Friday January 24: Itokama / Popondetta

Today we left Itokama. In the morning, we packed up, and hoped the drizzly clouds would clear up enough for the plane to land. Luckily it did.

All bags were weighed and ready to go. When the plane landed we gathered out in the grass near the airstrip and said our last thankyous and goodbyes. We held onto the sight of people waving through the tiny windows of the plane.

The view of the little thatched huts as were just lifting off the ground struck me deeply. It was beautiful and raw and yet heartbreaking. The first time I saw these huts from the air I couldn’t understand what it meant to live in the village. Now after four days, I knew how very little they had to live with, how very small everything really is.

Tears were shed, and I’m not going to say whose.

It was a 9 minute flight to Popondetta, just enough to dip into the clouds and duck back under again. The view transitioned from rugged mountaintops and dense jungle strewn with the occasional conglomoration of huts to open green plains, a majestic lake and -gasp- long, straight roads. It became clear that Poppendetta was going to be very different from Itokama.

Touched down on a concrete runway (–gasp-), suddenly immersed in and shocked by the marks of civilization. Wire fences. A building connected to electricity. Children standing along the fence seemed healthier. They were wearing clothes that aren’t tattered and ridden with holes, and which didn't look like their one and only set of clothes. They have clean faces and their bodies don’t scream malnutrition.

We drove out to the compound where we were staying, almost going insane from having airconditioning in the car. Initially I felt incredibly guilty for everything we were surrounded by, undeserving of the comfortable bed, the clean floors (-gasp-), the paintings on the wall…everything seemed surreal, fancy and non-essential, and a little voice in my head kept repeating like a broken record, “I don’t need this.” (Honestly though, I did embrace the toilet.)

After the rest of the group arrived, we hopped into two four-wheel drives and departed for Popondetta Hospital. There we held a short Hepatitis B vaccination and blood collection clinic for the health care workers.

A small group went walkabout through the hospital to vaccinate the other health care workers who were still on the job. 

Along the way we walked through the long, yellow-ceilinged corridor of beds known as the paeds clinic, passing by a woman sleeping on the floor next to a bed, and families resting together. There was a quiet sense of solemnity in the room.

I briefly met a health care worker from the paeds ward who explained that TB is a serious issue they are facing. There have been a significant number of cases in which children suffering from TB who were sent to other local health posts were incorrectly diagnosed and treated for malaria or pneumonia. The children don’t get better, and by the time the mistake is realized and the patient referred to Popondetta, many have suffered damage to the extent that they pass away within a few days.

It was evident that the hospital in Popondetta was in great need of support and facilities. And yet, incomparison to the remote area where we had just been, which really did have next to nothing, the hospital was a functioning centre where patients could receive care and treatment by local, trained staff.

We left a place, and were finding our bearings together in a new place. Adapting to cane toads hopping in the grass outside where we slept (shudder),  different objectives, and a different kind of reality.

Carrie