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Published: October 23rd 2008
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A restful evening in Lisburn Anchorage
The local fishermen go out at sundown when the fishing is best. Well everyone, the expeditions in Espirito Santo were quite a lot of fun as well as being great successes. We started out from Luganville with a few setbacks, a full hold of medicine and three teams of doctors. The Clinic Team was comprised of: Sara, a midwife from the states; Anish, a med student from Oxford; Nina, a British doctor based in New Zealand; Rosie, the Kiwi 2nd mate of SV Alvei; and Harley, a local kid from Luganville that served as translator. The Mobile Medical Team was led by SueLin, an MD from the states; Sarah and Chris, med students from England; Amy, also a med student but from Wales (which I’ve leaned is NOT England, but is another country altogether); as well as four rotating camp managers George, Victoria, Mark, and Carolla, all of which were Alvei crew. The Jungle Mountain Clinic Team was headed by Dierdre, an Irish MD from Canada who initially set up the JMC; her partner Richard, also Canadian; plus Robin and Jemma, med students from England. As in the past, most of our med students came from King’s College in London.
Our first outing sent us to the West Coast of the island
The JMC drop off team
Here's Dr. Dierdre and the JMC team plus the Mobile Medical team preparing on the beach for the hike up the mountain. to drop off the JMC team (Jungle Mountain Clinic). The mission was to get the JMC team delivered and situated so that they could start their work, as well as launch an exploratory team to survey some of the remote jungle valleys. While this was happening the clinic team planned to set up shop in the Tasiriki dispensary to do maternity workshops with the women of the village.
After sailing Alvei around the Southern coast of the island we anchored for the night just off Tasiriki (a village on the Southwest corner of the island). In the morning we motored up the West Coast to drop off the Clinic and Mobile teams. The seas were pretty high and the delivery of goods in our shore boat was quite dicey. We couldn’t anchor the ship along the coast next to the drop-off point, so we had to perform what the crew came to call a 'combat' shore boat launching. While the ship motored out in the ocean we launched the Tinny (our aluminum shore boat), then loaded it with goods and crew, and took it into the surf. We had to make several trips with all the gear and doctors,
Rookie Hands
After weighing anchor for the first time, our baby doc's sprung a few leaks from fresh blisters. It can take a week for fresh hands to callous properly. and everything got wet. Landing the boat had to be done with oars (not motor) and the waves swamped the boat (flooded the boat) more than once. During one delivery trip, the doctors were swept from the boat onto the beach by crashing waves. We were all laughing so hard that we nearly couldn’t get the boat unloaded, and thankfully nobody was hurt. As it turned out, this was a great introduction for the rookies because it really showed them what they were getting into. This was going to be an extreme outdoor experience for them.
The hike to JMC makes the backpacking trips one does as a kid look like walks in the park. When you look at a map, the trip only appears to be 4 or 5 kilometers. What you don’t see (unless you look at a topographic map) is that there is a climb of 950 ft between the beach and the destination. The going was slow and the gear was heavy but in the end we all made it alive. There were some rather embarrassing moments along the trail but we laughed a great deal and it all came out well. Our med students
Little Pink
...never leave home without it... were not seasoned climbers and thus packed an incredible amount of gear. One such item was a pink, polka-dotted hand-bag. Mark Nolan, one of the Project MARC volunteers, ended up carrying this and other bags since he had packed rather lightly. At one rest stop in particular, Mark could no longer contain his curiosity. He threw down the pink bag and demanded to know what was in it. What happened next was straight out of the movie Spaceballs. (Cut to a desert scene, Lonestar opens a trunk of the princess’ matched luggage to find…) I’ll leave out the painful findings of the pink bag, but as a note to those who go for strenuous mountain hikes in the tropical jungle…you do not need makeup and daily face wash. You’ll be lucky to find potable running water.
That night after the climb, both the JMC team and the Mobile Medical team slept in the luxurious accommodations of the Jungle Mountain Clinic. (And by luxurious I mean grass huts with thatched roofs and a privy with a toilet seat.) The following morning started with farewells between doctors and the start of another long hike for the Mobile Team.
The mission
Spooky forrest
This was one of the flat patches of land that we got to walk accross. It didn't happen too often of the mobile team was to survey the valleys surrounding the Jungle Mountain Clinic for health concerns, and to look for potential new projects for next year. This little trip was only going to last for two and a half days but would prove to be the most strenuous part of the whole month. The hike from JMC to the second campsite took the mobile team through valleys and up cliffs. This second day of climbing turned out to be twice as difficult as the first day. After the expedition, one of the med students shared excerpts from her journal. She said that once she reached the JMC on the first day, she wrote that it had been “the hardest day of her life” and that she “was amazed that she could accomplish what she had.” Then on the night of the second day, she wrote, “Yesterday I was wrong. Today was the hardest day of my life. The first hike was easy, but today I contemplated dying several times.”
In total, the mobile medical team’s first expedition visited nearly a dozen villages and treated scores of patients. One village stop in particular turned into a full-blown clinic stop.
Swimming Delivery
Here's George idling in the surf while the supply train daisy chains the goods to the swimmer. This village, Lowia, where we made camp for the second night was next to the derelict Tarwalapa Aid Post. There hadn’t been a village health worker for two years so the aid post had been inactive for a while. The Pareo Valley where the aid post is located has no road access, and is situated on such steep slopes of the valley that it is nearly impossible to get supplies or building materials there. The people are amazing and the need is great. I’d really like for Project Marc to make it back to this area, but we’ll have to see if that is possible in the future.
Our pick-up on the beach was just as dicey as the original landing. The call for the day was more combat boat launching and a swimming delivery to the shore boat from the beach. The waves were rolling hard onto the stony beach and the surf was too big to bring the boat onto the shore. The Tinny had to idle just outside the wave break because it was far too dangerous to come into the break zone. By “swimming delivery” I mean that all the gear had to be carried
Safely soaked
We all made it safe and soaked, but were laughing at ourselves for the less-than-graceful retrieval. through the surf and then swum over the waves to the shore boat. Imagine if you will, treading water with a 20-kilo backpack held over your head while bobbing in the waves. After a shore boat run with the gear, the doctors and crew had to swim through the waves to catch the boat ride back to Alvei. All in all, it was a lot of extreme sporting fun. Nothing stayed dry.
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Mom
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Old Lady Backpacker
Hey, Rapha, If she's gonna make good on her pledge to go help you after she retires, this ol' lady had better hit the weights Big time! And I thought the Rockies were steep! ;) Love, mom