Travel Day and First Clinic Day

We have arrived! I traveled basically from 6:15 am until 3:30 pm (which was 5:30 NC time)- so needless to say upon arrival we were a bit dehydrated/tired/ delirious but in great spirits!
 The "puddle jumper plane"that we took from Belize City Airport to Punta Gorda. We made 3 stops before getting to our destination to drop off and pick people up.

The views from the place were amazing!- if you look closely you can see the shadow of our plane!-

When we got to Punta Gorda we were picked up at the airport by someone on the Hillside staff and got a quick tour of the community then headed to the clinic area. The first picture is where we are staying- it's called Abby's house.

 This is the Education Center/ Rehab Gym- where we spend our time when we have Outpatient clinics at Hillside.

 This is the living area at Abbey's house- and the kitchen in the background (with Caroline there).

 Mine and Caroline's room- after unpacking everything. There are fans everywhere around here because there is no AC.

 the dresser/ clothes area.

So after we arrived at Hillside- we were oriented to everything here and met all the awesome Med/ Physician Assistant and Pharm students that are also here (They have been here for 2 weeks already and are staying another 2- we are here for 2 months). Monica (The PT at Hillside- who is taking her summer break for the next 4 weeks) and Carol (a PT / Director of Clinical Education from St. Louis - who is here with us until Monica returns) showed us around the Clinic areas and oriented us to everything.

Caroline and I unpacked all of our luggage and relaxed (kind of) for a bit and then were invited to play Cranium with everyone! What a great way for us to get to know everyone!  Despite mine and Caroline's delirious states of mind, we had fun and rocked at drawing, sculpting and acting out things.  Then we crashed about 9:45 and went to bed..... well Caroline did I tossed an turned and was up a few times.  But we had to get up at 6ish for a market run- which ended up not happening. So we enjoyed another meal of granola bars/ PB crackers :) Then we went to our first day of Clinical with Carol (our Clinical Instructor/ PT) and saw patients that had scheduled appointments with us.  We ended up seeing 4 out of 7 patients from 8 am to 12 pm. The patients we saw today were very talkative and they were great regarding getting information about their symptoms and very receptive to our home exercise programs and even our lovely drawings! (I need to work on my artist skills majorly- for all my future patient's sakes!!!) - But that's always a good laugh for all of us.
Then we had a lunch break- we got to have our first delicious beans and rice meal. (yes that is different than rice and beans). Beans and rice is beans over top of rice, and rice and beans is when they are mixed together....I kid you not. But it was amazing and only cost 1 American dollar and it was located RIGHT across the street from a clinic, where a nice woman was selling food.  The money here is 1 American Dollar for 2 Belizian Dollars.
After our lunch break we had some organizational/ more orientation to the clinic here and got to see the ins and outs of how things work at Hillside.

This is the clinic where the Physician Asst, Pharm and Med students see patients.

After our discussion time, we went into town to get gas (which was +100 dollars for 10 gallons!) and then Carol took Caroline and I to the store to get some food.

When we returned to Hillside we chatted with Carol and then helped with prep for dinner- which was delicious. We all helped to make chicken fajitas with peppers and onions and homemade tortillas (which were from a woman next door- and were the best things ever.) and rice and black beans etc! We were all stuffed!