Greetings
from Amazon Bay, PNG. We had a 14-hour sail down the coast overnight to reach
the bay this morning about 9am. Apparently there’s a big storm hundreds of
miles away in the Coral Sea and the swells from that storm have moved, unabated
across the ocean and gave our sail up to 6-foot swells to deal with. The result
of that unfortunate event was that myself and many of my companions on this
little ship at sea experienced that wondrous event known as seasickness. Wow, I
can’t remember the last time I felt so sick!
I
had taken motion sickness medicine earlier in the evening but about 1am it wore
off and the “fun” began! I didn’t sleep the remainder of the night, kept my
wife up with my untimely throwing up and in fact many of the people that live
along my hallway have approached me today to see if I’m alive, since they heard
it too!! L What a terrible feeling nausea is!! So, today, I am taking it
slow and working on recovering and catching up.
The
bay here is my idea of paradise, I can look out from the ship and see sandy spits
of land and islands with white beaches, waves and coral reefs. This is a large
bay with several inlets and many islands that have small villages on them. It
is only accessible by boat, so it is still quite pristine. Tomorrow, when I am
back in the villages, I will be able to see what it’s like there.
This
week has been slamming so far, very busy in every village and populations
ranging from 500 to 3,000! In the biggest villages we gave out over 9,000
immunizations for different things in one day!! Our optometry team has been
working non-stop during the days. When we have the full team there are 10 of
us, two licensed optometrists and the rest of us doing visual acuity tests and
testing people for readers (reading glasses) as well as registering people and
taking time with them. The people here live in strong sunlight and the UV
intensity really wrecks havoc with their eyesight. Add to that there is one
major hospital that serves the entire country and you have a receipt for poor
eye health. We see about 200 people on a normal day this week (less in the smaller villages)! In the work of our professionals, they see about 20 people a day!
Our
work not only involves testing but teaching as well. There is an eye problem called Pterygium that is a growth that starts in the corner of the eye and
if untreated will eventually cover the entire eye! I see lots of this among our
patients and it is easily preventable if people wear sunglasses or hats and
protect their eyes from the harsh sun, especially on the water (it's often called the "surfer's eye"). It is easy for you and me to run to the
corner store and get some, but not for people who live in remote and isolated
places. It breaks my heart to see this and so we teach as well as help.
My
week in optometry has been eye opening for me (pun intended)! Tomorrow will be
my last day in this clinic and after the weekend I will move into the dentistry
clinic. This should also prove to be a lot of work, just like all the other
clinics! This weekend we will have a time of rest and hopefully some swimming
in the warm PNG waters. Next week will be our last here before beginning our
travels back to the US.
Mark
Here I am with some of the kids from one of the villages!! They are great fun to spend time with!
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