Hi Everybody,

We are finished… well almost!

As usual, due to local conditions; challenges abound. The system is all in place and I went to flick the switches this afternoon and …….. nothing! After much unprintable muttering I did some fault finding and isolated the problem to a switch that is not carrying current. This is hardly surprising considering the lower quality of many products available here. I have constructed a switchboard out of fuses and switches that I’m sure were manufactured before World War II !! The overall appearance of the board would not look out of place in a Frankenstein movie. Hopefully all will work well once we have replaced the faulty part tomorrow. We will see!

Another unusal challenge - Monkeys! There are about 10 or 15 of them who wander through here every few days. They are quite large and they would have no trouble throwing me off the roof and pillaging all my work if they chose to. Accordingly we are all on monkey watch during daylight hours. The clinic will soon install barbed wire around the solar panels which hopefully will keep the (not so) little devils out.

Patients pour into the clinic daily and many of them are a pitiful sight. Today a young boy of about 5 came in with a club foot. This was caused by cerebral palsy which in this region is most commonly caused by malnutrition of the pregnant mother, the child or both. His foot was rotated at 90 degrees to his leg and turned on its side. He was basically walking on his ankle. Although the clinic’s acupuncture doctor can successfully treat the effects of cerebral palsy, this particular case is so far progressed that it can only be cured by surgery in a hospital. The approximately $300 Australian dollars required is completely beyond the means of the villagers here who earn less than a dollar a day. We felt we had to intervene as the child would be crippled for life unless he recieved surgery. I hope to fundraise for this on my return. If I’m unable to, I will pay for this out of my own pocket. All going well, the surgery will get underway in the next few weeks.


Although these cases are heartbreaking and sadly very common, it’s important not to lose sight of the fact that the clinic’s most important mission is education of the villagers which will help prevent many diseases (including cerebral palsy) before they strike. It’s only by focusing on the task of raising knowledge about nutrition and hygiene that the general health of the community can be improved. To do this the clinic needs continuing funding for the salaries of existing and new staff. With additional and better trained staff the number as well as the sophistication of education programs in the surrounding villages can be increased.

We have taken quite a deal of video and we will create a DVD highlighting the conditions here and the work of the clinic on our return to Australia.

That’s all for now. Will let you know when the system is actually up and running – tomorrow….. perhaps!

Cheers,

Anton