Zaza scares herself half to death at the bat cave

So I decided to visit the batcave. Well, I decided to visit it the moment I heard about it, but this week I actually did. I may have to go back, as you will understand soon.

I had been given rough directions by one of my professors, and when I couldn’t convince any of my classmates to go with me, I decided to go by myself.

The first day was a bit of a disaster. I found the entrance to the path at the far side of the soccer field and picked my way between overgrown thorn bushes and giant aloe vera plants, and tried to find a path that hadn’t been used in ten years. It wove away from the campus and I finally came to a long wire fence. There had once been a gate and it was tied closed with twine and wire. I managed to undo it and slipped through, entering what seemed to be a barren wasteland that existed only in movies, in my mind. I could hear wild goats bleating and the ground was littered in bony sun bleached carcasses, little cacti and cracks in the earth where water had once been.

There was a faded cement sign pointing towards the bat cave and I followed broken-down signs towards a jungle of hanging trees. Suddenly I heard my name being called. I turned around and there was a goat standing there. I know it sounds highly improbably, but I swear that that goat bleated my name. I began to feel my pulse quicken. Before me loomed this huge overgrown cement archway leading to the caves. I went around it, being careful about what I stepped on, and going under a canopy of hanging trees that only let a little sun filter through. The stairs over the rocks had long since crumbled and I pulled myself up on vines. A smell began to gather in my nostrils and the ground between the rocks was littered with bat droppings. I knew I was close. Then it was right there. A cave, with a massive tree growing over with roots draping over the entrance, and there were guano-covered signs pointing in. I could hear a far-away screeching sound and as I drew closer it grew louder and I realized it was the bats. It was dark, and one of the worst smells I’ve ever encountered. I started down the stairs, walking on about 4 inches deep of bat droppings, and suddenly I felt something wet from above drop on my foot. I didn’t have a light. It was the spookiest place I’ve ever been in. I turned around with the sound of screeching bats in my ears and I fled out of that place as fast as I could safely go. I ran almost all the way back to campus, sweat pouring and my heart racing.

Ah, that was yesterday. Today I decided to go again. I was better prepared this time. I brought a face mask, my camera and a little flashlight. This time I knew where to go and it wasn’t quite as scary…. But as I descended down into the belly of the cave I turned on my light and the cave was so big and dark that I couldn’t actually make out anything at all. Even through my mask I could smell the guano and the bats sensed I was there; their screams grew in volume. I could feel mosquitos buzzing around me but I was afraid to swat. Apparently bat droppings carry a disease called histoplasmosis which is very dangerous, and I didn’t want to chance brushing up against the dripping walls. I looked up above me and a sign on the cave wall said “to Guadeloupe” with an arrow pointing down into the cave. I’d heard that there was an underground tunnel going 30 miles under the sea that slaves had used to escape the island, and I suddenly realized it was here.

I couldn’t take it any more, not alone. I walked away from the cave and almost tripped on the carcass of a goat. Bones everywhere. I’ll go back, but with more clothes and a bigger flashlight. I don’t know how those slaves did it, going 30 miles in a pitch-black cave filled with screaming bats and the oppressive smell, but their freedom must have been worth it. Fear is a hard thing to overcome, but it is a small price to pay for what awaits at the other end.

See facebook for my pictures…. They aren’t very interesting yet, but next time I go back to the cave I’ll try to summon the courage to go a little farther in. Not all the way to Guadeloupe though.

The importance of being resourceful

Recently I've realized the importance of being resourceful. Of course, not everyone is planning on spending their future as a bush doctor in Timbuktu, but I think that resourcefulness is a great thing that can be cultivated and can make life a lot better. The reason I've been thinking about it is because of how often I have to be resourceful here in Antigua.
Somehow I imagined living in a tropical paradise, and in some ways it is a tropical paradise here. In other ways it is a very different world from the first-world country I grew up in. Take food, for example. I don't have a lot of money and the university is in the middle of absolutely nowhere on the island, so I have been endeavouring to cook my own food.
Nothing too difficult about that, of course, except for the fact that my ingredients are extremely limited, as are my cooking utilities. I have a microwave, a rice cooker, and a few plastic dishes. But man oh man, I have become a believer in rice cookers. Here is a list of the things that I've managed to cook in my rice cooker in the last week: rice (of course!), spaghetti with red sauce, spaghetti alfredo, scrambled eggs, french toast, lemon pudding, the list goes on. And I managed to make greek salad too, with yellow tomatoes.
As for other things, I finally got a light in my bathroom the other day. Until then I'd been using a flashlight and washing my dishes in the teeny weeny sink. The toilet and shower both leak all over the place, but I realized it wasn't a big deal. I didn't have a desk until I found stacks of old books in the defunct library here and used them to prop up my bedside table to a good height. Because it's always raining outside I can't hang my laundry out, so I strung a clothesline across my room and hang my washing there.
As for my dissection lab, I found an old pair of scrub pants to wear so I don't have to dissect in my swimsuit.
Did I mention anything about the flora and fauna here? Apparently there is an ancient bat cave about 100 meters from my house, it was used as a hideout for slaves centuries ago. They dug a 30 mile tunnel underwater and escaped from the island to freedom. Now it is inhabited by bats. I am working on bribing some of the guys to go there with me. The rats seem to be only interested in the cadavers, not my room, which is great. And the tarantula-sized spiders that have infested the whole island- well, we were assured that they are not tarantulas, even though they look exactly like them, and that they are more afraid of us than we are of them. (For some of us that may not be quite true). I am beginning to realize that the tree frog (actually not a parrot) outside my window is not going away, and for the first time last night I slept without my earplugs in.
You know, it's not perfect here. But it isn't perfect anywhere. We visited the local hospital the other day and went through ward upon filthy ward of suffering people. In the neonatal ward I saw a 1 lb baby who was very close to dying. Somehow I think we are so blessed in Canada to have such a great medical system, to have so much infrastructure, to have everything we need at our fingertips. It's not something to be taken lightly. Doing without some of the comforts of life for a while helps to put everything in perspective. We have so much. And most importantly, we have everything we need. Everything we need to do God's will.

Whoa Nellie

Nellie was waiting patiently for us today, even though it took us about half an hour to get ready. We put on our gowns and gloves and pants and shoe covers and hair covers and face masks and a few students put on eye shields. Personally, I stuck with my bikini under the paper gown, hair and shoe cover, and no mask. I figured that the smell wouldn't bother me and it would be easier to breathe, anyway. (See facebook for the pictures!)
We unwrapped her slowly, as if it was a well-rehearsed ritual, tucking the plastic sheets under the table. They were covered in slime and body fluid. Some other medical students had worked on her abdomen and part of a leg before us, and since Nellie had previously been stuck in non-air conditioned Antiguan customs for a month, mold had started to grow on her feet and face. There were maggots crawling out of her eye sockets and Brendon, still clean-gloved, splashed Chlorox all over the mold and maggots. We wrapped her face back up for another day and started on her legs.
Dr. Rust, cool as anything, got her scalpel and started cutting away layers of skin and fat tissue, explaining things as she went. We all took scalpels and forceps and joined in, except for Nikki who, despite her full body equipment, wouldn't go near Nellie.
"Let's see if we can uncover the rectus femorus first." Dr. Rust said, directing us where to cut. Poor Nellie had definately seen better days. Under her pallid skin, now stiff like wax, lay an uneven layer of globular yellow fat tissue. Still farther under that was the pinkish-gray of her muscles. Once in a while we'd cut into a vein or an artery with some blood still left in it, and it would ooze out. Because of the heat, and because of her decomposition, some of the fat cells were melting and soon our gloved hands became oily.
Vem started to cut upwards and Dr. Rust stopped him quickly from across the table.
"Ya'll be careful with that. I'm on the 'flick' side of the table." She moved around to the other side.
"I'm not going to feel like eating after this." Someone said.
"Oh, I am." Dr. Rust said in her Texan drawl. "In fact, I think I'll have Barbeque tonight. I sure love grilling. Barbequed steak, yup, that's what I'll have."
We uncovered most of the major muscles of the thigh and discussed them, quizzing each other and peppering Dr. Rust with questions about Nellie and her body and what we were seeing.
"Clean up the fat layer a bit." Dr. Rust directed us, "So we can see the muscle underneath."
She took the scalpel from one of us and dove in energetically, demonstrating how to pull up the fat layer more efficiently.
Suddenly there was a popping sound and whizzing across the table came this globular chunk of yellow fat from Nellie's thigh which landed "splat!" on something. I didn't see where it had landed because I'd tried to duck, and when I looked back to face the group they were staring at me in horror.
"Did it land on me?" I squeaked out.
"Yup!" Dr. Rust said matter-of-factly. "It's right between your eyes."
"Nikki!" I shouted. She was the only one with clean gloves and she came running with a paper towel and delicately lifted Nellie's fat off of my face. Suddenly I understood what it meant to be on the 'flick' side of the table. And I also knew why people wore face shields for this kind of work.
We were with Nellie for a few hours and then we wrapped her back up again and scrubbed our hands and stripped off our lab clothes outside the door. It was near dinner time, but none of us felt like eating. We went for a run around the soccer field and then showered, and by then, we'd worked up an appetite.
I assume Dr. Rust had her steak that night. Vem was the only one among us who ate meat that night. Nikki couldn't stomach the sight of her chicken. And me, I just ate green peppers and tomatoes.

Crazy times

Today I had my first day of classes and it was pretty crazy. This whole place is pretty crazy, in fact! I didn't realize that it is a third-world country, although a very pretty one. There are only eight students in my class and we are pretty diverse. There is a Philipino nurse from New Jersey who is a mountain climber in her spare time; a burnt-out dentist from Texas with 2 or 3 different master's degrees, a physician's assistant from Conneticut who has 2 kids back home, an Indian business student from New York, 2 Peurto Rican girls, a Nigerian chiropractor from Texas, and me. 4 guys and 4 girls and we live in this little bungalow with a long verandah and flowers all around it. Through some strange twist of fate, I don't have a roommate, which isn't a huge loss because I can still whisper to the girl in the room next to me through the paper-thin walls. We have privacy, but it is certainly limited. We are drawing close together as a group. Since most of us are fairly athletic (I'm including myself in that ambitious label), we decided to get up at 6:00 tomorrow morning for calisthenics and jogging.
Classes today were long and exhausting but did help clear up some of the perpetual confusion. One of our professors is this cool doctor from Louisiana with an accent that sounds like it came from the movies. She has the thickest Texan drawl I've ever heard and I have to keep putting up my hand and asking her to restate things. Some of the people here call me 'Canada' or 'Canada girl', as if it's a proper name or a disease condition or something. It didn't help matters that I walked the 5 kilometers to the beach the other day without sunscreen and came back bright red from head to toe. Now they really think being Canadian is some kind of disease.

We paid our first visit to the anatomy lab today. Forget these sterile white labs you see in pictures with a neatly preserved cadavers. We walked into the lab and the first thing I noticed were the wooden coffins stacked by the door.
"Decomposing bodies." Our Dr. Rust explained. "We're going to bury them."
The floor was old linoleum and the smell of rotting bodies and formaldehye assaulted our nostrils. It was dark and cracked shades at the windows let a bit of light in the smudged windows. Underneath the dissecting tables were pails to collect blood and other fluids, and I could see it pooling at the corners of the tables and on the floor. There were flies everywhere and when I gestured towards a wrapped body at the far end of the room, Dr. Rust said,
"Oh, don't go near him. The rats have got to him. They only come out at night, though."
It was like something out of a creepy horror movie. The mountain-climber girl was doubled over in the corner with her face wrapped in her skirt so she could breathe.
I approached our assigned cadaver with interest. She was completely wrapped in plastic- we're not going to start dissecting her until tomorrow- but her name is Nellie Mae and she is an old woman, that's all we know. After all I've studied and written about cadavers, I felt exhilerated at the though of finally getting to work with one. Dr. Rust encouraged us to think of it as her giving us a gift- Nellie Mae is giving us the opportunity to become doctors. Whoever she was, she is contributing to future lives being saved.
"Whatever you wear in the anatomy lab," Dr. Rust explained, "Don't consider ever wearing it again. You will never get the smell out, no matter what you wash it with."
We discussed different things to wear, as she doesn't even walk in with the same clothes on. She has anatomy lab clothes that stay in Antigua. The lab isn't air conditioned (explaining the flies, mold and incredible smell), and none of the local staff will go near it (they are firmly steeped in voodoo beliefs, Dr. Rust explained), so in order to get someone to lay new linoleum, they had to pay him off with extra rum.
Someone suggested that we could just completely cover ourselves with lab coats or plastic, but Dr. Rust reminded us of the extreme heat and lack of AC. I've thought of a good solution: don't wear any clothes. Tomorrow when we start working with Nellie Mae I'm just going to wear my bikini underneath a paper lab coat, and flip-flops on my feet. I might cover my hair with a plastic bag. The girl who was feeling nauseus is thinking about investing in underwater scuba equipment, so I guess I'm pretty lucky that the smell doesn't bother me that much. We'll see how it goes.
Aside from that, I realized that part of the craziness here is the crazy amount of information I'm going to have to learn in the next while. So far I can't believe how much fun I'm having, but I'm sure that will end soon.

Welcome home

Last night after two grueling days of flights, I finally arrive in Antigua. I stepped off the plane onto the tarmack and thought I'd entered a sauna. It was dark and I followed the other passengers into a dimly lit building where customs was located. Getting through with little trouble, I went outside to meet whoever was coming to pick me up. In the dark I could make out swaying palm trees and far away lights, but all I could see in the yellow shadows of the airport building was a few taxi drivers and some rusted dollys that served as luggage carts. My bag had been searched and the bags of rice and granola opened, rice and oats through everything. I squatted down next to my bag and prayed that someone would show up. I couldn't see a pay phone, but even if there was one, did I know who to call? Did I know where I was going? (The answer to both those questions is no, by the way.)
"Is someone coming to pick you up from the medical school?" A worried Indian man asked me.
"Yes!"
"Well, my son is going there too."
They were from Chicago. Even though they were taciturn and too exhausted to be friendly, I was relieved to have their company. We discussed what to do when it became apparent our ride wasn't showing up.
I closed my eyes and dreamt off a hot cup of tea, and wondered if anything was missing from my bag. I could feel a sheen of sweat on my face and my clothes felt sticky and hot.
"He's here!"
A van with the school logo on it pulled up and a man jumped out. He shook hands with my new friends from Chicago and helped us load our things into the van. I squished in the back with Vemana and we started out drive to the other side of the Island. The roads are narrowed and pot-holed, and it is a nerve-wracking experience to be going 80 miles an hour on the wrong side of the road. A few times our driver slammed on the breaks for cars or random speed bumps, but I was enraptured with the sights and smells out the window.
It smells like Africa. I felt like I was coming somewhere I'd been before, especially considering everyone else was black. They speak English... or Spanish.... or some language that they say is English, but I swear I can't understand a word of it. (Yet!)
When I arrived at the medical school after a torturously windy ride, I could smell the thick scent of blossoms in the air. We came in the drive and there was a crumbling cement sign that simply said "Welcome home." The driver gave me a key for my room and I opened the door to find a very plain room with a tin roof and- joy of all joys-- air conditioning! I am so thrilled about the air conditioning.
I opened my bag and shook the rice out of my clothes slowly, unpacking everything. Tea, what I wouldn't do for a cup of tea. There was a microwave and a little fridge and I plugged them in a put tap water in a mug in the microwave. I turned it on and it immediately blew a fuse. Oh, dear. I moved the microwave to another socket and turned off the fridge and light so I could use it. After a few false starts, it worked. I had the most delicious tepid cup of tea in the world, albeit in the dark.
I had been told not to get discouraged with how it looked at night, so I went to bed telling myself that in the morning it was going to look fantastic. I was awoken in the night by a sound like a train crashing into the side of the building. I leapt out of bed and rushed to the window. Hurricane! It was as if the sky had opened up. The noise of the rain on the tin roof was deafening and the palm trees in the yard were bending over. Then a few minutes later, it stopped. I lay back down in bed and tried to fall asleep. A couple of hours later, again! I jumped up again, sure that this time the roof of my room was going to blow off. Again, it only lasted a few minutes.
This morning I got up to the sounds of goats bleating and birds chirping. I went outside into the sauna and sat in the shade, taking in the sight of bright pink flowers, little lizards, sun-bleached rocks and dilapidated old or half-built buildings.
This summer I heard a man speak and he said "Do you want adventure? Do what God says, when he says it, and don't rationalize it. That's adventure."
I thought about that last night. I'm here because God said to come. If I started rationalizing I'd go crazy, because it doesn't make sense. I'm here in the rainiest hurricane season, the hottest month. And it's a pretty crazy place. I went for a walk and bumped into a guy who works here who gave me a tour around. His name is Greggy (to distinguish himself from his twin brother Greg.)
But this morning a lady stopped by to clean the room next to me and I heard her singing on the porch. I stopped, suddenly startled. She was singing a song I had only ever heard in Africa.
"Praise the Lord, sister." She said when I introduced myself to her. "God will help you pass your exams, I know he will because I will pray for you."
I feel like I'm home, and it's such an adventure.

God is good

The other day I was feeling a little depressed about something and a friend left me a message; don't be unhappy, God is good. That stuck in my head. What did happiness have to do with God's goodness?
On Sunday I was driving to meet a friend in my mom's car. Stopped at a busy traffic light, I glanced out my side window and saw this crazy looking man on the sidewalk waving at me. Wow, I thought, we sure have some nutcases in Vancouver. A second later he was still waving and gesturing at me and I thought, hmmm, maybe he's just checking me out. I had spent a lot of time on my new hairdo, maybe all the effort had finally paid off. I decided to magnanimously ignore him.
The light was about to change, and I glanced over again, and this time he was gesturing towards the bottom of my car. I could see his mouth forming words and I squinted to make them out.
"Your....car....has....a flat....tire!!!!!"
My car has a flat tire? I mouthed back at him, and he nodded his head crazily up and down. Shoot. the light changed and I had no choice but to go straight ahead. I was on the left and all the lanes were packed and there was no where to pull over. Drat.
I weaved over gradually and looked around for a gas station. nothing. At the next red light I put the car in park and leapt out, running around the car to see how flat my tire really was. The light turned green, but I gave the car behind me a look that said "If you honk at me, buddy, I'm going to stay right here for the rest of the night."
Okay, the tire was flat. Not flat enough that i'd have to pull out the spare, but flat enough to need filling up immediately. I hopped back in.
Man, whenever you need a gas station there are none around. I finally found one quite a ways away and pulled up to the air pump. There was a big sign on it that said "Out of order."
I went into the hut and there was a young man standing at the counter.
"well, hello there!" (There's no way to type the intonations of his voice properly, but imagine that the 'lo' is emphasized.)
"Your air pump is out of order." I said firmly.
"It is?" He answered lazily.
"Yes, it is. there's a sign on it that says out of order."
"There is?"
"Yes! Now, can you tell me where the next gas station is?"
"Hmmmm..... I don't know if there's one near here."
He was looking just about everywhere on me but my face, which was making me mad.
"Well, is there another one along this street?"
"I guess so.... just continue straight...."
"Thanks." I leapt back into my car and drove away quickly. The next gas station was a couple of kilometers away, but when I pulled in the air pump was working. Except it was this old greasy one that looked like it had been resurrected from a 1900's garbage dump. I yanked the hose over to my tire and squatted down to uncap it. Dark was falling.
"You got a flat tire, there!" I glanced up to see the man in the car parked next to me look out with a smile.
"Yup."
Another man pulled up on his bike and stood there staring at me curiously while I filled up the tire. Another car pulled up and a big man got out and came over to see what I was doing. Yes, folks, that's right, this is unhappy Heather's tire-pumping show. Step right up for the view of the century. Look at that! A flat tire!
The pump didn't have a pressure gauge and I tried to guess how much pressure was in my tire.
"I have a pressure gauge." the big man volunteered. He rummaged around in his car and handed me the little gauge.
"thanks a lot."
"About 30 or 35 pounds should be good." One of the other men volunteered helpfully.
"Yes, I know."
'You better get that properly fixed, you know."
"Yes, of course."
Another car pulled up, this one a red sportscar with booming music.
I finally got the tire full. I handed the gauge back to the man. I smiled at my audience. I reversed out of the gas station and glanced at the clock. About an hour late. Oh well, I would just go home.
But a few kilometers down the road I pulled over and turned off the car, resting my head on the steering wheel.
It wasn't just the tire. It was everything in my life. Nothing was working out right. (I won't bore you with the depressing details.)
And then suddenly that phrase came back to me. Don't be unhappy, God is good.
What did that mean?
In a crazy world, God is the one person who is still stable and unchanging. He lets us go through hard things because he loves us and wants to build character in us. All of this is part of his plan, his good plan, flowing out of his unchanging good nature. He never forgets to be good, and that's why we have reason to be happy.
So I guess that gives a new meaning to Happy heather's hullaballoo. It's not about my silly little escapades written to give people a chuckle. Happiness is not always light and frothy. It's a realization that because God is good, is always good, is very good; we can let go of our worries and smile, and invite people to share in our joy. Be happy, everyone, God is still good.

Smart, pretty or nice? Or neither.

After my last ridiculous episode speaking Italian with a patient, I've been furiously studying the language. Today it finally paid off a little. I had another Italian patient at the hospital named 'Alberta' and she was very distraught about something or other. I managed to communicate with her in Italian so well (ha ha) that one of the other staff members stopped and said, surprised, "You speak the language!"
"A little." I said modestly.
Man, you gotta love some of those old people. They truly lift your spirits. Alberta made me feel like a gifted linguist. (okay, maybe just an over-confidant unalingualist).
Another patient, as I leaned over her bed with a smile, said to me, "Where do they get all you girls from?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, puzzled.
"Well, nurse, you're so beautiful you should be in a glamour competition."
Then I heard a voice over the loudspeaker.
"Will the owner of a green volkswagon Jetta please attend to your car? The alarm is going off."
Yup, that's my car. (Actually my sister's, to be honest.) That didn't make me feel very clever, but hey! One can't have everything.
Later on another patient said to me, "Heather, you are the kindest nurse I've ever had."
Which brings me to a very important question. Which is better: To be really ugly, to be really mean, or to be really stupid?
I've had times when I felt all three.....
Well, the correct answer is 'really mean', but I'll let you think about why that's so for a while.
lots of love

The smells of the city

Isn't it amazing how a simple smell can evoke such strong and vivid memories?
The other day I was riding my bike to work (which I've started to do as part of my latest new and improved health kick). I was absentmindedly pedaling along a busy street when suddenly I smelled this incredible aroma of freshly baked bread and cinnamon buns. I glanced around to see if there was a bakery nearby, but didn't see one. There was no mistaking the smell, however! It lasted for almost a block and then faded away and was replaced by the sweet smell of rotting fruit in a grocery store and then the pungent aroma of cigarette smoke and then car exhaust, etc. etc.
If I'd biked in the other direction I would have gone down a tree-enclosed pathway that smells very strongly of french fries. I've biked that same route for years and it always smells of french fries, even though it's an industrial area with no stores nearby. I can't quite figure it out.
Apparently scents are the strongest memory trigger there is. I remember after my sister died, smelling her clothes, and it was as if she was right there again. If I closed my eyes I could see her.
The smell of lavender oil will always remind me of a trip I took down the west coast to mexico when I was 16- I had a jar of lotion that I put on every day. If I smell it and close my eyes I can remember sitting in the sand dunes watching the sun go down, swimming in the salty waves, haggling for bargains in a market.
You can't ignore a smell. It permeates the atmosphere and triggers a response in our brains. Sometimes it isn't clear where it's coming from and we engage our minds and eyes to try to track down the source.
The Bible says that as Christians, we are the fragrance of Christ to those who are dying. It isn't always something that you can see, that you can put your finger on, that you can lay hold of and say "that's it!" But it is there. In a world of death, in a world of shallow existences that struggle against their futility, we are the surprising aroma of life, of hope- the aroma that is impossible to ignore because it triggers such a sharp experience of reality.
I used to find it hard to grasp spiritual things, because like scents, you can't see and touch them and nail them down. As soon as you think you've got them, they're gone. But like the smell of french fries on my way to work, I'm sure they exist. And I'm sure they are even more real than the material things in this world that we grasp for.