35 days and counting

It is Saturday Feburary 25th, 2012 at about noon here in PNG. The sun is shining and for the first time while living here I slept late. This morning reminded me of they days prior to Gracie. Ten o’clock rolled around before I crept out of bed groggily looking for my family.

Steve made us breakfast. Blueberry pancakes, and the best part is…That he is cleaning up while I sit here in front of the bay windows blogging.

Gracie is out in the front yard playing…Hmmm you ask?? Playing, Yup that’s right I had to learn to relax a little, therefore she is out side by herself, playing. I was originally out there with her but she was brining dirt/mud over to me and spreading it on my pants so rather than tell her she couldn’t play in the mud, I left her out there alone. ☺

This week seemed to fly by. We are officially almost half way done with our trip. We have been out of the US for 35 out of our 81 days. It was today, one month ago that we reached PNG on January 25th. Although the first several weeks seemed to have taken months to pass our last 2 weeks have flown by. For those of you who were asking we have 47 more sleeps in PNG and 3 more sleeps in New Zealand so 50 more days.

I have begun working at the clinic. This last Thursday was an eye opener. As a nurse here you work with Americans/Australians/Kiwis/Koreans basically anyone that is part of SIL. The Doctors however take call working with PNG nationals to give care to the people of PNG. Right now there are 2 doctors here Dr. Jeff and Dr. Helen. Every other day they are available to help give care to the hundred or so people that wait outside the clinic hoping that they got here early enough to be seen that day. The SIL clinic and the UHC (Ukarumpa Health Clinic) are in different buildings and the two do not mix. At first this was very disappointing to me as I can take care of white people that speak English at home! But after some thought and prayer the Lord helped me to realize that this is good too. For one I do not Tok Pisin. I can’t communicate and take a good history of their illness if I don’t’ speak the language. Second the Dr’s here are so awesome that they involve you anyway! Dr. Jeff pulled me in on Thursday to watch an ultrasound of a 50 year old whose liver was HUGE. She unfortunately had large amounts of tumor in her liver and spleen and Dr. Jeff had to tell and her daughter that she only had maybe several months to live. The average age here is much shorter then America 50-60 is old is a long life here. I think in part the hard work and sun take years off of their life. Anyway this was a sad day to realize that many of the Nationals come to the clinic too late and if they had been seen earlier they many may not have had the finances anyway.

Next week I will be traveling to the Primary school with another nurse to do eye exams on all the students there. It will probably be a three-day job since we both only work half days 8am-12pm. I know rough right? Ukarumpa only has daycare in the AM so most mom’s only work then. I will be there on Tuesday and Friday. Gracie will be dropped of in the morning and she has learned that it isn’t so bad. But we know it isn’t nearly as fun as going to Grammy and Papa’s house.

Yesterday we spent time walking out to our House Mary’s village. We took a little over 150 pictures of her family. She is one of 7 but there were only 4 brothers and sisters there and their children and it was still a HUGE family. They were so excited for us to come and we were so blessed by the experience. Now I will need to find a way to print the pictures and hopefully laminate them so that they will be safe for her family. My plan is to print perhaps maybe the best 15-20 pictures several times for each of the families to own. It was important for me to capture many pictures of her mother as she is in her 60’s they think (Many people don’t know when they were born) and is probably reaching the end of her life. We alos got a few pictures of a bunch of black skin children and Gracie sticking out like a sore thumb! So cute!!
- Thanks Dad for the spare camera battery it has come in handy!

I hope this blog finds you well. Perhaps we can send some of our sun home as we are in need of rain here for the gardens and for drinking water. Want to trade? How did I know you would? We had a small amount of rain last night but that was the first rain for almost 2 weeks.

Love you all greatly.

xoxo,

~Becky