Episode 22 - Infection

A few weeks ago I went for an epic walk through the jungle (if you missed the post about it, then you can find it here). I got a whole load of cuts all over my legs. I cleaned them up nicely when I got back and although some cuts took longer to heal than others, they were all perfectly. Until this week that is. During lessons last week, we visited a nearby village where lots of staff at New Tribes Mission live. To get there we had to wade waste deep through the local river (yes that’s right, all the New Tribes staff who live in the village have to wade through the river on their way to work each day).  As we crossed the river a big cut on my shin softened up and I didn’t think too much about it. That was a mistake. A couple of days later I noticed that the wound on my shin was looking angry and there was redness spreading from it on my shin. I cleaned it up and thought nothing more of it. The next day a boil appeared on my foot. Just a coincidence right? I mean it’s a good 12 inches away. Then my foot started to swell up and feel like a baby elephant was sat on it the whole time. Now that’s definitely not normal, but I know to treat all of these things so I figured I’d be fine. Then I started to get aching pains between my hip and my knee. I don’t know what to do about that, so I finally admit to myself that I probably need some advice. Fortunately tomorrow was Sunday, so my plan was to casually drop it into conversation after Church to see what everyone thinks, you know, but that’s a subject matter that just naturally slips into a conversation. Well I did, and when my boss heard he reassured me that my leg probably wouldn’t fall off any time soon, but still promptly told me that I needed to see a Doctor.

 

The Clinic

Now luckily for me, I have easy access to a well-equipped clinic at New Tribes Mission. I am very fortunate in this respect, as such good access to medicine and trained medical is not something that many Papua New Guineans have, and I am truly thankful that I do. All the staff looked after me incredibly well, and it turned out that the wound had become infected and the infection had spread. I was given some pills and amazingly started to feel much better after just a couple of days. It’s hard to get my head around the fact that something as simple as some pills, which not everyone here in PNG would be able to get access to, can make my infection go away, an infection, which if left untreated, could have been fatal. It’s a good reminder of the kind of reality that many Papua New Guineans face every day, and how easy it is to become unwell here. It may sound slightly crazy, but I’m glad it happened, it’s opened my eyes and made me think about a few things, and it’s been a great induction to the clinic at New Tribes!

Episode 21 - School

Monin yupela olgeta! I’ve now finished my first week of language learning a cultural orientation. It’s a lot of fun and everyone on the course is lovely! As well as learning in the classroom, we’ve walked to the nearby villages to practice with and to get to know the locals. For a language with so many words that sound familiar to an Englishman, Tok Pisin is really hard! I came home every night with my mind full of things it wanted to remember feeling like it was going to explode! It always feels like I’ve forgotten an awful lot of what I wanted to remember, but even in just one short week I feel like I’ve learnt a lot. I’m really glad that I’ve had two months in work first, surrounded by the language, I think this has really helped. I’m really grateful too, that I can come back in the afternoons and spend time with all the people at work, asking them all of my questions and practicing with them. They’re so helpful and have been so good with me. They seem to enjoy watching me as I desperately try to wrestle a particular word from my memory and seeing my face switch from fierce concentration to deep joy once I finally find it! It’s also been really good travelling in on PMV. Everyone is so friendly, and it’s been great hearing the stories of so many different people. It’s also been wonderful practice for my Tok Pisin, there have been so many people who once they have found out I’m going to Tok Pisin lessons have insisted in conversing only in Tok Pisin. They’ve all been so helpful in showing me how I should be saying things and they’ve made it loads of fun too!

Episode 20 - Getting Around

Today I start my language training at New Tribes Mission in Lapilo. Lapilo is about a 15 minute car journey away from my house, which raises the question; how will I get there? Usually when I’m getting around, I can get to most places either on foot, or by getting a lift with someone, but in this instance neither of these will do, which means that my main means of transport to Lapilo will be… by PMV (public motor vehicle). PMV’s are the equivalent of the bus service in PNG. They come in all shapes and sizes, well two that I can think of anyway… Minibuses, and open back trucks where passengers sit in the back. Bus stops are found in a variety of places, usually anywhere where lots of people gather such as markets. There are usually a number of bus stops on the same stretch and they are all completely unmarked. It would seem that somehow knowledge of the location of each bus stop is passed on to Papua New Guineans at birth as not only do they all seem to know which particular piece of cracked pavement you need to stand on to get which bus (despite the lack of marking or as far as I can tell, observable logic) but when you ask them, they look as though it’s obvious. None the less, they are very friendly and helpful and pointing you in the right direction.

 

The people are usually on the inside of the PMV

The second mode of transport I will be using (when I want to stay into the evening after it goes dark), will be the CRMF van – driven by me! I have now driven around Goroka a few times and taken a test drive to Lapilo, but driving to class will be the first time I drive on my own. They drive on the left here, which is the same as in England, so that helps. The other drivers very rarely signal and when they do, very rarely do what they’ve indicated, just like England, so that helps. Okay, so the other drivers are quite a lot more unpredictable than in England, but having learnt to drive in Birmingham and experienced driving through the centre of London on a Saturday night, I can definitely say that it is tame by comparison and throws up no new experiences. Until I drove to Lapilo that was. You see the road to Lapilo has something not found in England – potholes! Now I’m not talking about those tiny little things I used to complain about England, I mean the sort deep enough to lose your car in! Swerving to avoid these potholes without hitting the oncoming traffic which is doing the same thing is quite an art, and feels more like a computer game than a normal part of life. Still, I’m starting to get the hang of it, even if I do still do it quite slowly!

Okay, that's more of a landslide than a pothole, but you get the picture!

Episode 19 - To Do Or Not To Do, That Is The Question...

A lot the work that we do in the electronics workshop, is the repair of electronic devices. New electronic products are expensive in Papua New Guinea and many items aren’t available at all and so the demand for repair work is high. If we accepted every job that was brought to us, we would have more work than we would be able to do and we would find that our time was being taken away from those we were called to, and that we were being side tracked from the ministry we have been called to. Turning down work is never easy and it can be hard to decide what jobs we should take.

The workshop is usually a hive of electronics fixing activity - I promise!

Our main mission is to support the churches and rural communities in PNG through technology and communications. We try to stay focused on the work God has set for us, and try not to do work which others are already doing. So if a local brought in their TV which they watched at home, we most likely would not try to repair it. It is not for the church or the rural community, we don’t have a great deal of experience in TV repair, nor do we sell them so we are unlikely to stock the required parts so there is a good chance we wouldn’t be able to fix, just making it a waste of our time and the customers money, and lastly, there are others who can provide this service.

Sometimes the only way to work it out is by having a big ol' chinwag

Deciding whether or not to take on work is not always so easy though. This week we had a request to look at a steriliser for the local CBM eye clinic. It was not for a church or a rural community (although it is a Christian mission and people to come from all over the highlands for treatment). It is however the latter two points which proved the most critical. We certainly don’t routinely stock parts for medical equipment and as a workshop we have no particular experience with medical equipment. Except for me that is. I have five years’ experience in a hospital, but that was with a very particular type of machine, which they don’t even have any of in Papua New Guinea. This would probably mean that we wouldn’t be the favourite option. Or at least that would be the case, bringing us nicely to the last point, if there were any other options.

The CBM Operating Room

CBM in Goroka doesn’t really have anyone that they can turn to for technical support. This is exemplified by a problem they had a few weeks ago with their uninterruptable power supply (UPS) which keeps all of their surgical equipment working in the event of a power cut. It was reporting a fault, and the only person they could find to look at it was a friend of a friend of a friend. They basically set it up so that the power to the surgical equipment came straight from the mains power and missed out the UPS completely. This meant that everything worked fine until inevitably there was a power cut during surgery and all of the equipment went down. What’s worse is that they charged K600 (about £150) for the job, which is more than CRMF charges for two full days labour. Now I’m not blaming or accusing the engineer of anything, the UPS is a very complicated piece of equipment and I’m sure that he thought he had fixed it, but still it highlights the difficulty CBM face. After that CRMF were called and we were able to cure the fault.

David fixing the UPS (and me holding the light)

With this in mind, when I was asked to look at the steriliser, knowing that they had already had to cancel surgery and that they couldn’t even use the main hospital steriliser as that was broken too, I said yes without too much thought. But knowing that this was outside of our normal (if we have a normal) and the high stakes of the situation, it was certainly a repair which I felt nervous and tense about. I was able to diagnose the fault and conduct the fix, but there is always an element of doubt with these things no matter how sure you are, and I was definitely on edge as I asked for one of the members of staff to come and test it out for us. We stood around the steriliser like the cast of an Agatha Christie murder mystery as the murderer is about to be revealed. I could barely watch and with every beep my heart skipped a beat think that it might be an error message. It wasn’t. We had fixed it! And it felt good! It might not be our normal, but it is an enormous privilege to be able to support other missions like this one, knowing what a huge impact they have in so many peoples lives.

A naked steriliser!

Episode 18 part two - Walkabout - The Return of... us

I wake up. There is no no-one watching me as there was when I fell asleep. Lit by the dim glow of the solar light which was left on all night, I can just make the family who kindly let us stay with them, asleep on the raised sleeping area beside us. To be fair, it is only five o’clock in the morning, but we know that we have a long journey ahead of us and we want to leave at first light. We get ready as quietly as we can, but try as we might to not disturb our host family, they all wake up and want to make sure the send us on a proper fair well. We gather our wet clothing from the night before from around the village where it had been left in a variety of places to dry out. All apart from Lukas’ t-shirt that is, which seems destined now to spend the rest of its life in the middle of the jungle… Fortunately he packed a spare. Having gather most of our belongings we say our goodbyes, climb the small wooden fence out of the village, and carry on our journey.

The village in the light of day

The path continued as it left off, only better lit now which was a great blessing. My calves were sore from the night before but didn’t feel like they were going to cramp up which was a huge relief. The path was steep and slippery, but we knew that we had a large decent to make. Confusingly when the path wasn’t going sharply down, it was going sharply back up, which was strange given that we were trying to go down the mountain, but it seems there is never a straight path in the jungle. The first hour was hard going. Beautiful and amazing, and I enjoyed every second of it, but it was hard, and I wasn’t sure if I could keep it up for the whole day. The second hour was the same, and so was the third. Whenever we asked our guide how far away from the river where the path would flatten out we were, he would just reply “klostu”, which means, you guessed it, close to… Despite this we certainly didn’t lose heart as we were buoyed on by the stunning scenery, the beautiful birdsong, and even getting to see a hornbill. It was amazing too to watch how the jungle changed as we descended the mountain, leaving the highlands behind and entering the lowlands. It’s hard to describe as it is all distinctly “jungly”, and I’m not really familiar enough with any of it to describe it particularly well. It was noticeable further down that leaves on the ground displayed autumn colours, which is strange in a place where the season of autumn doesn’t exist.

"Jungly trees..."

Eventually we burst out of the jungle and onto a riverbank, the sight of which alone was refreshing. Water cascaded down the valley, the sound of birdsong filled the air, somehow different here, and butterflies of all kinds of vibrant colours flew around us, seeming playing with each other and seemingly beckoning us to join them. We took the most of the opportunity to rest and refresh, washing in the river, and simply drinking in this place. After half an hour, we knew that we had to carry on.

Our oasis

Foolishly we thought that at this point the path would follow along the river and become flat. We were wrong. Immediately we were lead up a path at the side of the river and back into the forest. We would weave our way up and down through the forest for a while, until we appeared by the riverside once again, which seemed to spring out of the jungle like an oasis, complete with butterflies basking in the sunshine. We would carry along by the side of the river for a short way, before re-entering the jungle, and repeating the process again. I can’t remember a point at which the path became easier, but over time the jouney seemed not so hard. I can’t decide if this was because my body started getting used to the terrain, or I got used to every part of my body aching, either way, I was glad that it no longer entered my mind, not that it ever detracted any from the journey.

Back down to the river

We stopped again by the river lunch and refilled our water bottles. Up to this point, we had only seen three people. A fisherman in the river, and two young hunters in the forest, who so far had not caught anything. We stopped for only half an hour as we knew that we would be pushed for time if we wanted to get to the high way in time to catch a PMV and get back to Goroka before dark, whilst it was still safe. As we continued, it started to become noticeable that the jungle was thinning out, but even then our path didn’t become straight forward. We passed a small village, I say village, it was just one house with a family of about six living in it. They welcomed us warmly and chatted to us, but after a while, they told us that we couldn’t continue along this path as it was closed. Thinking that it had most probably become impassable by a landslide, we asked why. We didn’t expect the answer we got. “Last night the dogs barked”, the old lady explained, “they barked because there were evil spirits about, so you cannot go along the path”. It’s quite hard to argue with that, so we didn’t. We turned back as the lady beckoned us to and thanked her greatly for the papaya that she gifted to us for our journey. She made a point of telling us that it had come from inside the house, so the evil spirits couldn’t have poisoned it.

Butterflies enjoying the sunshine on the edge of the river

We carried along our new path eager to make up for the time we had lost, but it wasn’t long until we came to another small village by the river. The people hear were eager for us to spend time with them, to chat and for them to take photos with us. We enjoyed meeting them and Tocsi and Jethro were in no hurry to leave, enjoying the tobacco and beetle nut they were given, and wanting to make the most of what they knew to be the last proper shade of the journey. Eventually we made our excuses and carried on our way. We soon the river and enter a vast plane of grass land, a sea of green, quite something to behold. We followed the narrow path through tall grasses well beyond our wastes, such a complete contrast to the jungle that we had left. After a while we stepped down from the grassland into a dried up river bed. It was oddly like walking along the beach with pebbles and fine grey sand. It provided a nice flat path to walk upon, but also acted like an oven, reflected the heat of the sun which now baked us from both above and below.

Total change of scenery

The dried up river bed occasionally drew alongside the main river which still flowed freely. Realising that we were not going to make it back to the highway in time to get a PMV back, we decided to slow our pace, rest in the cooling streams, eat our papaya, and work out a new plan. Jethro has family who lives near the highway and he suggested that they would be happy for us to stay with them, we would then only be a short walk from the PMV stop in the morning. This sounded good to all of us and after resting a while, we set off with a new destination in mind.

A beach in the middle of an island

We continued along the dry riverbed until popping back up into the tall grasses. Trees now started to appear again, as the landscape changed once more. We soon came to another village. A couple of high pitched squeals were heard from nearby and we were suddenly welcomed very warmly. It was immediately obvious that this was not just a friendly welcome, but these were friends of Jethro’s, even if this wasn’t his family’s village. We were beckoned to sit on a patch of green grass in the middle of the village and we watched as a man disappeared up a tree with a machete. Six loud thuds later and we were each presented with a fresh coconut each. What a delicious refreshing, and energy giving delight. A fresh coconut beats any fancy “sports drink” you can get at your local supermarket! And to boot, once you finish drinking it, you can smash it open and you get a delicious snack too! After being refreshed once more, we continued on our way until we reached the Ramu River.

Refuelling

The six of us joined by a few young men from the local village stand on the shore of the river, solo with rubber ring in hand, as the torrent races past us. We stare into the water. We knew something like this was coming. We just didn’t know what exactly. Every decision has a cost. You see, last night we decided that today we would deviate from the planned route. Our planed route involved go up and down a further two mountains that this route didn’t have. But there was also one other thing that our planned route had that this one didn’t have. A bridge. Thankfully, the men from the local village are experienced at crossing this river. They each take one of our bags, lift them high above their heads, and one by one stride purposefully into the river. Their legs and bodies quickly disappear until all that remains is their heads and their arms, bouncing through the river, slowly going forwards, quickly going sideways, until they come out perfectly on a flat shoreline a short way down river, our bags not even getting a drop of water on them. Johannes, Lukas and myself look at each other. Our eyes widen and our eyebrows raise. We turn look at the river once more. We turn back to each other. We slowly shrug our shoulders and head forward into our fate.

Little did we know what we were walking towards

Jethro grabs my hand as we stride into the river. We quickly get taken downstream, but continue to make good progress. We head towards the shallower water by our exit. As I step towards it a rush of water sweeps me off my feet, all that holds me in place is Jethro’s hand. I look up towards him and he smiles at me. I wave my feet forlornly towards the ground, trying with all my might to force them to touch the ground. My toes brush against the river bed just enough to help propel me towards the shoreline, until I can plant my feet firmly in the shallows. I beam a smile at Jethro and his eyes twinkle. No words need to be said.

The other side

We made it. Made it across the first river that is. There are two almost identical stretches of water, and so we do the whole thing again, only this time knowing more fully what lay before us. I’m unsure as to whether or not that helped, but none the less we made it, and we carried on our way. We followed the river a short way, then crossed more grass land, until incredibly, out of nowhere, we arrived at the highway! We had completed our trek!

We made it!

We carried on a short way along the highway to Jethro’s village, we were well looked after by his family and slept in the cookhaus (kitchen/store room). I stroked a baby Cassowary. We left early, hitched a ride in the back of a pick-up, and then got a PMV back to Goroka, in which I fell asleep. I did make it safely back to Goroka, with all of my stuff (including all my t-shirts) and with an adventure in my heart that I will never forget. 

Jethro's village