Gone with the wind.

Holy smoke Batman Jeff Fox is there to meet me at the airport! Apparently the message that I wasn`t coming did not get through, but Tropic Air told him that I was coming the day after...now that`s good service. Jeff is a truly lovely chap - tall and gentle about 55 with a beautiful Phillipino wife Ivory who is 37 and mum to Xavier (1) and Ian (5). They are volunteers with the Catholic Mission Board so I better mind my language and anti-Catholic tirades! PG is a tiny place with a triangle for a town square, a strange grid like street plan that isn`t really grid like and lots of shacks that don`t look very wind proof (with only a few bunkers that do). Hillside is a good 5 miles outta town up a hill (odd that) and is a concrete building and a wooden `tree house` which is to be where I am to live with some Leeds medical students (Heather, Fahnaz and Rachel) wheras Emma the other GKT student is above the clinic. We also have Maureen a slightly neurotic Canadian Physio student with us but the nursing students have canceled due to fears about Felix. A rather aborted welcoming party occurs (due to lack of cake or drink) and we head to bed for our early start the next day.

We had been warned that the weather was stormy this time of year but nothing could have prepared us for that nights entertainment....the thunder (ALL night) was SO loud it shook the treehouse, lightning hit trees and felled them taking the phoneline with them, and the wind worked better than the fan to chill an otherwise steamy night. Needless to say even with earplugs and my mossie net I like the others got little sleep, leaving us unprepared for the bad news we were to receive the next day.

Monday started with Joyce the adminstrator cancelling orientation and giving us grave tidings....`Felix is coming and he is now a grade 5 hurricane. PG only has shelters that protect up to grade 3. We cannot protect you and we suggest you take steps to protect yourselves. He will hit Tuesday evening/Wednesday am so you need to be safe by then. And the airport might close.` Oh crap.

How the other half live !

Belize like most countries is one of contrasts. It seems you are either really rather rich or very poor. The Roes are the former. They are also incredibly welcoming and generous. I am invited to spend the weekend with them visiting their cabana at Honey Camp and at their beach house on St Georges Caye - how could I say no?! A quick call to Tropic Air and my flight is delayed till the next day and a message left on the answer phone at HHc. Honey camp is so cute - its up country towards the Mexican border by a lagoon and consists of some trees, a thatched veranda and a weatherbeaten Airstream type caravan. The storms that followed hurricane Dean did hit here, but not badly and the most damage is to tall trees which aren`t tall any more and the rest are being eaten by huge stripy caterpillers!! We stop off at `Victor`s apparently the best restaurant/ take away in Belize for tortillas, PilBil (spicy pulled pork), shrimp cerviche and a venison thing very yummy...even the cerviche! and a few beers. It seems there is a very relaxed view to drink driving here..... Anyway we go for a swim in the lagoon, not via the pier which is pretty much submerged under the water dumped by Dean, but which provides a playground for Ziggy the Silky Dog to zip up and down on without the need for him to swim (big wooss). Then a few more beers/wine and Roz is flat out in the back of the jeep for the way home happily sozzled! I go out with the kids, the cousins and their boyfriends that night to Old Belize: a terrible tourist trap that exists merely for the cruise liner trade which is a bit light due to the immenent hurricane pitched to hit on Wednesday...everybody is pretty laid back about it so I don`t get worried. I manage to last till 10.30 that night!

The next morning I`m the first up at 6am again and spend some quiet time reading and hanging under a fan in the breeziest part of the house next to a giant smelly vanilla candle...heaven. Then its all hands to the pump and we`re off to the Caye on a speedboat (because everyone has one!) Speeding down the river then over the sea to the cayes everybody is whipped by the warm winds and the dogs get their fur whipped about in a hysterical fashion. The sea is still really muddy from Dean but just as we hit the cayes it changes to azure and become the embodiment of a postcard. The beachhut is reached via a wooden pier with a useful cabana to one side and can sleep about 20. Property is pretty cheap here compared to the UK, Honey Camp would cost about 20K and Ladyville less than my house by some measure. So why do I live in the UK? Less mosquitos I guess! Am already up to 15 bites which are blistering alarmingly.... We eat, drink and are merry than pop over to a nice swimming spot with a shallow sandy bottom and splash around; Roz had her 50th party here with a floating BBQ and 80 friends in the middle of the ocean on a sandbank. Then back on the boat, over a soggy lawn as its rained again watching the hired help fit the storm shutters to the windows to protect against whatever Felix brings. And back to the airport where I finally catch my last flight to PG. It`s been a fantastic start to the elective so far!

And we`re off.......

I have rarely felt so little excitement about leaving for a trip. There are a few reasons for this; my next door neighbour is rapidly being consumed by her lung cancer which the day before I left made the final trip up to her brain rendering her unusually vague and confused. Less than a week I thought knowing I was to leave the next day and not being able to be there to support John through this last stage. At least the son appeared, summoned by our other neighbours for her swansong.

Then there is the fearful anticipation of the job itself and not being up to the challenge, together with the absolute certainty of being bitten viciously despite all my anti-bug sprays. And the guilt of abandoning Snowbelle (sigh). And just to complicate matters there is a REALLY tight connection time at Houston between my flights which could knacker everything if it does not come off.

So even whilst I am accelerating down the runway leaving England`s green and pleasant land I am still morose, that is until I watch Blades of Glory....man that is a funny film! And I start to lighten up (thank god I hear you cry!) so by the time I get to Houston (having eaten a bizarre interpretation of a chicken tikka massala) I am mentally prepared to push and cajole my way through the system to get my flight....which I do only after being sent the wrong way twice and sprinting through the terminals to make the gate by seconds (phew). And my luggage made it too - incredible.

The air here in Belize has no smell, unlike Africa but is like a warm sweaty blanket enveloping everything...its gonna take some getting used to. Nobody to meet me....not that it matters, two locals check who I`m meeting and Marilyn ( whose sister was married to Mr Roe`s brother for a while) rings them at home to summon them to pick me up - now that`s a small town! Roz plus Viv (one of the quads) appear in a screech of dust and whisk me about quarter of a mile back to their fantastic pad where I meet the others (Nicole also dark haired like Viv, and Lou & Andrea the blond quads). I am relocated swiftly to the Manatee club for a few beers and great Lebanese food (go figure...) and introduced to some of their friends and relatives (who it appears live in the same enclosure as Roz and co.) But my 8.30pm local time (3.20am home time) I am bushed and need bed. I still wake up at 6am - how does that work?!

Lost in Translation

I've been looking forward to last night for months....and it certainly lived up to expectations...I came home on an enormous high with a giant smile plastered across my face. Trudy said 'So tonight went well then? How was Joseph? Where did you go for drinks then?' I had been excitedly jabbering about seeing Joseph since she moved to mine for a few days. I realised then how easy it was to get things lost in translation.....my date had been a fantastic rollercoaster of emotions and the euphoria I felt......was shared (sadly!) with a few hundred other rapturous souls who had also been with me watching Lee Mead (swoon) perform in Joseph at the Adelphi. God he's good. I've still got a huge smile and a warm fuzzy feeling even now which it has to be said compares extremely favourably against most of the dates I've ever been on, but dosen't quite compare against Hugh Jackman in Oklahoma in 2002. Don't panic Hugh, you are still No.1 in my affections for 'Men who are gorgeous but can't have as they're too famous/married/made-up(Viggo Mortenssen is No.2)' as I had a smile for at least a week after sitting in the second row from the front in very close proximity to his gorgeous half naked and beautiful singingness. Ahhhh. Lee Mead is tied at No.2 with Viggo. The guy selling programs at the theatre was so funny...I had the choice of normal program or a full colour show souvenir featuring ' a free poster of Lee in a loincloth' said in a very camp manner - be still my beating heart! I restrained myself - just.

Hydatid disease.

Dr Gregory House would have liked this case, a mysterious cause of paraplegia. Irreversible unfortunately.

I'm getting under your skin......

Sea Urchins....so pretty but oh-so-painful if you accidentally tread on one. Not only does it discharge poison sacs into your skin but the tips of its spines often break off and become embedded there. You can try urinating on the wound (surfers swear by this approach but you JUST never know whether these guys are yanking your chain) or dowsing it in lemon juice, but sadly little works. The spines just have to stay there till the body resorbs them or expels them or fibroses around them, and they HURT. SO.....now I need a burqua, shower hat and armour coated flipflops with verruca socks to avoid the nasties!!

Is Lithuania tropical?

So there we are...sitting in an emergency clinic in the Hospital for Tropical Diseases and this European lady comes in with some nasty looking itchy blisters that had been popping up over two weeks. 'Where have you been?' we asked expecting some wonderous location...'Lithuania - my home country' was the reply. She had been wondering around a meadow with large plants in it and had thankfully taken a picture of them. Hurrah! Alan Titchmarsh would be so proud of me as I identified the Giant Hogweed (Bearclaw in Dutch) straight away. Nasty plant. Burns and blisters are due to pollen and stuff and can keep appearing for many months after exposure.....keep away...you have been warned!!