Experiences!

"An adventure is only inconvenience rightly considered.  An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered." 

-G.K. Chesterton

Stacy, on of our last preceptors, e-mail us this quote today. It completely sums up our "experiences" down here.  "Experiences" is in quotes for a few reasons.....

This entire trip each of the groups of students have used this word differently.  The first group used it because there is a local tour guide in Punta Gorda who tells you when you go on a trip with him, you are not just getting a trip to Guatemala for instance, BUT the EXPERIENCE. And when he gives his talk to each group of students, he uses this word probably 20 times.  

With the second group of students we used it in terms of miserable or  inconvenient adventures/ things we did while we were here. For example, going on overnight.  I remember talking to one of the guys from the UK who did not want to go, my encouraging words were, this is an experience.  The end.  Plain and simple as to what this entire trip has been about.   There is no other time in my life where I will be able to say I slept on a floor of a health clinic, in a room with smelly, sweaty people, sleeping on a camping mattress with a mosquito net wrapped around me. Thus it was an experience.  Yes there was one point that I will never forget; I felt miserable to the point I was about to cry, but all I could do was laugh at the experience I was having. There is no other time in my life where I will run out of a vehicle in the pouring rain to go pee in the woods or pop a squat in the middle of the Belizian rainforest. 

Therefore, I take every day that we have in Belize as a new experience.  Everything that I do today will never occur in the same way again.  Yes, there have been times when I have been bored, but there are so many more times in which I have been pumped about our weekend adventure or being in Out-Patient and seeing 3 patients!

I have learned to be thankful for the little things in life while I have been here. It takes being in an environment like this to more fully understand myself, my life and where I want to see myself in the future.  I can do so much more than I give myself credit for. I can conquer uncomfortable situations, miserable conditions and be strong, productive and empowering to myself and others.  

I will take away so much more from this experience than I ever thought possible. 

I have learned to work and live with so many different types of personalities, communicate with medical students from the UK, New Zealand, Germany and the US (and Pharm students!), and feel like myself all along the way!

I have learned that being a PT is more than my clinical skills set, but also empowering people to take initiatives in their health, educating communities, medical and pharm students on what PT is all about and being an effective communicator in everything I say and do as a therapist.  

Yes, this sounds like a final blog post, BUT it is not, no worries I will continue to post.... for whoever reads these besides my mother :)

This is just my motivation for the final (less than) 2 weeks that I have here in Belize.