Ruth Chen’s Blog

15.2.2009, Finally stepping on Kapuna soil

Today, being Sunday, is a day of rest for
everyone, and I munch on my starfruit and
pineapple as I type this. Its been a week since I
left the comforts of my own home for PNG, and one
week on, I’m sitting in the balcony of Colin and
Barbara Calvert’s house, trying to recollect my
thoughts on the past week, to put them down into words.

The journey into Kapuna wasn’t too bad. We made
it for the airport at Port Moresby pretty early
(Bob so kindly sent us all the way to the gates),
and customs stopped us when our bags were being
scanned. Apparently, some metal item was showing
up on their scanner, and after unpacking 2-3
times, I suddenly remembered that I kept all my
lovely aussie coins together in a Ziploc bag and
shoved them into a pocket. That was quite a funny
incident that got both Grace and the officers
laughing (at me) and the night before, I was just
telling Grace that the coins won’t be seeing the
world till we get back to Brisbane. I even
proudly told her that they will hold out in that
nice orderly fashion I OCDedly arranged them in.

The plane we sat from Port Moresby to Baimuru is
probably the smallest plane I’ve ever sat in. It
was quite difficult to get any sleep on the
plane, so I kept looking out of the window to
take in the spectacular views of PNG – endless
streams of rivers and deltas, trees after trees.
Along the way, some passengers were dropped off
at Kerema, and there, we got round to getting to
know the other passengers on board. Got to know
Rita, who works at Kapuna Hospital, and John, who
was Kapuna-bound as well to do some engineering volunteering at Kapuna.

We finally got to Baimuru where we were greeted
by Dr Archer, one of the two doctors at Kapuna,
and Everlyn, a CHW (community health worker). Our
bags, before we knew it, were carried for us by
the local villagers and Everline! I was so spoilt by their hospitality.

On route to Kapuna Hospital, we stopped by the
Baimuru store and got whatever necessities we
could get our hands on. It’s abit like shopping
the Argos way, where you tell the shopkeeper what
you need, and he gets it for you. None of the
typical pick and choose sort of grocery shopping.
We were pleasantly surprised to find oyster sauce
too – Singapore’s Kee’s brand even! We were then
given a tour of the local medical ‘health centre’
there and I saw the work of Dr Valerie where she
took on the roles of doctor, stocktaker,
storekeeper, and friend. I guess that’s how it is
in rural regions, where the doctor is just about
the port of call for everything and anything.

After an hour on the dingy, we finally arrived
Kapuna. Kapuna, which means place, is not
actually a village. Before I came, I tried
looking it up on Google maps, and what I got was
a jungle. And literally, it’s in the midst of the
jungle. Its not part of another settlement, it
functions wholly as a hospital. I guess you can
call it a hospital village. The buildings here
are all made it wood, and they house the staff,
patients, and patient’s family members. Here, the
whole family travel from neighbouring villages
for the sick to seek treatment, and when the
patient needs to stay in hospital, the family
stays in these houses, where they can cook and
provide for themselves. It’s a very different
concept from modern hospitals, where meals are provided by the hospital.

We were showed our home for the next three weeks,
and as soon as we got our stuff into the house,
we went around walking as Dr Valerie showed us
the locations of different fruit trees where
we’re free to pick our own fruits – coconuts
(favourite); pawpaws (which is papayas);
bananas(none for me, no thanks to my allergy);
guavas(ok); mini jambu; starfruit(second
favourite); lime etc, the hospital, and her own
home. She also gave us a breakdown of life in Kapuna along the way.

I guess I’ll give myself credit for doing rather
well so far – we’ve made ourselves somewhat
comfortable with the living conditions here; only
thing I can’t really handle yet is ultimately the
heat and humidity. I actually don’t internet
withdrawal symptoms (I’m pretty sure that’s the
heat taking over my whole mind – how to make
myself feel cooler!), and I am happy to put
myself to bed by 11pm (cos that’s when lights go
off, literally.) I look forward to simple
pleasures of life, like thinking of what fruit to
pick next, getting emails from family and
friends, and experiencing any amount of breeze I
can get. So, its my 5th day here. What have I learnt?

Well, I’ve learned that to cook anything, we have
to start a fire (Yenling jie, I wished I took
proper lessons from you over Christmas at Wales),
and its not all that fun given the climate that
I’m currently experiencing! Electricity runs from
7pm to 11pm (hence my bedtime of 11pm), so
boiling water from the electric kettle is unheard
of! I’ve definitely learnt to treasure whatever
electricity we’ve got. The heat and humidity are
also issues I battle with (on a daily basis), and
I’m so thankful I brought my prickly heat powder
– it does wonders! The early morning is cool, but
come 11am to about 4pm, the heat is unbearable,
and I can’t wait for it to rain. It’s also during
this time of the day when Grace and I are free,
and all I would do, is to sit out at the balcony
as I’m doing now, to catch as much breeze as
possible. It gets too hot to do anything though,
and I hope I’ll get used to the heat soon cos I
would probably need to do some reading, and
that’s about the only free time I can get each
day! 6pm is my favourite time of the day because
the weather is just right, I don’t mind getting
really smelly cos its time to bathe anyway, and
its time for picking fruits and gathering eggs
(at the expense of getting a loud chuckle from
the mother hen) and walking around Kapuna! I’m
also trying to face my phobias of lizards, slowly
but surely! There’s so many here, its literally a
way of life to be friends with them.

Hospital wise, we have been shadowing Valerie
around on her daily ward rounds. The day starts
early at 7am (yes! I can actually wake up at
6.30am nowadays, thanks to the chuckles of 20-30
chickens – I suspect they all think they’re part
of a choir or something), with Mondays,
Wednesdays and Fridays being kiddies’ ward round,
and Tuesdays, Thursday and Saturdays being
adults’ ward round. Wednesdays are also TB clinic
days, and everyday, Dr Lin (Dr Valerie’s
84-year-old mother) takes the mummies-to-be/new
mums clinic. We have seen quite a number of
interesting cases so far – a couple of
deliveries, a procedure to join the extensor
digitorium longus tendon of a woman who
accidentally cut herself with a knife back
together, TB affecting different kinds of organs
(breast, knee, lungs), a lady presenting with
pelvic pain + a huge lump in the hypogastric
region, and a male patient with symptoms that
can’t quite fit a diagnosis. Come tomorrow,
hopefully we’ll be able to run our own clinics
and see our own patients. Hope language won’t
pose too much of a problem (many patients come
from different villagers, where they speak their own local language)!

Dinners are times when we get together with Drs
Lin and Valerie, and the 2 Johns and the
Pattersons. Stories of snakes and crocodiles
experiences of working in the mission field and
sharing of NZ, Aussie and Malaysian/Singaporean
cultures have been exchanged over the meals, and
we’ve been blessed with good food. Mum and Pap,
don’t worry – I won’t starve. Just having had 4
dinners here, we’ve already eaten 2 meals of
crabs, pork, local vegetables, sago (different
kind from back home. The ones here come in
blocks), pasta, Chinese stirfry, fried rice with
smoked prawns (similar to dried shrimps,
hairbee), and lots of pawpaws (papayas).

I’ve met some pretty amazing people out here too.
Dr Valerie and Dr Lin are probably two of the
very few women I know who have boundless amount
of energy. They are on their feet the whole day,
from 6 in the morning, to 11 at night. Dr Lin,
affectionally known as Grandma to all, is a very
fit woman for her age, and she’s always out,
either doing her gardening, or seeing her
patients. Dr Valerie is on her feet 24/7 as well.
After seeing patients, she would teach the local
kids the recorder or piano (she got me to teach
them as well, and I’m probably gonna be teaching
them quite a lot these 2-3 weeks here!), or
she’ll chop the banana trees, or sort things out
in the medicine store, or jump into the river for
a swim. Really, the two Calverts put me to shame!

We attended our first church service today, and
as we sang different Christian songs in different
languages, I reflected and felt amazed at how I
could be miles away from home, from Singapore,
and yet be in a house of God, in a building made
of wood. The differences in surroundings between
PNG and Singapore/London are so apparent, yet all
God’s people can come together on a Sunday
morning, to worship the same true living God.
It’s just amazing. God really loves all His
people, and I was reminded of this song, which is
a personal favourite during my Sunday school days:

Jesus loves the little children
All the children of this world
Red and yellow, black and white; they are precious in His sight
Jesus loves the little children of the world.

And so, that’s how it’s been in PNG so far. It’s
been a week of many firsts. Tomorrow, we shall be
starting on hospital work proper. I shall bring you more next time!