Bush visit!

So this past week has been adventurous!
Monday and Tuesday were busy with patients, including some more surgery assisting, another snakebite patient (not too sick) and a man with a puzzling presentation of ascites [medics: diarrhoea followed by rapid onset ascites, high fevers, but no hepatomegaly or splenomegaly. Then a massive thrombocytosis. PMH of TB percarditis]. I also took a history from a lady with bleeding and severe anaemia which her son interpreted and translated to a CHW, who then translated again to me!
On Wednesday I went out to an aidpost to stay with the CHW (Danwaf) based there. I went to a village called Senamrae. The drive there was eventful with flooded sections of the road and vehicles driving past with big numbers on top, telling you to pull over because a convoy of however many large vehicles was coming!
I met the family, with their 2 kids (girl age 9, boy age 3) and had a little tour of the aidpost. A young brother of mum is currently staying with the family too as his school has no teacher, so is closed. Basically the aidpost is a a couple of rooms for seeing patients in, with some basic medicines. The family currently don't have a house, so are staying in the 2 other rooms of the aidpost. They have a tap outside (although they dug a well when the tank ran dry last week) and a hut as a kitchen, where mum cooks on a fire in a hole in the ground. There is sometimes power in the evenings, with a light in one of the rooms. I stayed in the aidpost's radio room.
The family made me feel so welcome during my stay, and were so generous. They don't have much food at the moment, but shared all that they have. I don't think I've ever eaten so much carbohydrate! I helped with a clinic doing child immunisations and saw outpatients with Danwaf. In between I would play ball with the children and introduced them to 'snap' with a pack of cards I had brought (well, a simplified version of snap, where whoever turns over the matching card gets the snap! I also discovered that snap by suit rather than numbers does not work- it just never ends!). In the evenings I would sit with the family preparing food, eat together on the floor and share Bible passages and talk. We had some great conversations about PNG and English culture. Some of my favourite questions (reminding me of when I was asked in South Africa whether we have black people in England!) were 'do you have grass in England?' and 'do you have poor people in England?'! I really enjoyed talking and praying with Christian brothers and sisters with the same Father God!
On walks around the village I saw things like wild grapefruit trees, sago swamps, and a cassowary, which I had imagined to be like a chicken, but is actually more like an ostrich with a brightly coloured neck and dinosaur-esque face! I drank coconut milk from fresh young coconuts knocked from the tree, and I saw sago grubs, which are in amazing little cocoons, and which Danwaf ate raw!
That probably sounds a bit romanticised - it certainly was a privilege and blessing to be welcomed into the family's home and see their life, but it was also tough to see how hard their life is and to see the challenges they face daily in providing the first point of healthcare for people in that community. On a basic note, coming back today I had a brilliant shower and very much enjoyed sitting on chairs and using a real toilet!