I have made it one week

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The past week has both flown and crept by. I have many contradicting feelings and thoughts about my stay here so far, it is amazing and lonely, exciting and laid back.

The city is pretty run down and very dusty. Rainy season ended a few weeks ago so now the days are full of blazing sun, blowing dust, and intense, wet heat. The mornings and evenings are comfortable enough but by about 1pm I find myself covered in sweat and moving very slowly.

I spend my days at the clinic from 8am until about 6pm. The mornings we do prenatals for a few hours, as a steady stream of pregnant woman stop in to have their bulging bellies measured and their weight, blood pressure, and heart tones taken. Each day we see over 50 women, most for antenatal care but a few for family planning. I give many injections of Depo which is so needed in a country where the birth rate is so high, there are no jobs, and not enough food. Yesterday a woman gave birth to her 11 baby and they do not havethe means to support this huge family. Each day we have at least one birth and on Monday there were 5 within 24 hours. Last week at one point we had to track down and extra bed and put it in the waiting area because we had 6 women postpartum and only 5 beds.

Last Sunday I was invited to Catholic mass with my house-mates. We were up and ready to leave at 5 am and walked a few miles to the huge Catholic church they attend. It was dark and peaceful as we made our way to the church. I am finding that East Timorese do not move very fast and it took me a while to adjust to this change of pace, as I am usually running around. In fact, one of my house-mates teases me that malai mutin (white foreigners) move too fast. At the church we took our seats with over 300 other Timorese for an outside mass as the sun came up. Through the trees I could make out Christo Rei, the giant statue of Christ that is perched on one of the beaches in Dili.

Yesterday, I went along on a mobile clinic to a refuge camp in Metinoro. It was the first mobile clinic I have attended. We packed up one of the clinic's 4WD vehicles and 8 of us crammed in for the hour long drive out to the camp. We left Dili and climbed a steep, windy road passed several pedestrians and locals alongside the road. Several were bathing in the runoff from the hill and one man was cutting a young boys hair, barely off the road. The giant SUV swerved with amazing skill to miss him, and the driver didn't even think twice about it. The foreign doctor I was with, from England, and I both gasped but this is driving in Timor. We crested the hill and began our descent on the other side to an amazing view of the lush green hill and bright blue water. The are was hot and smelled sweet, like oranges, as we passed a cliff by the ocean with a huge white cross erected on it. Soon we pulled into the refugee camp, a collection of grass roofed huts and large white tents, to a large group of internally displaced people waiting to see the doctors. The local midwife I was with and I set up in the back but only did a handful of antenatal screens and a few Depo injections. Mostly I watched as nearly a hundred people stood patiently in line to talk to the doctors about what was ailing them or their child. Quite a few chest infections, ear infections, and one recent stroke. The doctors did what they could with the supplies and medicine that they had and after nearly 3 hours we were on our way back.

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