Ruth Chen’s Blog

14/03/2009 0915 GMT +10) Post Patrol and Orientating myself to Kikori

Hello world! I’m still very much alive and am
finally at Kikori now, after meandering through
the many rivers and creeks of Gulf Province!

Its been an interesting week so far. What meant
to be a 5-day patrol was cut short to 3 days, and
we arrived at Kikori earlier than expected.

It was sad to leave Kapuna on Monday – Grace and
I were walking around Kapuna, saying our goodbyes
to the patients as well as friends we’ve made
during our time there, taking some photos along
the way. We were blessed to have received so much
from the people at Kapuna during our stay there –
Valerie and Grandma, for feeding us so well, with
both food and stories; Uncle John, for being a
fatherly figure to us, sending food and
necessities our way; Debbie and Robbie, for
giving us pointers before we even stepped foot
into Kapuna; the kids, for the amount of laughter
they bring; the girls, for the amount of stories
and music they have to share; Paul, for being
instrumental in my connection to the outside
world (he does the radio-thing that allows us to
receive and send out emails); the Kapuna staff,
for teaching us practical stuff like how to
deliver a baby (!); the English speaking
patients, who are lifesavers in terms of helping
a struggling med student like myself to translate!

Anyway, we were meant to leave at about 8ish. But
as with all things, we finally only left at half
9. The tide came up quite high, and we began our
journey of becoming PNG-ified as we waddled
barefooted through the water to get to our dingy!
Our first stop was Baitoti, where we stopped to
get some drinks and random food stuff at the
store. There, we met a Chinese guy (first Chinese
guy I’ve seen since I left for PNG), and very
quickly we started chatting (in Mandarin)! Yes,
my Mandarin is a bit rusty, but good on me, I
still managed pretty well. Apparently his whole
family is here, and his parents run a store at
Kikori (see later). He gave us 2 cans of coke
(haven’t had that in ages), and we were trying to
save it for later in the trip, but some kid from
the village nicked it! Ohwell, nevermind.

**

So after that, we began our patrol proper. Our
first stop was Bavi. We got started really
quickly, with some patrol members doing screening
(where they weigh the children, and check what
immunizations they need), and others doing things
like drawing up the immunizations, giving
immunizations, and seeing patients. It became
rather chaotic with the villagers all flowing in
(like an army), kids crying and brawling their
eyes out, parents telling kids to shut up,
onlookers laughing and trying to pin the child
down etc. You can picture it. I got started on
drawing up immunizations at Bavi, but later that
got quite monotonous so we rotated around, and at
the other villages (Buri, Ubu’o, Goilavi), I gave
the imms (and made lots of kids cry), saw
patients and screened them too. One thing about
giving imms though, you’ve got to be really
strong, and not care too much about hurting the
kid. Some of them are really strong, and if you
don’t pin them down proper, you run the risk of a
needle stick injury/having to give them another
jab bcos the needle comes out. The worst one to
give is BCG – to draw it up is already quite
difficult due to the tiny amount that is required
(0.05ml/0.1ml). To give it intradermal is
tortuous. The kid struggles so much and you
actually need to get the bulge in the skin before
you can withdraw the needle. Anyway, I hate giving BCGs.

Apparently these villages have not been visited
in quite awhile, and because villagers tend to
deliver in the village, very few parents actually
bring their children to the health centre for
imms. So we had a lot of kids who had been
overdued for their imms coming in, much more than
anticipated. Some were quite old (like 3-4 years
old, the worst age for immunizations really), and
what meant to be a small-ish village had about 80
kids coming in for imms (small village = about 30
kids). We intended to go to 6 villages, but
because we ran out of vaccines, we had to cut
short the patrol. A pity though, for the other 2 villages to have missed out.

Grace saw a severely malnourished child during
patrol as well, and it was really heartbreaking
to see the kid. One wonders – how can any parent
allow her kid to go on like that without seeking
any form of help at all? The pains of poverty and
ignorance I suppose? We didn’t have the resources
for that child and the best advice we could give
was for his mother to send him to the hospital
asap. We also saw a emaciated man who had an
array of symptoms with episodes of fainting +
jerking movements (?tics) + chronic backache +
cough + weight lost + lethargy, but no fever or
night sweats (on the contrary, feeling cold all
the time). We wondered if he was Parkinson due to
the ?tremor he had, or some sort of neurological
thing going on (had abit of passing pointing +
intention tremor). We’re not sure if the team
managed to pick these 2 cases up on the way back,
but in any case, we shall find out soon. Other
cases I saw were conditions like malaria, ?TB, GI
reflux, musculoskeletal pains etc. The rest of
the patrol experience from the other villages is
kinda hazy to me, perhaps due to the combination
of the intensity of the work we were doing +
stresses of moving around everyday.

After each visit to the village, if it were too
late, we would stay in that village. The local
villagers would look for a house for us to stay
for the night, and the first night was spent at
Bavi, the second at Ubu’o (the chief’s house). To
actually live out in these villages was quite an
experience, I must say. For one, there was no
electricity at Bavi. So when it got dark, it
really got dark. The villagers use kerosene lamps
and even then, everything was quite dim. My handy
headlight definitely came in very useful those 2
nights. To live out there was to soak oneself in
the PNG culture/lifestyle. After a few failed
attempts to walk with our sandals, I soon gave up
and walked around barefoot (To lose my sandals
while I waddle through the mud would be worse
than getting my feet all dirty!). I tried my best
to control my water intake too so that I didn’t
have to visit the loo (of long-drop variety) too
often as well. Fortunately, we didn’t need to get
up in the middle of the night to find our way to
the loo (located by the river!). I never really
realised the advantage of a full moon until this
time on patrol, where a full moon actually helped
a lot in terms of getting around in the dark!

Each morning, we would have to then pack up our
sleeping stuff, and move onto the next village.
It was fantastic that many people would actually
come forward to help us move stuff to the dingy!
The villagers would then give us parting gifts
like coconuts (yummy), pineapples and guavas (big
yums). On the whole, going on patrol felt really
satisfying. I actually felt like I was able to
help the villagers, especially those who could
not get to help, those in proper need. To wrap
things up, by the time we finished at Goilavi,
most of our supplies ran out, and so we decided to head to Kikori.

According to Olina, the villages we visited were
infested with these annoying flies. But during
patrol, as she said, it was a miracle that the
mudflies were nowhere near us. Praise God – He
really watched over us! Thanks to Uncle John’s
rather soothing insecting repellent lotion too!
Another miracle was journey mercy that was
granted to us. So many times, we saw rain pouring
in a distance. But we didn’t get any rain when we
were traveling in between the villages at all. Our God is really great!

**

So now at Kikori, we’re trying to pass time.
We’ve got no kids to teach music to, we’ve got no
fruits to pick. And, we woke up early too (thanks
to the chickens). So, after having breakfast,
watching a movie, and blogging this post, its only 10.30am! Ohwell.

Kikori has a different feel to Kapuna. I miss
Kapuna already – the community, the activities we
do, the walkabouts we had, the pawpaws and
coconuts (mmm). The compound here feels bigger
and less personal, with more staff housing around
and we’re living in a house that’s next to one of
the doctors. It didn’t take long for us to fit
right back in with the modern tools of living
i.e. gas stove and fridge, + fan though! More electricity time as well.

Kikori is much bigger, with more people as well.
In Kapuna, the staff at the hospital forms the
community. But here, you’ve got people from the
hospital, the local people, and workers from the
big logging companies around this area. It’s more
crowded, and they’ve got more stores here too. We
went down for a walk yesterday, and bought stuff
like tinned curry chicken, ice popsicles, and
chicken! We also met the family of the guy whom
we met at Baitoti. They are a family of five from
the province of Guangdong, of Toechew descent,
and they have been running the Jackson store down
in the ‘town centre’ for about 5-6 years now. I
think they’ve kinda ‘adopted’ us (in Dr Manar’s
words), giving us stuff (my favourite pork mince
with bean paste, plus some pork and beef!). They
even invited us over for dinner! So yeah, we went
over last night (don’t worry Mum and Dad, we
found out from the doctors here that it was safe
to do so), and the mum cooked up a storm, with
traditional Teochew cuisine – taukwa mixed with
pork + pork ribs and red dates + sharks’ fin
even! Who would have thought that we would get
proper Teochew food in Kikori?! Oh, and I’ve put
my mandarin and abit of Teochew into good use.
Afterall, I was speaking Mandarin for a whole
night (yes, hard to imagine). I wonder where our
ancestors come from – maybe somewhere around
their area? (No Kor, not the ‘London version’ of ancestors).

So anyway, that’s Kikori for now. Very
interesting experiences and people I’ve met so
far. We shall see what the rest of my time here
brings! Just 10 more days left here!