Moving departments

March 15, 2016

Greetings friends! We are well into our second week of this outreach. Donna has remained in the Community Engagement and is still enjoying her work with the children in the villages that we visit. We have noted that in villages where there is a school, the kids are far more able to sit and listen, respond, concentrate and learn. In the villages we’ve visited so far this week, there has been no school available for the kids and they are much more unruly and inattentive. It’s such a stark difference!! But the team makes the most of the opportunities they have to teach about TB, hand washing, brushing teeth, etc. It seems very basic, but in this village culture it’s not a given.

I have moved (at my request, I wanted to experience other opportunities) to the ship. In the mornings I work with the zodiac drivers as a bowman and in the afternoons in the galley, preparing meals!! As a bowman I work with an experienced driver of an 8 or 20 passenger boat. We go from the ship to the villages in the morning and drop off the teams working there and pick up patients for dental clinic and bring them back to the ship. My job as bowman is to watch for logs and debris in the water and point it out to the driver when I see if it's going to hurt the zodiac. I also hop out and secure the boat when we reach a village (always jumping into mud!!) I do odd jobs for the driver and make sure he has what he needs and I do a lot of waiting around.

I have been struck by the realization that almost none of the villagers will wear shoes their entire lives! It seems like a small thing, but, I don’t know, it just struck me today. I go barefoot a lot, because of the mud (every village we visit is on a riverbank), if I were to wear my river shoes they would be sucked off quickly and lost! So I leave my shoes in boat and walk barefoot in the villages. I have had a few splinters and cuts to prove it!

We had an eventful weekend. There was some clan unrest and a man was slashed with a bush knife, they brought him to the PNG and the doctors and nurses worked on him to keep him alive overnight (we just didn’t have the resources to operate). In the morning a helicopter picked him up (he had to be moved by boat to another village where the copter landed and took him to the closest village with a hospital. You can read the account at: https://ywamships.org.au/helicopter-rescueman-transported-daru-serious-condition/

I also work in the galley now in the afternoons and these are some of the hardest working people on the ship. They start work at 8:30am (6am if they are making breakfast) and basically work with a one-hour break at lunch until dinner at 6pm!! The leaders are very organized, responsive, gracious and fun. I work with a crew of 3 PNG nationals and one other guy from the US. We cook, we clean constantly, we wash dishes, we prepare meals sometimes days in advance. My level of respect for the work they do has skyrocketed!! I’m glad I took the time to be in this department!

We are just a few more days on the Bamu River. We will sail back to the capital Port Moresby on Friday and have a final day together on Saturday. I’ve become more comfortable and in the flow of ship life. It’s a pleasure to serve with such dedicated people.

Mark