This post is highlighting one of our former Bumpers College student’s experiences from before the Covid-19 pandemic.
By Mackenzie Harrell
There I was in the middle of a village in Belize walking the dirt roads will a bag of medical supplies. It was the first day of my study abroad experience and I had little to no idea of what to expect. Over the next 12 days, I would get the opportunity to make lasting friendships, serve an incredible community, and push myself with new skills.
I went on the Service Learning Through Community Partnerships in Belize Study Abroad over the January Intersession. It was a faculty-led trip that was comprised of health and agriculture-focused students. The faculty who led the trip were Dr. Lisa Wood and Dr. Matthew Ganio and they did an incredible job of pushing all us on the trip to try new things and think outside of the box when we were serving the community. Because it was a service-learning trip there was no class that we took, but I feel like I learned more from being in the community and engaging with the local people than I ever learned from a classroom.
I am a Dietetics student and I got to serve with the health team while we went around a community in Belize and took vitals (blood sugar and blood pressure). We partnered with a group called Community Health Workers that work with the Ministry of Health in Belize. The taught us so much about the diverse culture in Belize and it was easy to see why they were so passionate about their job. Every person we came into contact with invited us into their home and let random students from Arkansas perform medical tests on them. Everyone was kind and eager to hear our take on their current medical condition. Before the trip, I didn’t have a lot of experience taking vitals, but the trip definitely helped me learn on the fly and I improved significantly over the 12 days we were there.
In addition to the incredible learning part of this experience we did incredibly fun things as well. We got to hike up incredible Mayan Ruins and hear all about how that culture lived. My personal favorite thing was when we spent the weekend on an island called Caye Caulker and we went snorkeling as a big group. I got to bond with my group and get to know the faculty on the trip really well while hanging out in a huge ocean staring at fish- it was awesome! Also, the culture in Belize is so unique and deep and it was amazing to learn traditional dances and eat the Belizean food. Every experience was better than the last, and I now have a strong love for Belize and its incredible people.
In closing, I now know that I am capable of doing ore things in a medical field than I ever thought before and I can’t wait to use the medical and assessment skills I learned in my Dietetic Internship after I graduate. From this experience, I gained a new confidence and a new perspective on gratitude. It was a privilege to get such a close up of view of how a typical Belizean lives even though most people do not have near as much as we do in the United States. I am more grateful for my chance to get such a good education and where I was raised, and I know now that we need to be appreciative of every moment and experience because they all can affect how we live and how we interact with others. I would one-hundred percent recommend this trip to anyone that wants to be pushed and learn a lot outside of a traditional classroom setting. It was hands-on, fun, and will hold a special place in my heart for a long time. If you are thinking about studying abroad at all I highly suggest Belize, it really is UNBELIZABLE.
