Back to civilisation!

Well I returned from Goodenough Island yesterday! I wonder who gave it that name because it was certainly more than good enough!

In typical PNG style the boat didn't leave for Goodenough until an hour and a half after it's departure time and the lovely ladies at the ticket office failed to mention that the boat would infact take 30 hours to reach it's destination, not the 8-10 that most people had me believe. Which, meant spending a hot and noisy night anchored in a bay off Fergusson Island, where i was eaten alive by mosquitos and constantly rolled on by a small child who was sleeping beside me during the night. Luckily some locals, who ofcourse were well prepared for an infinite amount of delay, took pity on me and shared there kai kai with me and I ate fresh fish, sago and yams and drank from coconuts.

We arrived at Wataluma early the next morning, after a connecting dinghy ride from Boyama, where we were met by the sister in charge (sister as in nun sister) an Indian by the name of Irene, who i dont think understood a single word i spoke to her the whole time i was there. I also learned from the other staff during my two weeks that she took to pulling peoples ears if they sufficiently displeased her. I made sure i smiled sweetly whenever i saw her!

Watuluma is a catholic mission which comprises the BJM Hospital, Santa Maria Highschool and a technical college and has an amazing community spirit. It is run by 5 nuns and a resident priest, whose name i couldnt quite work out but i think was father Dong. So, devotion was held every morning at 7am, and there was mass at least 5 times a week. It took about 3 days for sister Irene to realise that I didn't seem to know any hymns and that i didn't join in with the hail maries to ask me, "Gareee... are you not catholic?!".

I was shown around the hospital, which was built in 1991 by an Italian missionary and is very modern, well equiped and in contrast to the rest of PNG spotlessly clean. There are no resident doctors, but luckily there were two from Alotau on rural rotation which meant i didn't have to take on too much responsibility!

The first week I accompanied Dr James and Sister Ponah (nurse sister not nun sister)to undertake child health clinics in the rural villages. The people welcomed us so warmly and we were treated with such respect everywhere we went. The morning would be spent weighing and checking children and the afternoon was vaccination time... which somehow the kids new was coming and would conveniently disappear into the bush after lunch and virtually have to be poked down from coconut trees by their parents with large sticks (jeez those coconut trees are high and the kids scamper up them like monkeys!) Witchcraft, sourcery and herbal medicine is still very much a part of rural life in PNG and Dr James gave a talk about the fact that disease was caused by bacteria and viruses not by hocus pocus and the fact that your neighbour caught you stealing a mango from their tree in the middle of the night. Somehow i'm not sure the message got through though.

I spent the second week in the hospital where I saw case after case of malaria and TB. There was also somebody admitted to the hospital with Leprosy.

I was lucky enough to be there when the High School celebrated it's annual Santa Maria feast day and i got involved with the choir and decorating the church for the proccession of "mama mary". The music was amazing and the people are such good singers. The feast was held on friday and i was invited as a special guest to both the Village feast and the High school feast. I was treated like royalty which was extremely embarassing and really i just wanted to sit on the grass with everyone else and eat yams from palm leaves. Instead i sat with the sisters and the priest, ate specially prepared food and was stared at by every child who was in eye line. In fact the whole time i was there i seemed to be followed around by my creche of about 10 kids who would intently watch my every move and run screaming and laughing if i so much as looked in there direction. Privacy is not something that is part of native life here so there would be rows of little faces pressed constantly against my windows watching me! This number would quadruple the minute i took out my camera and kids (and adults) seemed to appear from the woodwork to have me "snap" them!

The highlight of the two weeks was teaching everyone how to ceilidh dance! Oh what a laugh! One of the nurses i was working with asked if i could teach them scottish dancing to present at the feast day as she had seen it on a video once. So i held dance classes everynight that went on way after the power had gone off and sister Irene would scold us for making so much noise late at night. Unfortunately, no scottish music could be found, so we danced the Gay Gordons and Strip the Willow to some PNG music with interesting results! By the end of the week, most of the hospital, patients included, would gather round to watch the chaos that unfolded on the lawn and the kids would be waiting outside my door striaght after tea calling, "Dr Gary, Dr Gary can we do Scottish Dance yet?"! One boy, called Joel, would hang around all day waiting! He was being treated for TB in the hospital, which i found out after i had invited him in for a cup of tea one evening, much to Dr James' disgust who went on to throw out most of the cups...woops. They performed spectacularly on feast night with the whole crowd whooping and laughing!!! so much fun! I've promised them i'll send them some music so they can dance properly. To say thank you they presented my with a traditional clay cooking pot (god knows how i'm gonna get that one home), a straw sleeping mat and my very own bilum (a colourful bag that everyone carries around) I was so touched and was very sad to leave.

So my last week in PNG before heading to Oz! Looking forward to seeing Naomi and to have a proper exam celebration drink! woop!

Island adventures....

Just a short note to say I'm heading out to Goodenough Island tomorrow for two weeks and seeing as they have neither electricity or telephones I doubt very much they will have internet. So unfortunately i will be out of contact until I return :(

Bye bye

x

BABIES!

Well, I delivered my first Nuiginian into the world yesterday! Woman was a prim and post dates and baby was covered in meconium (spew!) and wasn't breathing, so as well as delivering the baby had to resuscitate it too. Although it was a bit touch and go as couldn't find suction bottles, then there were no suction catheters. Meanwhile little baby is going blue and is not breathing. Then to make matters worse, oh, the oxygen cylinder has run out! Was slightly stressful to say the least! Mother and baby are doing fine today though. I went into see them today and asked if they had thought of a name meanwhile thinking, "call it gary, call it gary, call it gary"! But alas it was some name that i couldn't pronounce and they seemed pleased anyway! I will have a baby named after me some day... i will!

Humidity has also shot through the roof and I am struggling to move at all, to make matters worse I have a six pack of cold SP beer at my feet which I am scared to bring out in case I am pounced upon by alcohol-thirsty "raskols". Will have to wait until I get home :(

Found a new internet cafe which is randomly situated at the back of a car garage, although it is so cheap compared with the international hotel, however just as painfully slow!

I have booked the boat to go to Goodenough Island, I am saying I have booked it but I have told the lady in the shipping office I want a ticket. She just told me to turn up at the wharf at 8am next tuesday for boarding... i'm not holding out much hope! Goodenough is the northern most of the three d'Entrecasteaux islands and is home to Goldie's bird of paradise which i hope i will see! I will be visiting a small missionary hospital in the north called Wateloma. (i would have inserted a link here to a nice pretty picture of where that is, but i would be probably be here until midnight trying to download it!)

My flights back have also been screwed up... it's so annoying. Planes out here are more like buses... sometimes they come, sometimes they don't. So now, my flight to Brisbane from Port Moresby leaves before my flight from here to Port moresby has even left the ground. Yes... i know... so stoopid....that's PNG for you! Have just sent Air Nuigini an unhappy email as now i will probably have to overnight in Port Moresby which i do not exactly relish seeing as all the locals here in Milne Bay dont rate the place very high on the safety front. Oh well, no doubt my flights will change again before then.

Adios... my beer awaits.

Exam Success!!!

Well.... I passed my exams!!! WOOP! So chuffed!

I am at Tawali diving resort on the North Coast of Milne Bay at the moment with Kabe, Bolo and George and having such a good time! It is glorious sunshine and we are being waited on hand and foot... such luxury! Arrived yesterday and within an hour we were in the water snorkelling and kayaking.... so many fish... red ones, blue ones, purple ones, yellow ones, black ones, see through ones, stripey ones, spotty ones, long ones, short ones, shy ones, aggressive ones and big eels with teeth! lol! The water was so warm too! Watched a school of young dolphins playing in the bay. Snorkelling again this morning... got a bit burnt:( Kayaked round to a village around the coast and all the children just sat and watched me when I came ashore... ha ha! Lots of beautiful shells as well.

I checked my exam results this morning at 8am as I couldn't wait any longer... what a nice place to find out such good news! Went straight to the bar for a beer! WOOP! Congrats Lots and Naomi ;o)

Heading back to Alotau this afternoon, no doubt to the pouring rain! It seems that Alotau is the only place where it rains! Going to start in O&G tomorrow too. Dr Yaubihi, my supervisor suggested I go out to some of the remote islands for some rural experience so think I will do that next week... will see how it goes. Met a guy at Napatana called Mombi who lives on Normanby Island. He is encouraging eco-tourism in the area as an alternative to Rosewood logging and he said he's be delighted to be my guide so will have to contact him and arrange it.

Well going to go sit on the beach under the palms, have another beer and wallow in the sweet feeling of success! ahhhh!

It's raining...it's pouring....

OMG THE RAIN!

Where does it all come from?! My little Primark brolly keeps me dry for a almost a minute before i get completely drenched. I'm sure the locals, with their parasol sized monsoon-standard umbrellas are laughing at me... i feel quite inadequate.

Apart from being soaked to the skin, things in Alotau are going pretty well. Nearly at the end of my second week and still with internal medicine. Going to O&G on monday...woop!

Everyone and everything here is a lot more advanced than i thought it would be... everyone has a laptop, which they talk about and compare at every given opportunity. I even had to give a powerpoint presentation the other day on cerebrovascular disease... what's that all about?! I want to lie on a beach!

Went to a vilalge across the bay called Wagawaga at the weekend with a Japanese girl i'd met at the lodge. We stayed in a lodge in the middle of the jungle which was fantastic, apart from the dinnerplate sized spider which had made the blacony it's home. Everytime you went within a 3 metre radius of it's web it would start scuttling over towards us. So, suffice to say, we didn't get to relax on our balcony and watch the sunset much! Snorkelled over a WW2 ship wreck and saw clownfish, and a whole load of others. Came back over the bay on a severly overloaded dinghy which was a bit scary, i kept looking to see which coastline was closer incase i had to swim to the shore if it capsized! lol! luckily i made it to the other side!

I have noticed a grammatical anomally which is very annoying and has caught me out several times since i have been here. When you ask someone a question with a negative in it such as,

"Are you not coming to my house for dinner tonight?"

people here will answer "yes", agreeing with the statement, meaning no they are not coming to dinner tonight. So wierd! Or maybe we are wrong?!

Going to Tawali, a dive resort on the north coast of Milne Bay Province, for a "lads" weekend with some of the Docs from the hospital. Haha! The way they are talking i think i will have to get my drinking hat on! my goodness people from PNG can drink... Kabe one of the docs took me out for "a few beers" the other night and payed for 12 as soon as we arrived. I couldn't keep up... he drank them like water... what shame! Took me a good few hours to walk home... humidity and hangovers are not a nice combination... especially in the TB ward :(

xxx

Alotau

Well..I'm here...thought i never would! nearly missed my plane at Port Moresby but thankfully it was delayed! It's so humid! can barely move without breaking out into a horrible sweat! and it pours down without a seconds notice! Alotau is a very friendly place, everyone so willing to help! Groups of kids keep running up to me shouting "dim dim! dim dim!" translated as "white man, white man"! It's so funny as their parents are clearly embarassed! lol! Hospital is larger than i thought, with medical, surgical, TB, paeds and O&G wards, 2 operating theatres, out patient clinic, although it is all very basic. They have an xray machine and a lab which does basic blood tests and a rickety old ultrasound scanner! I am based with internal medicine at the moment and even though i am itching to get into the O&G wards Dr Yaubihi, the director, says i should do internal medicine for a while to appreciate the general health problems the people face. Yesterday, my first morning, i got shown a clinic room and told that i see patients from the left hand side of the door first! agh! Talk about being thrown into the deep end! lol! was fine though and i had plenty of guidance! have met a little boy with the same name as me on the medical ward. he has thalassaemia and TB. he's so cute though and everytime i walk into the ward he comes running up shouting GARY GARY GARY! hahaha! All the staff are amazing too and are very keen to hear about Scotland and my "wantok" [one-talk, family] Well better go, this internet is costing a fortune! and it's sooooooo slow!

gary x

singapore...

Well just arrived at Singapore airport. 12 hour flight wasn't half as bad as i expected.... no screaming kids... no annoying neighbours... got some good sleep (although not sure how much the glass of wine (courtesy of Gavy, thanks!), the three G & T's, the champagne at Heathrow (ooh la la) and the umpteen vinos on the plane contributed to that?!). The food wasn't bad either. I know mnay people have difficulty grasping how a lump of metal full of people can stay in the air, but what really gets me is how they manage to serve scrambled eggs that are still edible and yummy after being kept in an oven for 11 hours of a 12 hour flight?! beats me.

Well got four hours until next flight...going to wander round and see what's what! I need a shower:(

X