What a week it’s been here in the Gulf of Papua New Guinea! I’ve really learned what village life is all about this week. Our team of seven left on Tuesday to go on patrol to villages along the river and on the coast in order to give children routine vaccinations and treat sick or injured patients in the village. Since travel in this part of the country is by boat only (or dugout canoe in the case of the natives), most of the sick aren‚t able to be brought to Kapuna hospital.
It was quite an experience to say the least, but overall, a good one! We stopped at three villages a day, and we spent the night in whatever village we happened to be in when the sun went down. When we reached Old I‚Aire (our first stop) our boat pulled up next to an old, half-submerged log sticking out into the water. I found out that this was their dock and was contemplating how get off of the boat and up onto land carrying my bag without getting wet when what I swear was the entire village ran to the river bank to greet us. The adults were clothed but all of the children were naked, carrying bow and arrows made out of local plants. It was wild. I somehow made it up the log and was looking forward to standing on solid ground when I realized that the walkways through the village were nothing but logs suspended over the muddy earth. As it turns out, all of the villages are designed this way because the ground is essentially swamp and muddy all the time. Y’all who know me will be very impressed with the fact that I only slipped once in four days in the villages. Someone was definitely looking out for me.
Each village was much different than I expected! I imagined that most people would live as they did in my experiences in the small towns in Mexico, with people living in shacks and eating food with little nutritional value. The villages in PNG actually seem very untouched by the rest of the world, and with the exception of the people’s clothing and nails in some of the houses, everything that the people survive on and with comes from the land around them. The villages were actually quite beautiful; there were coconut trees and beautiful flowers growing everywhere and all of the houses were raised on log posts above the ground. I was amazed to find out that all of the houses are built completely by hand (the logs for the framework/floor/and material for the walls are all cut with an ax). Some of the houses were actually pretty big; since the material comes from the land, the size of the house is not dependent on the wealth of the family but only on how much work they want to put into it. The people cook over fire, sleep on the floor, bathe in the muddy river water, and use these dreadful, long-drop toilets built in the bush. I felt like I had stepped back in time.
Over the course of the week I did get to eat some interesting food. The staple of the PNG people is a food called sago, which is basically the inside of the sago palm tree scraped out and beaten with a stick until the pith separates. They take that and cook it inside a banana leaf and flavor it by adding coconut, banana, or even grubworms (thankfully, I didn‚t have to eat any of the latter!). We also had dried fish, crabs (every day!), oranges, banana, coconut, and some kind of weird thing from a tree that looked like a Christmas ornament and tasted a little bit like wood. We also snacked on sugar cane (my favorite). I stayed up late telling stories with the nurses on the last night, and they told me I was becoming a true PNGian, and they were proud of me for eating all the village food. They said I even ate foods that they wouldn’t eat…haha.
The friendliness of the village people was amazing to me. We didn’t know a soul in the village on the first night, but immediately after we arrived one of the men came and offered his house to us for the night (he then told us to wait outside while he ran in and made sure it was okay with his wife). I loved seeing the patients when we held clinic. The kids would run over and play with my hair and sit in my lap (until I pulled out their injections) and we were really able to treat a lot of patients. We saw many with probable malaria, pneumonia and bronchitis, and injuries from wild pigs and bush knives. I also got to see a lot of pregnant women and do their antenatal checkups.
I was reflecting yesterday on my village experiences this past week. Y’all know that I love being outdoors and don‚t mind getting dirty and all that, but that at the end of the day I really need my hot shower and comfortable bed. Knowing that I was going to be thrown even further out of my comfort zone, I was a little nervous what the week was going to be like. In Ephesians 6:7, Paul writes this: “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does.” Now I’m not necessarily a vocal complainer, but in my head this week I pretty frequently thought about how horrible the heat was, how dirty I felt, how I hadn‚t washed my hair in four days, etc. Over and over again, though, I had the same response to these thoughts “it’s not about me.” Realizing this made the work so much easier. I think that, as humans, it’s very easy for us to get wrapped up in our own needs and desires, but as Christians we are called to serve with the same humility as Christ served. When we give up our own self-interest, we can really serve with joy, love, and kindness.
The cool thing is that we’re not alone in our struggle to serve and do God’s will. Christ gives us the power to lay aside our own personal needs and concerns, and once we figure out how to serve others, we’ll gain the desire to do it more. Over the course of the week, working in the heat and dirt stopped bothering me (as much). Isn’t it neat how that works?
The hospital has been fairly busy this weekend. Yesterday I got to help reduce an ulnar/radial fracture in the arm of a little boy who had fallen off a roof, and spent two hours cleaning out wounds of a man who had been attacked by a crocodile while washing in the river. He was really lucky to even be alive. Last night Manar and I hosted a little dinner party for some of our new friends and I got to practice cooking PNG-style (and decided I can‚t wait to have French fries and ice cream when I get home!).
We had church this morning (for three hours!) and I was asked to stand up and share my experiences from the village patrol. They had a special prayer for Manar and I as we are leaving tomorrow to go work at Kikori hospital for the next two weeks. It is so cool to me how much the community has welcomed and included us in everything. I’m really going to miss a lot of the people here but am excited about working at Kikori (very busy and lots of babies!). Thank you all so much for your continued prayers! I miss you all but will hopefully be in touch soon!