Saturday, September, 15

A few days ago one of the doctors that was here for a couple of years returned with his fiancé and a team of workers including a occupational therapist, radiologist, pharmacist and a German carpenter. Today they left for Kapuna (about 10 hours by the slow canoe). The faster the boat, the more expensive the trip. The faster boat takes about 4-5 hours. Kapuna is where the other hospital is. They will be coming back to Kikori and staying for another week or so. The pharmacist was sorting out the dispensary and found many out of date drugs. We still use the out of date drugs as that is better than no drugs. With this team of people, they brought with them food and so this week we have been well fed. Yesterday at the market we bought a pig’s leg and eel. The pork was nice but the eel was a bit tough.

I have not been sleeping well. Not used to the stupid rooster crowing all the time. I’m using ear plugs now but when Dr.Valerie leaves, I’m going to have to come up with another plan. With my ear plugs I would not hear the door knock. Maybe a string tied to my toe and hanging out the window so the nurses can pull the string and I would feel my toe move and wake up. I’m sure by the time I’m done here I would sleep in exhaustion and won’t even need ear plugs.

In the middle of the week I was missing Ingo very much. I have learned my lesson, I won’t be apart from him for more than two weeks ever again. I don’t think I can handle it. Marriage does do that to you, I suppose.

Well my wonderful mom sent me a birthday card and I got it a couple of days ago. It was just so nice to get something from somebody. It only took a bit over a week to get here from Japan. So any of you fancy to send me a card or letter, that would be nice. My address is: Kikori District Hospital, Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea.

Please pray that the hospital find a Papua New Guinean doctor to fill this place before I leave at the end of December. The hospital has just put an advertisement for a vacant doctor post in the national paper. Please pray that the right doctor comes. It would be nice to have one while I’m here for support and help. It’s a busy hospital and could do with two really. So the sooner they get a doctor the better. Then I can leave in peace as well knowing that this place will be taken care of. Plus a Papua New Guinean doctor would know how to deal with things in rural areas as they are trained for it.