle farm at 5:30am (when the cows get milked). These snacks are also nice to have for the plane ride and on days where you’re awake late at night and get a little hungry.**

 

1/4/20

For breakfast, my roommates and I paid 10 Belize and the owner of the hotel had laid out a small breakfast buffet of muffins, bagels, yogurt, fruit, and a few other options for us to have, which was really thoughtful. Today we went to a new spay/neuter clinic with Placencia Humane Society. We had fewer patients than yesterday, but I liked the amount of hands on work I was able to do. Since there were less patients, the day went a little slower, but half of the patients I worked with were puppies so I really enjoyed my time. I worked in recovery and physical exams. Some of my responsibilities of the day were to diagnose any possible illnesses (ring worm, intestinal parasites, etc.), obtain vitals, trim nails, clean ears, remove ticks, and give vaccines and dewormers.

The physical exams were pretty simple, but it was difficult to answer the clients’ questions, both because of the language barrier and because I didn’t know what medications we had available for the patients. Overall, this was a really educational experience and I had a lot of fun. In the future, if I take part in a spay/neuter clinic again, I will try to learn more about the medications and vaccinations available so that I am more prepared to answer owners’ questions.

 

So this is Chase, also known as Junior. If you can’t tell, I was absolutely in love with this puppy. He came in for his neuter, but he was too young so we removed his ticks, cleaned his ears, trimmed his nails, and gave him a vaccine. He was a good boy throughout all of his treatments. He was my favorite patient on this trip by a landslide <3

We were at this clinic from about 8:00am-4:00pm. For lunch, the Placencia Humane Society volunteers made us burritos. Between the clinic and dinner, my friends and I decided to go in the ocean for a little bit, even though it was already cold and dark (it was about 5:30pm and it is winter in Belize). For dinner we went to Tipsy Tuna, and I had the buffalo chicken sandwich which was really good and not very expensive. We were all exhausted from this clinic, so we didn’t do anything after dinner.

TIP OF THE DAY: **It may help to look up common illnesses in puppies before doing general exams. I worked as a foster for an animal shelter for about 7 years, and I had seen ringworm and roundworm (an internal parasite) in cats. I was able to recognize ringworm in a puppy I was examining, but I missed the intestinal parasite symptoms until a vet came over and asked me why the puppy’s stomach was so distended.**

 

1/5/20

This was our second and last free day! I had a bagel with cream cheese at the Mariposa resort while sitting near the ocean. Most of the group went snorkeling off of an island in Belize. My roommate and I did not really want to go snorkeling, as well as a few other students, so we had lunch with our TA, walked around town, and went to the beach. In the afternoon, we drove back to San Ignacio (another 3 hour drive). I went to Hode’s Place for a quick dinner when we returned to San Ignacio around 8:30pm.

TIP OF THE DAY: **If you do not go snorkeling on this free day, it would be a good idea to work on your presentation or studying for the exam, even for an hour. My roommate and I worked on our presentation for about an hour before spending time with our TA and friends, but even this one short hour was helpful in the long run.**

12/28/2019

I woke up at 4:30am and arrived at the airport at 6:00am for my 8:32am flight. I’ve flown a few times and find that wearing a short-sleeve shirt, leggings or jeans, sneakers, and a sweatshirt is the most comfortable for a long flight. I was enthusiastic about traveling, but I was worried about not packing everything I needed. I met a few other CELA Large Animal students in my group while I was waiting at my gate. The flight was about 4.5 hours long and we had almost no turbulence.

We arrived at the Philip Goldson International Airport and after going through customs and finding our bags, we got onto a shuttle arranged by CELA and drove about 2 hours to the Midas Resort in San Ignacio, where we had free time to unpack and unwind until dinner. This resort was much nicer than I expected. I stayed in one of the smaller individual houses in the back of the hotel with one roommate, and we had our own bathroom.

 

We ate dinner at Hode’s Place, a local restaurant about a minute’s walk from the resort. After eating mostly granola bars for the entire journey, the chicken quesadilla was pretty good, although the chicken was a little dry. My biggest takeaway from the day was from when we were driving – I was surprised at how many stray dogs there were in Belize. In every town we passed through there were several dogs wandering the streets, and dogs that are owned are sleeping in front of houses without leashes and many without collars.

TIP OF THE DAY: **Make sure to bring your bug spray when you come to Belize because there were a lot of bugs that became active as the sun set.**

BONUS TIP OF THE DAY: **Most Belizean stores, if not all, accept United States currency. However, they can’t break exceptionally large bills. I recommend bringing about $500 in American currency, all in $20 bills. I brought $300 US and had to go to an ATM about halfway through the trip so that I would not run out of money.**

 

12/29/2019

I woke up at 7:30am and breakfast was at 8:30am. I had the French toast, which was a little underdone, but not terrible. We started off the day at our orientation, where we learned all kinds of interesting facts about Belize, including that the population is only 400,000 people, and the size of Belize is about equivalent to the size of New Jersey. I also thought it was really fascinating that the Belize flag is the only flag in the world that depicts people. I wasn’t expecting to learn these kinds of fun facts, but it made me so much more excited to spend my time in this unique country.

After orientation, we took a tour of San Igancio. It was quiet, since it was Sunday, so not many shops were open. It’s a very small town, so it is difficult to get lost. There are also three friendly dogs at the Welcome Center. We saw them multiple times while we stayed in San Ignacio, and if you are missing your own pets at any point while in Belize I recommend visiting them.

Among the other facts we learned at orientation, we learned Belize’s staple dish is rice and beans, so of course I had to try this at lunch! We went back to Hode’s Place, and I ordered the rice and beans with baked chicken, which also came with potato salad (much sweeter than potato salad in the United States) and a baked plantain. There are also several kinds of Marie Sharp’s hot sauces to flavor your meal, and I highly recommend you try all of them! My favorites were the grapefruit and the “BEWARE” sauces.

After lunch, we went to Xunantunich, a Mayan ruin. Our tour guide, Lion, was charismatic and explained all kinds of stories and legends to us. Some of the highlights were that “Xunantunich” translates to “Stone Maiden,” due to local Belizeans in the 20th century seeing a female ghost disappearing into the stone walls of the ruins. We also learned that the belief in magic and spiritual rituals in the Mayan culture stemmed from kings who claimed they were praying to their ancestors, but were secretly consulting shamans and obtaining proper medicine for the patients. I’ve always found belief in spiritual healing interesting, so I thought it was really enlightening to get a glimpse of why people believed so deeply that praying to their ancestors would heal the sick.

Outside of Xunatunich, there are lots of little shops (you will see these throughout Belize). To get to Xunantunich, we needed to cross the river, and to do that, we went on this bridge that I can only describe as a crankable pier that can move from one side of the river to the other.

Dinner was at Ko-ox Han-nah (which means “Let’s go eat”), also known more simply as “Hana’s”. At orientation, our program director mentioned that “rice and beans” and “beans and rice” are two different meals, so naturally having rice and beans with chicken for lunch I wanted to try the beans and rice with chicken. While beans are cooked with the rice in “rice and beans,” the beans are cooked separately and added to the rice in “beans and rice.” Both are delicious meals and I can’t decide which I liked better!

TIP OF THE DAY: **Breakfast is always somewhere between 7:00am and 8:00am for CELA students, and it is paid for by CELA. You need to order your breakfast at Midas at the reception desk the night before, otherwise you might have to pay for your meal yourself. You can also fill up your water in the reception office when it is open. There are always water coolers available, which contain purified water that is safer to drink than tap water here.**

BONUS TIP OF THE DAY: **OFF BUG SPRAY KILLS ANTS IMMEDIATELY. One student stepped on an ant hill (it will happen to just about everyone once on this trip), and she borrowed my bug spray to kill them. You should bring a large can of spray with you and use it any time you are outside during sunrise, sunset, or around the farms.**

 

12/30/2019

I woke up this morning at 7:00am. I haven’t felt very adventurous with my breakfast options yet, so I ordered pancakes, which were very fluffy and filling. After breakfast, we went to the PAWS Animal Hospital, run by Dr. Edwardo Tesecum (Dr. T). Dr. T and Dr. Stephanie introduced us to the animal breeds within Belize. I was surprised at how many breeds of cattle there are in Belize, while there are fewer breeds of sheep and pigs. Dr. T also gave us some information about BAHA, the only government lab in Belize.

After the lectures, we went to Cenaida’s near PAWS for lunch. I ordered the chicken tacos, which came in a hard tortilla shell filled with lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, and chicken. This was delicious, although I did find a small chicken bone in one of the tacos.

Then, we were able to go to the BAHA lab and perform fecal egg counts by using egg flotation (formally known as the McMaster test). I’ve seen this procedure a few times before in other classes at Rutgers University, but it was interesting to see it again, since it’s been about a year since I last saw it. We also watched as someone in the lab filled and read a hematocrit tube to determine the amount of hemoglobin in the blood of a dog, and then we each smeared and stained blood samples to examine under the microscope and identify different types of white blood cells (leukocytes). Since I worked at an animal hospital, I have performed hundreds of hematocrit tests, but I have never had the opportunity to smear or stain blood samples, so it was educational to get to perform these ourselves.

We were brought to a large restaurant for dinner, and although I do not know the name, if you go to the same one on this day, I recommend the garlic chicken, which came with potato salad, salad, and corn.

 

TIP OF THE DAY: **Bring a notebook to the BAHA lab. A lot of information was given out about the different kinds of leukocytes and about the science behind the procedures we were doing, and while that information wasn’t technically on the exam, it will undoubtedly help you in your classes and in vet school.**

12/23/2019

I am so excited to go to Belize! I just finished my finals and it finally hit me that I will be in another country in just a few days. I’m a little nervous about going to a different country by myself, but I am excited to meet the other people in my group.

I am most excited for going to the spay-neuter clinic. One of my friends who has already completed the CELA Belize trip told me that we’ll get to help suture the spay and neuter patients. I work at Oradell Animal Hospital in the surgery prep department. In this position, I prepare mostly cats and dogs for surgeries, and I have watched a handful of these procedures, but I was unable to assist in the surgeries. Now that I am in Belize, I look forward to applying my past knowledge to this new experience.

Before leaving for Belize, I made cookies and spent time with my family, so here are some pictures of the highlights!

TIP OF THE DAY: **You do not need to bring any adapters for your electronics. In Belize, they have outlets for cords with two or three prongs and they use the same voltage.**

12/31/19

Today was my favorite day so far! I had the Belizean breakfast at 7:00am this morning, which was by far my favorite breakfast on this trip. It consists of two eggs (fried or scrambled), refried beans, bacon or sausage, fry jacks, and pepper jelly. The only way I can describe fry jacks is that they are thin, air-filled pastries that are neither sweet nor salty. You can dip them in the pepper jelly, in the beans, in the egg yolk, or even put the eggs, meat, and beans inside them – the options are limitless, and they all taste AMAZING.

 

We started off the day learning about physical exams and the steps required to diagnose an animal with an illness. Dr. Stephanie presented these powerpoints, and they were extremely thorough and informative. I’ve shadowed a veterinarian for 4 years, so I enjoyed learning about what she has been looking for when she performs wellness exams on patients.

For lunch, I went with a small group to Serendib, a Sri Lankan restaurant right at the beginning of town. The food was relatively expensive, but there were inexpensive options. I had the bruschetta (6 Belize), which was amazing. The wait was a little long, but it was worth it, as everyone’s meal came out looking very elegant. Overall today was a very good day for food :).

After lunch, my group learned about the different kinds of sutures and practiced on a piece of raw chicken. After we had practiced for about an hour, Dr. T began spaying dogs, and once he had performed the procedure and sutured the muscle, he had two people for each dog suture the skin, using the inverted simple interrupted suture method that we had been practicing. Dog skin is much tougher than chicken skin, so I had a little trouble originally getting the needle through the skin, but once I realized how much pressure I needed to apply it was very easy to suture. Dr. Stephanie was also there to make sure that the students were doing everything correctly on the patients, so there was really nothing to be afraid of. Now I’m even more excited to do the spay/neuter clinic in Placencia, since I feel prepared to help suture.

 

For dinner, Dr. T reserved a restaurant for a private party. We each paid him 15 Belize and he made us grilled chicken, rice and beans, and potato salad. We were able to hang out as a group and have a fun little New Year’s party, which was relaxing after the last few days of traveling and classes.

TIP OF THE DAY: **When suturing, don’t grab the tip of the suture needle with the forceps or needle holders. This dulls the tip and makes it very difficult to get through the skin. Try to grab lower down on the needle, or even use your fingers CAREFULLY to pull the needle through.**

 

1/1/20

Today was a free day! I woke up at 8:30am and ate breakfast at 9:30am. I tried the waffles, and they were surprisingly really good, and came with syrup, butter, and a sliced banana. After breakfast, we went to the Green Iguana Conservation Project and were able to enter a room of 16 iguanas and hold them! I loved being with the iguanas and holding them, as I’ve never been around an iguana before and they were pretty quiet and calm animals.

 

I wasn’t very hungry for lunch, so I had a granola bar today (adventurous, I know). After lunch, we learned a Garifuna dance, called Punta. A small group of Garifuna people showed us how they dance, including wearing the traditional mask, crown, and seashells, and at the end of the dance session they gave us a special drink (Sahou) made of condensed milk, coconut milk, nutmeg, cinnamon, cassava, and a few other spices, which they typically only make one day per year. It tasted like rice pudding without the rice it was extremely good!

On the way back from the dancing, we passed the welcome center. Here, there are three stray dogs, one of which is EXTREMELY friendly. For the entire trip, I would always stop to pet him because he’s a sweetheart.

For dinner, we went to Guava Limb, which was about a 3 minute walk from Midas. The food here was plated elegantly and very delicious. It was many of the students’ favorite restaurant. I ordered a chicken burger with fries which was really big and good.

TIP OF THE DAY: **When going to the iguana conservation, bring a sweatshirt or a shirt with long sleeves because their nails are MASSIVE. They will cut you regardless of what you’re wearing, but having long sleeves will lessen the amount of scratches. You’ll also want to bring an antibiotic cream or some sort of disinfecting wipes to clean the scratches when you leave.**

 

1/2/20

This morning, I had the Belizean breakfast again (I am obsessed with fry jacks). In lecture today Dr. Stephanie taught us about animal diseases and livestock reproduction. I love both diseases and reproduction, so I really enjoyed these lectures. Dr. Stephanie runs through the lectures really quickly, so it would be a good idea to bring a notebook and take notes, or even your laptop if you type faster than you write.

For lunch, we went to Hode’s Place. I ordered the rice and beans with chicken, and another student ordered the relleno negro soup. This is a black soup that comes with rice and tortillas on the side, as well as a boiled egg, a piece of chicken, and a meatball in the soup. I didn’t try it, but it smelled amazing and the student who ordered it said it was fantastic, so I recommend trying this dish when you’re in Belize.

After lunch we all went to a sheep farm, where we each subcutaneously injected at least two sheep with vitamin B complex and learned how to trim sheep hooves. Trimming the sheep’s hooves occurs every 2-3 months at this particular facility, since the sheep are kept indoors so this environment does not wear down their hooves as well as sheep kept outdoors (sheep kept outdoors need their hooves to be trimmed every 6 months). When trimming, you must trim the wall of the hoof to make it even with the sole of the foot. If the hoof were not trimmed or if it were trimmed incorrectly, it would affect the sheep’s conformation permanently, so this is a very important task on the farm. I have trimmed hooves in my small ruminant class at Rutgers, so I liked watching what the workers did and noted the similarities.

For dinner, a small group of us went to Maxim’s Chinese Restaurant. The food was a bit disappointing. I ordered the sweet and sour chicken. This ended up being deep-fried chicken pieces, and when I cut into them about half of it was fat. Another student ordered sweet and sour shrimp, and hers was almost all batter and very little shrimp. I would stick to Belizean food in Belize.

After dinner, we went to The Ice Cream Shoppe. This store has new ice cream flavors every day, and they’re all so sweet and delicious. I got rocky road and it was one of the best rocky roads I’ve ever had. If you come to Belize you need to try this shop. It is pretty inexpensive, too, as one scoop in a cup is only 4 Belize ($2 US).

TIP OF THE DAY: **When giving a subcutaneous injection, make a tent with the skin and push the needle in at the base of the tent. You will feel a small drop, and that is where you push the plunger. Make sure when injecting, you do not move the syringe itself, just push on the plunger.**

Hello hello!

Day 14

Today was our last full day in Belize, but we all made the most of it. After our cow-palpating, pig-wrangling day yesterday, we were all pretty wiped out, but we still had a great time on our last day. I don’t think I’ve talked about our breakfasts yet, but I’ve got to include just one mention of the wonderful morning meals we got at the hotel. Thank you Midas staff!! A popular breakfast item in Belize is the fry jack, which is absolutely delicious; it’s a bit like a hollow, thin empanada that you can put jam or honey on (sort of like how we to on toast).

After breakfast, we headed to PAWS clinic to give our presentations. We were given free rein to cover any topic related to veterinary medicine in Belize, and I decided to focus on tick-borne illnesses. We saw A LOT of ticks during our time in Belize (and got bitten by a lot of ticks), so one of the first things I was worried about was Lyme disease. However, I was informed by the PAWS clinic team that there is no risk of Lyme disease in Belize (yay!). I also heard some owners at the spay/neuter clinics saying what a bad year it had been for tick fever for dogs, which further piqued my interest in Belizean tick borne diseases. In my research for my presentation, I learned that the reason there isn’t any Lyme disease in Belize is because the species of ticks that transmit Lyme aren’t here (again, yay!). Also, there are only 3 main tick borne animal illnesses of concern in Belize: Erlichiosis, Anaplasmosis, and Babesiosis.

After our presentations, we had our surprise alumni meeting! This was so much fun; we all got sheets of paper to use as “yearbooks” where we got to write little messages for our classmates, which was such a nice experience. It’s amazing how close we all got after just two weeks, and we’re all hoping to keep our group chat alive! We also got postcards to send home, stickers, and a fun powerpoint of our adventures the past two weeks.

Then we took the final, which was, well, a final. But it was really nice to see how much I learned in just two weeks! After the final, we celebrated with a dinner with the PAWS crew. Thank you all for an incredible two weeks!

This marks my last post while still in Belize, but you have one more to look forward too soon!

Until next time!