PNG JOURNAL / Day Three: In the village of flowers and coconut shells
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Day Three: Wednesday January 22
Woke up in the little village of Tahama. We all slept in a small hut about 50m away from the clinic.
Mum, Sarah, Mel and I took a walking tour
around the village with Kerry and his father, Newton. It is a beautiful place,
little thatched huts lined up in rows. The gardens are humble but well-kept,
with colourful flowers sprouting from fences and beds marked with a trimming of
split coconut shells.
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| Left to right: Mel, mum and Sarah walk to greet Newton (coming from the top of the path) |
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| Flowers and coconuts in beautifully kept rows |
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| Left to right: Kerry, mum, Newton, Petros |
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| Sarah and mum |
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| Sarah and I |
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| Young boy holding a knitted doll. |
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| Typical large family with many children |
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| Smoke rising from the huts |
Visited a one-month old baby with Jodee
(who seems to have an uncanny radar when babies are nearby). She showed the
parents how to wrap the baby tight and snug in cloth so it would stay warm,
much to the delight of the children who crowded around to watch. Almost by
habit, she joked to the parents, “Can I keep her?” Perhaps not understanding
the joke, they declined with a straight face.
Morning clinic at Tahama – busy, exciting,
heart-wrenching at times. I mainly spent the time taking photos and working at
the glasses clinic. In the best of times, it was incredibly satisfying when a
patient would find the right match for their eyes. We know its hit the spot
when their faces light up, or a smile creeps into their lips, even before we
hear the words: “This is the one.”
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| Humphrey, myself and Harry busy at the glasses clinic |
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| Harry: how many fingers am I holding up? |
Everywhere there is need. It is groups like this we want to help by doing simple things like giving out stronger solar lights and eyeglasses.
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| Humphrey with the lucky owner of a new set of frames! |
The rest of the clinic ran as per usual - triage, heights and weights, treatment, vaccinations, blood collection, discharge.
There were also some unusual cases, the ones that make you pause, and remind you where you are. A
young boy with a partially paralysed body was brought to the clinic. The
doctors identified the cause as cerebral malaria. Although there was little
they could do to reverse the paralysis, they stressed the importance of doing
simple physio exercises to prevent the body from stiffening up altogether, and
to help him gain some muscle strength. Another pregnant woman was given an
ultrasound.
Another young child, perhaps younger than 5 years old, with a club
foot that bent in at the ankles, as if the very foot was collapsing in on
itself. So many problems that we lacked the skill or resources to fix.
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| Sarah recording heights and weights |
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| Liz triaging patients |
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| Mel giving vaccinations |
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| Treatment table - doctors, nurses and local health care workers working side by side |
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| The boy with cerebral malaria. Mum and Jodee showed the parents how to help the child practice some simple exercises so his body would not stiffen up and prohibit his movement entirely. |
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| Mum and local health worker Ezekiel operate the ultrasound together |
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| Club foot |
And what about the man who had gone blind?
Who couldn’t see anything but the blurry outlines of some shapes? The glasses
made no difference. It was so sad to see the way he leant into the hand of the
person leading him around the hut, or up the stairs into the clinic. We had no
surgeon, let alone an eye surgeon. What could we do for him? I felt so helpless and very, very, unskilled.
I didn't even find out his name.
I didn't even find out his name.
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| Working together for the community is about addressing the needs of individuals like this man. I didn't even know his name. |
A short afternoon clinic after lunch, then
packed up to return to the first village, Itokama. It was another change in
plan – instead of staying the night at Tahama, we would go back to Itokama to
run a night clinic, and a full day clinic from the next morning.
We were given a beautiful, heart-warming
thank-you farewell from the village. A crowd gathered around the old truck
packed with our supplies and a few people hitching a ride. People shook our
hands warmly, we exchanged thank-yous and goodbyes. As we passed through under
the wooden archway we received a hearty three cheers of “Magoe! Magoe! Magoe!”
(Victory/Thank you!)
So began the long walk back to Itokama. A
few people had hitched a ride on the truck, the rest of us would walk until the
truck came back to pick us up halfway. As we trekked through the mud and
jungle, it started pouring rain. It was the most rejuvenating feeling, we were
tired and sticky and it felt great to be alive, with streams of rain running
down our faces and our feet sloshing in the mud. Soaked in the tropical
rainforest of Papua New Guinea, where everything was green and brown.
I struggled on the trek. It was a different
route from before, with hills that stretched out further but weren’t as steep.
One foot in front of the other, up and down, trying not to slip on the mud,
trying not to fall too far behind the others. Somewhere along the way mum
cracked open a muesli bar, and we relished a portion of heaven – 20g of
squished goodness.
Just when I thought I couldn’t go any
further, we were saved by the pickup truck which had come back after dropping
off the first lot at Itokama. We hopped into the mud-streaked back, and held
onto the side of the truck and each other for dear life as we bumped and
jostled our way along the muddy track.
Thrilling, incredible, so happy not to be
walking, laughing with exhilaration, jammed in “like sardines”. Poor Kerry was
perched in the back corner in a position so he was slapped and assaulted by virtually
every branch and leaf that came along. Three young boys from the village who
had been carrying supplies sat on the roof of the cabin.
The truck swerved, drifted, crossed through
rivers, and teetered precariously over the side. My respect for four wheel
drives went through the roof during this trip.
Going up a steep hill, the truck became
stuck in the mud. All the boys hopped out and had to push the back of the truck
as the driver revved and accelerated. Harry was in the worst position and was
completely splattered with mud, cringing as it was flicked all over his face
and body in clumps and blobs.
We arrived back in Itokama in one piece,
deliriously happy and muddy all over. When it rained again, a few of us ran out
and had a “shower” in the water that was streaming off the tin roof, standing
with our feet deep in the puddle, our clothes soaked through, looking more than
a little bit strange.
We went down to the actual shower – a
spring at the bottom of a steep slope, where fresh cold water would flood out
of a bamboo pole like a small waterfall.
Another night clinic at Itokama, brought to
an abrupt end when the generator (and with it our power and light to run the
clinic) spurted, choked, and allegedly caught fire…
Crossed the pitch-black
airstrip, the darkness a reminder of how far away we were from the rest of the
world. Dinner of baked beans and rice (it felt like a luxury at the time –
ultimate comfort food).
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| Paul and Ezekiel triaging (before the generator starting smoking) |
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| Mum and Petros |
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| Solar lights brightening the storeroom |
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| So very, very dark. And blurry. |
No energy to write, felt hammered by the
long walk, feet aching. And yet, despite the fact that everyone was exhausted,
I don’t remember hearing anybody utter a whinge or word of complaint the whole
time we were there.
We remember the physical exhaustion, the
sweat, the intense and overwhelming sense of need. But more so we remember the
little moments – the people who walk away from the glasses clinic able to see
again, the bumpy truck ride, gazing up at the star-streaked sky in the middle
of a pitch-black airstrip, laughing with each other in the rain.
Carrie
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