Earthquakes, Volcanos, Tsunamis, and other Natural Disasters

Due to its geographical location and topography, PNG and West New Britain Island specifically are ridiculously vulnerable to almost every type of natural disaster imaginable. The last month that I have been here, there have been small earthquakes every week, including one recently centred just out of Kandrian that was recorded at 6.6 on the Richter scale, although it never made headlines. Friday March 11th, the massive 8.9 quake hit in Japan, and out here on the islands we were on the highest level of alert – tsunami warning.

Kimbe market with the 'higher ground' in the background

Feeling a little forgotten, the only international news we could get on the major news networks, on the likelihood of these waves reaching our coastlines were reports from Australia (stating that they were safe as they are shielded by islands like ours), a few vague reports from the Philippines and Indonesia, as well as some predictions from Hawaii. We were told the waves were due to arrive around 10pm, however at 830pm the power went out, and the town was left in blackout. Simon, and I had our emergency bags packed, and Ellen, being the only one with previous tsunami warning experience, was ready to take some important decisions, should the waves come our way. The north coast of mainland PNG saw the sea recede well below the low-tide line, which usually predicts a subsequent influx of water, and therefore towns like Vanimo evacuated low-lying areas including their local hospital. Manus Island received a small tsunami of 40cm or so. Here in Kimbe, to our relief, no effects were observed. This was fortunate for us, especially as being Friday night, in blackout, there was really no safe way for us to get ourselves out of the house compound to make the trek through the jungle up the hill behind the town. Similar to my recent bout of malaria this week, this experience was another good test of preparedness, and definitely gave me some things to think about. In the future I will keep a better supply of things like phone credit and food in the house to be better prepared for a natural disaster – based on the warning signs over the last few weeks, there is a good chance that they will end up being needed!

Malaria

Monday night, I woke up freezing cold, shaking, and due to some serious back pains, unable to find a comfortable position to sleep in. Damn. I thought back to my last trip in a Malaria endemic zone – two months living on the Nile river in Uganda, camping out in tents, spending the evenings outside, and to be honest, not really taking a lot of precautions against the ruthless mosquitos. I never got sick. I couldn’t believe that here I was in urban Kimbe, in my well-screened house that I am inside by 5pm every evening, with the classic symptoms of a case of malaria. I suppose it was a good wakeup call to be a bit less complacent. I spent the morning gathering up what strength I had, knowing that once I managed to get that essential blood smear, I could retreat to the comforts of my home and bed. However, the clinic at the hospital was closed, and as we were told, had been so for a few months. The VCT, where Ellen knew the sister that might do a slide, was locked up, as was the Pathology lab. We even wandered over to one of the private clinics, but it turned out that Dr was out of town on a trip to Bialla. Finally we got to another private clinic (with for the record, an excellent physician), got the blood confirmation, an injection, some prescription meds, a bit of comfort food (cereal and ingredients for grilled cheese), and (finally) made my way home to my own bed. My neighbour Winnie was kind enough to bring over some ‘kulau’ – young coconuts from which you can drink the water directly, and which are traditionally used to help speed the recovery process. Whether it was the kulau, the meds or the many get-well vibes from friends and family back home, I don’t know, but I was ecstatic to be relatively symptom-free within 2 days! Who would have thought that was possible? Anyways the whole experience ended up serving as a wild-card to add some excitement to my day, and as I mentioned, a good wake-up call to take more precautions, especially as we will be carrying out a lot of outreach trips to very rural areas where there are no doctors and limited medical facilities. Not very strategic places to get sick!

Update – Life in Kimbe

Ruru and Nancy join in the hangboard session

 I have been settling well into life and work in WNB. On the weekdays, after a day of work I try to do either a hangboard or yoga session. Afterwards Ellen and I make a nice dinner usually consisting of lots of fresh food from the market consisting of roots, veggies and various greens. After that we settle down and watch a couple episodes of one of the TV shows I have on my computer. The last couple weeks we have been obsessively following the first season of Glee, which for the record, was amazing.

...and the yoga one too!