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A BIG DAY IN THE OFFICE
By Oliver Langley
Nias Island, North Sumatra
Monday 17 January 2005
Oliver Langley is an Australian charter boat captain who normally guides surfers into perfect waves in the Mentawais. For the past few weeks he has been skippering the Barrenjoey during the SurfAid tsunami medical relief mission. Here’s his eyewitness account of today’s SurfAid program on Nias Island.
Today started at 0600 hrs in Bawa, a good anchorage where we all got a good night’s sleep. Pulled the pick and arrived in Sirombu at about 0700. A little bit of organisation and then we all steamed off to the beach to get into it.
I had been put down as a translator for the Mandrehe displaced persons camp at 1200 hrs. After putting the docs on the beach we got into some maintenance on our boats while we waited for our roll call to come up.
Captain Bill Kaczmarek and myself decided to go ashore and see if we could stimulate a road building project from the village to the dock so that the supply line to the people of the Hinako islands could be re-opened. We surveyed the area and were headed off to the kapala desa (village headman) office when we came across some doctors from Australia who had arrived in Nias wanting to do some good but they didn’t have a plan. I took them off to see Doctor Dave at the vaccination clinic so that they we could take advantage of their skills and try and co-ordinate them into our picture so that we didn’t double up on effort/medication etc.
Some little blokes tried to charge us five times the price to take us on their motorbikes to the clinic. The mother of the lads in question agreed with us that the boys should work free if we paid for the petrol but they staunched us and we took pleasure in walking across the road and getting the Indo military boys to drive us where we wanted to go in their army truck free of charge for as long as we wanted. Some concerns were raised about the "izin commandant" - commandant’s permission - but one fellow said: "Blow that, these guys are helping", so away we went.
When we arrived at the clinic there was a minor riot going on at the front door which had been closed and locked to try and regulate the influx of people trying to get in to be treated for their ailments and for the process of immunisation against measles, vitamisation (is that a word?) for long term health, and a couple of other weird things that doctors seem to want to do.
It took a while to carve a passage through the crowd to get to the door, and once there I had to knock and yell for about five minutes before I could convince them to open it. I got through the door and it was apparent bedlam. Tens of people, possibly hundreds, were already inside surging at the registration table (triage, for those of us in the know) all clamoring to get the medicine while they could.
I had plans of getting back to the boat or road project but as the plaintive cry went up for assistance I rapidly changed my plans and got into making a breathing space for the ladies behind the desk. It was a slowly losing battle as I herded people back trying to make a three-meter gap between the masses and the girls. Every time I turned my back for a second they would slip past me and clamor for attention etc. Andy, the Quik cameraman (team player), found me some rope and we quickly made a rope barrier to get people into line. I was then able to exercise some control and started to enjoy myself.
We had a desk for ailments/illness and a desk for immunisation. Immunisation was moving faster and I was picking the kids up and hauling them over the ropes to be registered at which point their mums/dads would do an acrobatic rope jump to get in line with their family. Sometimes the kids would not take kindly to a big weird foreign guy swinging them through the air and they would start to yell and cry. Everyone would laugh at my foolish errors with the kids and as I started pulling stupid faces to try and get the kids smiling again, everyone would laugh even harder. I was on to something and spent the rest of the arvo (afternoon) pulling heads for the crowd, yelling ‘get back’, and having to be firm but fair with the queue jumpers and line breakers. (Believe me, it was dog eat dog there.)
Doctor Derek Allan was in my ear about keeping sick people up to him so I had to scan the crowd for the really ill and bring them through for Derek’s attention. Derek was sweating so hard that the tattoo on his chest was visible through his white SurfAid tee shirt. Working like a dog was Derek; working like a dog was everyone. We had a system and it was effective and rapid. The surge of people was like a tsunami itself and I told them that and Indos being Indos, they cracked up laughing.
Every now and then we would manage to get down to about five people in the queue so I would open up the door and try and admit another 50 or so souls under some semblance of control. It couldn’t be done. When I saw adult elbows grinding into the heads of kids as they fought for the door, I would yell at them that they had blown their chance and the door was closing.
Each time I opened the door I would attempt to explain the concept of patience and politeness (women and children first) and everyone would go: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, pak (mister)!” and then walk over themselves trying to get in first. We eventually got through everyone but it was struggle. We are still learning and at the next clinic tomorrow we will set up ropes outside for queues and other stuff.
I am reporting my experiences of the big day in the clinic and I don’t know what was going on behind each door in the vaccination rooms or in the surgeries for general illness. We treated hundreds and hundreds of people today. Nearly 700 kids were vaccinated and as yet an untallied amount of illnesses were diagnosed and treated. It made many, many people happier and healthier. It has also improved the future of many families, kids, super old people (it is hard to tell the oldies that there is no medicine for their affliction - 90-years-old and still going strong), young mothers, the hypochondriacs (and there were a few). Basically everyone who comes through the door is treated with respect, care and a high level of western medicine. Many people here have never had that. We take it for granted. Struth, it’s free in Australia. Well, it’s free here now as well. More power to SurfAid and their backers.
Anyway, before I sign off to go and eat my dinner I will tell you one more thing. Once again, it is my experience that I am calling on. We had wound up for the day, the crowd had dispersed, the lawn at the front of the clinic looked similar to the morning after a rock concert with s#*t everywhere. I had a bit of a chat with the last people standing out the front, a few laughs and then I went back to see if the doctors were ready to go.
Through a partially opened door I spied a pair of sparkling eyes sitting on top of an ear to ear grin. I wondered what was making this lady so happy and mirthful. I thought perhaps the velcro on my boardies was open and I was making a fool of myself, and I actually checked before I realized that the eyes and grin belonged to a lady who we had met a couple of days ago in the same place while we doing a general clinic. (It is a bit of a curse speaking the language as I am always being deputised to translate.)
She was the sickest person we had met that day - she had malaria and she was nearly dead. Liquids were administered by drip, the right medicine and lo and behold, just three days later she was shining with health and the love of life, still sitting in a hospital room but with her husband’s arm around her and her daughter sitting next to her. They started yammering at me. I couldn’t understand the local Nias language, but a nurse told me that the daughter said: "Thank you very much". It took me a couple of minutes before I was taught "FAE GALA GALA" – you’re welcome.
There is heaps of good stuff going on here. No reason to stop. We need to expand. The poor buggers have had their lives turned upside down.
Regards
Oliver Langley