Anyway, we were awoken by the crowing of SANE roosters along with the squealing and clucking sounds of the local pigs and chickens as the sun came up on Monday morning. We got up, had breakfast and set out for our first health clinic in the village of Ban Huasaking. We again focused the care in 4 main areas: basic health checks of villagers, treatment of ailments and illnesses (mobile clinic), health education (sanitation, hygiene, diet and nutrition, dental hygiene, wound care etc) and ante natal workshops. We continued to set up health clinics in villages for the rest of the week. On Tuesday it was in Ban Phunorwan & Hadid and on Wednesday it was in Ban Houaypho. We had become rather good at setting up the clinics by this stage and everything generally ran quite smoothly. This week the villagers visited with much the same ailments as the week before, but some villages this week seemed to have a higher incidence of Tuberculosis than the week before. The district manager of health came to visit us one afternoon in the villages and this point was raised with him. We were told that the matter would be investigated further and that samples for pathology screening at the local permanent treatment centre would be taken. This is a good example of the collaborative relationship that we have been aiming to build with the local health workers and authorities. With Tuberculosis, the disease can be treated by the local Lao authorities, but the problem is that it requires a 4-8 week hospital stay and many of the villagers are reluctant to leave their farms and families for such a prolonged period of time.
Immunization for family members of those in close contact with a TB sufferer are available, but the villagers often must travel to the treatment centre to receive it, something that is not always a possibility for them to do so immunization rates in these areas are not always ideal.
On Thursday we set up our last clinic in Ban Phounorwan, which is the home village to Chipseng, one of our translators and our local village mediator. There was a really cool bridge in this village that was built by contributions from a group that had travelled there in the past. Basically, the village was given the option to put some money towards something that they really needed. It was decided that a bridge that could be used in the difficult wet season to cross the river from the highlands to the lowlands would be the most practical investment as this has been known to be a dangerous activity during the wet season when the river floods.
In the afternoon on Thursday we had a special visit from the Lao Minister for Health. After the official business of speeches and acknowledgements by the minister and Hazel (on behalf of Griffith University), a party was held in the community lodge as a commemoration and thanks for all of the hard work we had done. We did lots of dancing with the villagers and by the end of the night we were all exhausted but still smiling. On Friday, the local home stay families and village chief said good bye to us and commemorated our departure with a traditional Basi Su Khouan ceremony. Basi is pali for ‘ties of thread’ and su khouan is Lao for ‘defending the spirit or soul’. Basi’s are performed for many different reasons e.g. births, marriages, departure from a trip or arrival from a trip. The village gathered around a centerpiece they had made for us from banana leaves, offerings and bonds to ‘tie’ everyone together as a community. The chief said a blessing for us and the villagers tied bonds around us. It was very sad to be leaving the village, but we knew that we had made a difference in the community and we really felt very appreciated by them.
After saying goodbye, we began to load up the trucks. Our luggage was much lighter than it had been on previous occasions as we didn’t pack up ALL of our things. Most of us chose to leave behind clothing, shoes and useful possessions for the families in the village to use - we literally gave them the clothes off our backs! These villagers honestly have very few possessions and clothes to call their own and we were all quite happy to part with a few of our own things for them to use. When we had finished loading what we were taking home with us on the truck, we set off. On the way, we stopped in at several of the villagers homes to check on their health and to pay for their hospital stays. It was great to see that the broken arms had been fixed by the hospital and were now well on the way to healing. The babies that had pneumonia were also recovering well. We hadn’t heard back about how the soldier that we dropped off at the war memorial hospital went yet, but Chipseng was following this up for us and would let us know when he had more information.
Eventually, we arrived at the village of Pak Ou for a lovely lunch in a restaurant on the Mekong river. After lunch, we got on a Mekong riverboat and visited the sacred Pak Ou caves where there are literally hundreds of statues of Buddah overlooking the confluence of the Mekong and Ou rivers. We all got back on the riverboat and rode back to Luang Prabang in this traditional style long boat. The river cruise was quite relaxing and the scenery was magnificent, but the thought of the western style bathrooms at the hotel and the thought of a meal not containing rice or eggs was a definite thought to look forward to!
On Friday night, following a heavenly bathroom experience, most of us had dinner together at ‘Le Elephant’, a lovely French style restaurant in Luang Prabang. We presented our facilitators with cards to say thank you for all of their hard work and effort and we enjoyed a lovely meal together. After dinner and following a final dash through the night markets for mad last minute gift shopping, we all settled in for a quiet, early night in preparation for our flight the next day.
It is so hard to describe the feeling of our trip coming to an end… It has been such a whirlwind of amazing experiences and I think we were all a little sad that it was all coming to an end, but also a little excited to be heading back home (for those of us not lucky enough to be staying on longer that is). We have all benefitted enormously from the placement overall and learnt a lot about nursing, ourselves and travelling. We all embraced a sense of social responsibility and personal activism in participating in the experience and it was great to have the opportunity to learn about a new country, culture and meet new people. We have all gained such valuable skills in leadership, communication, problem solving, reflection and critical thinking. I am sure future employers will be keen to hear all about it in the future. What I am not so sure about is whether I, or anybody else in the group, is keen to eat rice or eggs willingly again anytime during February 2012… maybe by Easter we might be able to stomach the chocolate kind again? ;-)
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