Let’s Get To Work!

This is our little corner in the Church Office Building. I'm in the left corner, Dad in the right. Our space isn't exactly an office, but rather a walkway between other offices.

We’re finally feeling like we’re in the saddle and doing something productive! It’s good to be busy. The first couple weeks were full of holidays, and we were just trying to figure things out, like how to run the high-tech, bells-and-whistles copy machine, dial out on the phone, remember to drive on the wrong side of the street, make change with strange coins, and find food that was somewhat familiar. I think we’re over the initial culture shock, and things are coming a little bit easier.

The first couple things we’ve gotten involved in have helped us learn a lot in a short time. It’s so weird to just pick up the phone and “ring” Fiji or Australia or wherever, and not even think about the cost or distance involved. Of course, we have to figure out country codes, and particularly, what time (and what day) it is wherever we’re calling. And then the language problem. I called Tahiti the other day and the person who answered the phone spoke to me in French! Even if they do speak English, which most do, sometimes the accent is so thick or the connection so bad, or both, that it makes doing business kinda hard. We have added to our “favourites” on the computer a world clock, a metric converter and a currency converter. It’s called survival! I’ve gotten a crash course in South Pacific geography in the past couple days. Have you ever heard of the nation of Vanuatu, or of Tuvalo? I learned that Tuvalo is made up of 33 teeny, tiny islands. The highest point in the country is 3.5 meters (about 10 feet) above sea level, and the population is less than 5,000. They even have an ambassador to the United Nations. Every time it rains and floods, more of their soil washes into the ocean, and the fear is that one day the country will just cease to be there. So many of these little dots in the middle of the Pacific were occupied by the G.I.s during WWII, and there are still remnants of fortifications, guns, etc there. Some were even bombed by the Japanese. All of them are beautiful. It’s been fun to do a little Google research.

I’ll give you a brief overview of what our assignment is. We are to help develop, oversee and coordinate humanitarian projects, funded by the church, to help relieve suffering and teach self-reliance to underdeveloped countries across the entire South Pacific. The goal is for them to be sustainable by the local people once the project is complete. These might be such things as drilling water wells so villages have access to clean water to help with sanitation and health issues, distribution of wheel chairs and/or crutches to amputees, screening for rheumatic fever, providing medical equipment to hospitals, neo-natal resuscitation training to medical personnel, vision screening, the list goes on and on. Sometimes we even help build schools or provide computers or books. Hygiene kits, newborn kits, school supplies, many of the things they’re lacking we can supply to help to relieve some of the suffering in these places where they basically have an economy of subsistence farming or fishing and no cash income whatsoever.

There are missionary couples like us, or others on the ground in these places that do the actual delivery of these things, the drilling of wells, the medical training, etc. We handle the paperwork, approvals, coordination – all the administrative end of it. Of course, we have inherited things that were already under way, and have to pick up in the middle of it and try to figure out where we are. We have a literacy program in Australia designed to help teach the Aboriginal children to read English. We’ve been involved pretty heavily in trying to get their material copyrighted so it can get out to the schools and government. This past week or so Fiji has been inundated for days on end, with record-breaking rainfall. In some places the water is six feet deep, putting entire villages under water. Couple that with high tides, and you have a real disaster! We have daily bridge calls set up with the church leaders there to assess what we need to do in the way of emergency supplies – water, food, blankets, emergency response containers that have shovels, chain saws, tarps, etc. When you hear, during a disaster, that the church members and missionaries have all been accounted for, it’s through our office that that information is communicated to Salt Lake. The fear now after the rains end is diseases such as typhoid and dengue fever. The church leaders there are in touch with the Red Cross and the government organizations and they’re all working together. It’s just cool to see how this whole thing works. Of course, Dad is right in his element doing this stuff. All his experience with hurricanes has paid off. The two years we spent in Samoa also paid off, because we already understand a little about the culture and traditions of these island people.

When we haven’t been in fast forward with those two particular things, we’re working on “closing out” about 50 projects that have been completed, but the paperwork was never finished and the project information forwarded on to church headquarters. In the meantime, we have requested from each different country what they consider to be their three most pressing needs for 2009 so that we can begin to get approval and funding for those projects to take place. Most of the countries have health needs. As you can tell from the paragraphs above, we do a lot of medical things. A lot of the reasons behind their health problems are sanitation, proper medical care, and diet. Most places have a severe shortage of medical personnel, lack of funding for equipment and personnel, and lack of training. There are an inordinate number of amputees because of the incidence of diabetes. Their diet and sedentary lifestyle are the root problem. Many people still use their traditional medicine men, rather than going to a doctor. By the time they finally do go to the hospital, there is no saving their leg(s). The infant mortality rate is about 22 per 1,000, which sounds really high to me; thus the need, first of all, for teaching neo-natal resuscitation for newborns in respiratory distress. Rheumatic fever is another major problem. It is an inflammatory disease caused in part by untreated strep or scarlet fever, or sometimes infections due to lack of dental care as well. Rheumatic fever damages the heart valve, and although it may not be apparent in kids, by adulthood they will have developed heart problems. Hygiene is a huge problem. They don’t understand about cleanliness, and don’t have clean water, in many cases, to practice good hygiene. Consequently, cuts and sores become infected and illness and disease are passed around to whole villages. If they do have a source of okay water, animals or even dirty humans can contaminate the supply for the entire village. Mosquitos are an ever-present source of potential trouble, such as dengue fever or typhoid. Education is the key to preventing so much of their health problems. Their diet is very limited in most cases. They don’t understand the food pyramid, for sure! Taro and rice and sweet potatoes and coconuts can put on the weight. Learning better means of growing, and varying their crops would provide them a better diet, but they need to be taught. So little by little, rather than putting a band aid on the problem, we will get down to the root of the problem through education, but it’s a very slow process.

The other day the secretary of the Retirement Village came up to our apartment and asked us if we would be willing to speak to the residents on the 28th of January about what we do. They’re curious about us and have heard just enough to want to know what we’re all about. We’ve been so immersed in these projects the past couple weeks that it will be exciting to have a little to share with them.

We went to the store after work and did some major shopping again. It’s becoming a little easier, because we’re at least starting to recognize some items. We’re so surprised, though, that the salt isn’t as salty as at home. I’m not kidding. Isn’t salt salt? And sugar is huge grains, not nice soft granulated sugar. Whole wheat flour or bread is called whole meal. The kiwis love all things marshmallow. Everything has marshmallow in it, marshmallows in every form. With the price of chicken, I think they’ve found a substitute. Whatever isn’t marshmallow is chicken flavoured. Can you imagine chicken flavoured potato chips?? They have them. A couple more little things we’ve learned. They do have mosquitos here – called “mozzies”. One found Dad’s ankle and drove him crazy all night.

Throaties are cough drops, jandals are sandals (a contraction of Japanese and sandals), the letter “z” is called “zed”. We keep hearing references to what sounded like “Cici-enzed”. Someone must have seen the confused look on our faces, because they finally said, “Church College of New Zealand.” (CCNZ) A cute little difference is that they say they’d like to have a little chat to you. To you. I smile every time I hear it. I haven’t learned yet how to duplicate the sound of their letter O. It’s something like the “oi” in noise or voice. So when they say “No”, it’s not just a long o, it continues on a little more with a different ending, almost like “noe”. It’s fascinating to listen to all the different sounds and accents here.

“You guys” or “y’all” is said “you lot.” Mate is a big word here. “’Ey, mate, do ya have a new cah, do ya?” Every time they ask a question, it’s double, like that. “Have ya got a cold now, have ya?” Poor Dad, every once in a while he still looks at me with a blank look, and I try to translate for him. He says it’s like when he was in Georgia and Alabama and couldn’t understand the “English” there. I've heard several times the phrase "Granny flat." It's a mother-in-law apartment. In church they talk about feeling the "spurt" or "spurit." "Mo-tuh moh" was a hard one to figure out. After further explanation, it became apparent they guy was referring to a power lawnmower. "Look ahftuh" is something they do well. The look after their kids, look after their jobs, look after everything. Dad looks after paying the bills. He looks after making sure the door is locked when we leave. If someone asks you to do something, you say you'll look after that. It just means take care of, but just a little different way of saying it. We're still sorting through phrases and accents, but that's half the fun of being here!

Not many pictures this time, although we still get out and explore every weekend. Our pictures from last weekend are more stairways and bridges through the lush ferns and growth of a bush. One difference was that we had water this time.

We've just seen so many beautiful things that it's hard to share. We take so many pictures I think we've become half Japanese! Everywhere I go I say, "Oh, my mother would love this!" She would actually think she'd died and gone to Heaven if she could see all the things we do. I remember her boxes and boxes of slides of flowers, and didn't know what on earth to do with all of them. They meant alot to her, because they brought back memories of her trips and things she enjoyed so much. I guess our pictures are like that. We're taking them for our own pleasure, and probably will bore others to death with them once we return home. But it's fun for us now.

Suffice it to say that we love being out in the beauties of this country and will probably continue to take pictures because they’ll spark memories for us in the future. I think we’ve inundated you recently, however, so thought I'd go easy on you this time.............

................................................So bye for now!