Day Six: ..... Busy day!

Our day started at 6:30 this morning when we rode to town to watch the start of the "La Ruta Maya Belize River Challenge", a canoe race that is 40 miles long starting in San Ignacio and ending in Belize City. We then visited the market where some of us bought a variety of different spices. We went to the Octavia Waight Center for the elderly to spend time with the residents there and then went to a medicine trail walk that led to an Iguana Project. We finished the night by practicing sutures with Dr. Cuellar.

I will let the pictures to the rest of the "talking"! Enjoy!

At the market buying spices

Sarah and Pam took charge of taking blood pressures of all the residents this morning.
The Octavia Waight Center was inaugurated in 1986 and was initially meant to be a place where the elderly could retire. Since then it has become more of a nursing home where many people with dementia, Alzheimer disease, chronic hypertension and diabetics reside.   The home has a capacity of 24 residents and sits on a 4 acre lot of serenity in Belize.  The home is named after Mrs. Octavia Waight, a woman who was one of the first midwives and caregivers among the community when there we no resident medical doctors.

Aaron helping our with physical therapy.
To learn more visit:  http://www.octaviawaightcentre.org/octaviahistory.html

The oldest resident at the Octavia Waight Center was 104 years old, soon to be 105 in July. many of the people in this picture are in there 90s and certainly don't lack spunk!

Aaron took on about 20 baby iguanas before we left the cage.

... And Jen had even a few more than that.

The start of the canoe race. The race runs along the Macal and Belize Rivers. The race is not designated for only professional racers, anyone who chooses can sign up for the race.

There was a huge crowd this morning to watch the participants begin their four day race.
 http://www.larutamayabelize.com/

This was the first group of us that tried the termites... the rest of the group caved shortly after so we could all say we ate termites today.

A little hesitancy with the termites.... Hey, when in Belize!

Nilda faced a fear today! Very proud of her!

 

We all had at least one little iguana crawling on us today!

We ended the day with a lesson on suturing with Dr. Cuellar. Some of us had a hard time getting the hang of it. But it was a great learning experience!