Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz
And that’s not to say that I haven’t done some incredible things along the way… I have indeed, so without further ado, here is the Sam Zuber’s Top 6 List of Things I Have Done in the Galapagos Since the Last Blog Update:
#6: THANKSGIVING
You know you have begun to immerse in a different culture when your taste buds start to change. A while ago, I was walking through the kioskos, which is a street full of restaurants where all the locals eat. As I am walking down, I saw someone eating nothing but a plate of rice and beans. Never would I have ever thought in my life I would be thinking to myself “Boy, I sure could go for some rice and beans right now! I’m craving them!” but alas, this has happened.
Fortunately for me, for at least one night I was able to dig deep down with my American friends and other volunteers and pull out a good ol’ fashion Thanksgiving Dinner. The Thanksgiving dinner is probably one of the most important times of the year in America. After all, it is the busiest travel day of the year as people all over the country get together with family and friends to give thanks for everything they have.
My friends and I each strayed away from the rice and beans for one night and stuffed ourselves with chicken (turkey was way to expensive, but the chicken was cooked like a turkey and actually tasted really good! Great sub), stuffing, roasted potatoes (mmmm made by yours truly), green beans, wine, and some of the best homemade apple pie I have ever had! (I’m getting the recipe, so I am going to learn how to make it daily and eat it and become 300 pounds). We also went around as is the tradition in Mary’s family and each stated what we were thankful for, which is something I don’t do with my family, but really liked. I was also the only man there and being such a manly man, it was my responsibility to carve the chicken. This was also new to me because I never cave the turkey at home, but I learned quickly and did a good job! After an incredible stuffed meal we all went out and danced the night away until we burned maybe 1/8 of our dinner away. It wasn’t home, but you couldn’t have asked for a better substitute.
Carving that baby up pretty well!
4 Californians + 1 Floridian + 1 Coloradoan + 1 Norwegian + 1 Filipino= Thanksgiving!!!
#5: GARAPATERRA
The first time I went to Garapaterra, I had a lot of fun, but the view of the stars blew me away and mesmerized me for the night. I made sure that would not happen this time. On our way up to Garapaterra, we stopped at my friend Juan’s finca, which is a farm more or less. There were about 20-30 chickens and baby chicks that were just roaming around aimlessly. Elham, who has a baby chick obsession, decided she was going to go play with them. She picked one up rather effortlessly and handed it me. It was very calm and tweeted for a little. I handed it back to Elham, who then decided to be greedy and went to scoop up another chick. Mother hen was not okay with that and out of nowhere flew into Elham’s face until she moved away from the chick.
We arrived at the campsite around 2 hours before sunset so we set up really quickly. After pitching up our tent (this time inside the camp site and not on the beach unfortunately, we went out onto the beach and played foot volleyball and then swam for a little while watching the sun set. As I was walking back I saw Alexi and Caroline heading away from the campsite and asked where they were going? They had stationed their tent in a different area that was right on the shore and had hung up their hammocks onto this small group of trees just feet away from the water. I was incredibly jealous and wanted to move my tent, but now that it was dark it was going to be tough to disassemble a four-person tent and then reassemble it. After helping my friend Alan with his tent, I came up with the idea that what I would do is either sleep in Alexi and Caroline’s tent if they slept in the hammocks, and if they choose the tent, well then I’d be more than happy with the hammock. We started the grill and made fish and roasted some vegetables and was becoming a custom, enjoyed our food, drinks, and company.
We brought the cooler with the rest of the food and drinks onto the beach where Alexi and Caroline’s tent was. The traveling British duo brought out the guitars and we sang and dance under the cloudy night sky. It is truly amazing how much natural light can light up an entire place.
Caroline and Elham
As the night went on people started slowly creeping to bed until it was just Elham, Alan, and I. Since the bugs were attacking our feet we decided to put our feet in the ocean, which was considerably warm. The night sky finally had cleared up and the stars were magnificent. We stayed awake for a few more hours before calling it a night. I threw on every article of clothing I had brought other than my bathing suit and slept in the hammock. It was amazing! The sound of the waves put me to sleep in minutes and when I woke up to the light (about two hours later, I saw this view):
I don’t know of many other natural scenes I would have preferred to wake up to; especially when you add the smell of the ocean, the sound of the waves and birds, and the ocean breeze. What was also really cool was to see how alive everything was as well. It was prime bird feeding time and there were all these different finches and gulls eating up any food they could find from us. I walked over to where I could get a good view of the sunrise, which was really beautiful.
Because everyone was still sleeping, I decided to nap a little bit more. When I finally saw Alexi and Caroline had woken up, I decided to change into my bathing suit and take an early morning swim. Elham caught up with me and we swam to a small little lava rock island. After chilling there for 30 minutes, we headed back to meet up with the rest of the crew and eat some breakfast. When we got there though, we saw that some Galapagaens had made themselves right at home in the middle of our campsite and that the birds had eaten up everything. While we were somewhat annoyed with the locals just setting up shop, we convinced ourselves that we had no right to just take the best spot and claim it our own. Good thing we said nothing too, because it ended up being the son of my house mom and he recognized me. They had brought with them this huge tub of fried rice and were incredibly generous in providing me with two huge portions of food, which of course was scavenged by the rest of my group (I didn’t mind).
A few hours later, as I am just lying on the beach, Juan came up to me to tell me that Alan and Jose Louis had taken his air mattress into the ocean to float on it. When we arrived at the location they took off from, we saw that the air mattress and floated away into the middle of the ocean. Juan and I headed back to the main beach and told these people who rented kayaks that we needed one so we could rescue our friends. The guy gave us one, and followed us in his own with his son just to make sure we weren’t kidding around. When we got to the area where we saw the air mattress, we saw it was now at the point they had taken off from. Rather than carrying it though all the way back to the main beach, the geniuses I was with decided it would be better to have the kayak tow it back around the rocks to the main beach. I didn’t mind as it meant I got to ride on the bed in the ocean.
I'm on a Boat.... I mean Bed!
I had given my camera to Caroline who was sitting in the middle of the kayak belonging to the owner. She was telling me she could not take a picture since she couldn’t rotate her body without tipping the kayak, so I told her to give it to the boy. She did and just as the boy was about to take a picture, the kayak tipped! Suddenly the rescued became the rescuers and the most important thing that needed rescuing was my camera. I saw the boy come up and rather than asking if he was okay I started shouting “Tienes mi camera?!?!?!” He did indeed. I later found out that the boy could not really swim. I didn’t really feel guilty though as I had made the assumption that one who works with water sports would know how to swim in the water. How one manages to work with kayaks, but not learn how to swim is beyond me, but hey it’s Ecui Logic! It was a great trip.
#4: WE REACHED 250!!!!!!
While I have really enjoyed my experience at the hospital (as you will see in a sec), I have really felt that the blood pressure/blood sugar screening I conduct for free to the public has been the most rewarding experience. The truth of the matter is that whether or not I work in the hospital, those patients will be seen and taken care of. I’m not really a difference maker there and I am not improving the lives of anyone by being there.
On the other hand, with the screening, each week we have gotten people who are in their 40’s and 50’s who have never had their blood pressure or blood sugars checked. Of the 40 people we averaged per week, about 5 of them had blood sugar levels over 200, many of them even over 400. For those of you who don’t know, a fasting (not eating for 4-6 hours prior to checking your sugar) sugar level should be around 100. For these people to have concentrations that are double to quadruple normal is the definition of a high blood sugar diabetic emergency. As a volunteer your main goal is that you hope you have made a difference in the lives and the community of wherever you are helping. With this project, I feel that I am making a difference in some of the members of the community and that even if at the end of the day, one parson I check goes and sees a doctor, gets the appropriate medication, and sticks to it for years to come, which would allow him or her to live a longer life, then the project was infinitely worth it. We have had a lot of people come back for a second checkup and some have made it part of their routine.
The hope with this project is that this screening provided by Galapagos ICE will become a weekly thing or at least bi-monthly. The fact that we have screened over 250 people is outstanding!
#3: TAKING A HOT SHOWER
Some of you might ask how making an impact on some lives in the Galapagos can be lower on the list than the following 3, but you need to realize that this is just for the month, not for the trip as a whole. Many years down the road, when you ask me, hopefully a good, successful doctor what was the most rewarding experience of me being here it will hopefully be doing the screenings.
However, I can ask you a rhetorical question. How many hot showers have you taken since October 8th? If the answer is 3, then you and I are on the same page and you hopefully understand the how amazing hot shower truly is. To top it off, it was the FIRST hot shower I had that ALSO had pressure since I have been here. It was definitely the cleanest I have felt since I have been here and I felt like a new person, revived with lots of energy! It made my 24hr shift the next day much more doable.
#2: JUMPING OFF A 20m HIGH LEDGE INTO A LAGOON
By far one of the most adrenaline rushed things I have ever done. Las Grietas is a beautiful series of rock crevices that has two small lagoons with very clear water. For those Americans out there who are unsure what 20 meters is in feet, it’s about 60, so about the height of a six story building. When we got to Las Grietas, we saw locals jumping form all different heights. There was no way I was going all the way to the top and I stuck with a nice 10m high jump. I jumped off and……. No sweat. I went to the next highest platform and again, it was relatively easy. By then, I kind of had a feeling that I would be jumping from the highest point later on in the day.
The first time I was here during the beginning of my trip, I had only known of the first lagoon, and was disappointed since I didn’t see a lot of fish. I found out later there was a second lagoon, which I went to this time. There were not a ton of fish, but a lot more than before and I was able to get a couple of good shots. We then did some underwater posing before my friend Juan started shivering. Because he has no fat on him, he gets cold incredibly fast. Alexi, Caroline, Alan and I took turns holding him and swimming him to a dry area between the two lagoons. After about 30 minutes of warming him up (we swam towels and sheets over our heads), we got him across the first lagoon. I decided it was time to test fate and climbed the hard way all the way to the top of the ledge. Some local kid had just recently gone, so as I was looking down, I could see exactly where he had landed unscathed by the rocks below. My heart was beating, but now that I was here, I was not going to back down. I yelled to Caroline to get my camera ready as I prepped myself for the jump. The adrenaline in my body was starting to pour out into my blood and I could feel my heart beating out of my chest and my lungs expanding with air. “No guts, no glory,” I said at a volume a little more audible than a whisper. My eyes were focused on the target made from the jumper before. All of this was going on while I was blocking any common sense I had out. “1, 2, 3 WOOOOOO!!!!!”
I screamed as I jumped over the ledge. By now, it was out of my control. I knew I had jumped the right amount due to the previous smaller jumps, but as I was coming down the common sense that had been blocked out barricaded itself back into my mind. “I jumped to short, I’m going to hit those rocks! No! I jumped too far! I’m going to pass the lagoon and hit the rocks on the other side. Too short. Too long. Too short. Too long!” My body’s sympathetic nervous system, our natural fight or flight mechanism, was on overdrive. I could feel the adrenaline rushing through my veins into my legs, arms, chest, and head. My eyes widened the longer I stayed in the air thinking the whole time “too short, too long, too short..."
"YES!”
SPLASH!!!!!!!
I had made it.
The water had cushioned my fall as I came back to my senses. I could NOT believe what I had just done. As I was swimming up to the surface, I could still feel the adrenaline flowing through my body and sink in all over. What seemed like an eternity was nothing but a mere 2 seconds.
I was so pumped I had just done that jump that I decided to join my friend Alexi back at the top again. More or less it was the exact same experience I had before. No wonder certain people are adrenaline junkies. The feeling afterward is indescribable. I uses the best way to describe it would be a combination of the fear you feel when you are on a roller coaster mixed in with the excitement you feel when you finished your last final and you know you aced it too. The collision of feelings is just unique. What could be better?
#1 DELIVERING A BABY!
Yep, that’s right. Me, Sam Zuber, 22-year-old EMT-Basic, was scrubbed in and ready to go at the number 7 position. It was around 12:00 am and this woman came into the ER stating that her water had broken. We put on the ultrasound and called in Christina, one of the OB-GYNs. We got the woman ready for delivery. As I was walking into the delivery room, Christina turned around and asked if I wanted to help. Of course I replied yes thinking I was just going to be on the side maybe holding down a leg. Wrong again!
AGAIN, BIRTH IS A GROSS THING, SO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SKIP THIS, SCROLL DOWN BELOW:
Christina pointed to a gown and another set of sterile gloves and told me to put them on. After I was scrubbed in and ready to go, I was standing right in front of the action. Christina showed me exactly what I needed to do, which started out by finding where the location of the head was in the cervix. The head was no more than a few inches away from the opening of the canal. Christina told the woman to start pushing. I have to say, that I give mad props to all women for doing this, but a bonus award goes to the Galapagaen women. This woman had no drugs, and even though it was evident she was in pain, not a word of complaining or screaming from her. I was absolutely amazed. I was applying pressure to the lower area of the birth canal in order that it would not rip as the baby’s head got closer and closer. The head was all of the sudden in my hands as the woman continued to push. Not losing concentration, I started rotating the baby’s head clockwise along with the rest of the body as it came out too. In a flash the entire baby was out and in my arms. I placed the baby girl on her mom’s belly and began rubbing her back to stimulate her breathing. The baby let out a cry and she was fine.
FOR THOSE WHO SKIPPED
Me with Patricia
Delivering the baby was probably one of the most incredible things I have ever done in my life. I was the first being to touch this magnificent baby who was just at the start of her life with so much potential and so much hope. I myself was stunned that I had just been given such an opportunity here to deliver this baby and had on the biggest smile. After the baby was cleaned up and given some medicine, I went over and watched as one of the nurses dressed her. I felt such a strong connection with this baby and I hadn’t even known it for 10 minutes. I stuck out my hand and her little hands grabbed onto my index finger. It brought such joy into my body and it felt as if the baby knew I was the one who had delivered her into this world (with the help of the docs of course). I carried Patricia over to her mom and laid her down next to her. That was the last time I saw Patricia, and while Patricia probably never could recognize, me, this experience is something that will be ingrained in my mind forever.
Mother and Daughter meet for first time
As I start to approach the end of my trip, I look back and smile. What an incredible experience I have had so far and it’s about to get better! I leave tomorrow for San Cristobal where my sister will be arriving on Friday. We are going to be traveling all over the islands for the next two weeks until she leaves on the 24th of December. Before I started college, I knew that regardless of what I did after college, I wanted to do something I would never have the chance to do again. Here I am in the Galapagos being exposed to incredible things medically, making a difference in some people’s lives, and doing something so extraordinary it surprises me. I know we all can’t wait to grow up, but if you have chance, even it it’s for a few weeks or a month, go be a kid again and explore this amazing world and everything it has to offer. There is so much to learn that just can’t be taught in a book.
You have been given the blessing of life.
LIVE IT
