to the MOUNtains!!

I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to join one of our apprentice midwives at the clinic, Jane, to her "hometown" out in the country with 2 other students, Jen and Medea on a midwifery medical outreach for the past week. We packed noodles and rice for a week and headed out on a bright Sunday afternoon from Davao. By the time we reached Tagum by one long bus ride and a jeepney ride it was raining so hard we decided to postpone the next leg of the trip (a motorcycle ride into the village) until it was only sprinkling. We made it to Mary Jane's house (the local midwife, and the midwife/healthcare worker for a number of remote villages) and just rested up that night in preparation for our "courtesy call" to the Mayor's office the next morn.

After the Mayor's visit, a little volleyball game, and negotiations for some free meds we re-packed, ate lunch, loaded the 3 motorcycles taking 8 ppl (including our drivers) a couple hours into the mountains, and were off again! Monday afternoon was spent travelling and then resting before dinner. Tuesday morning we were prepared for 100 some odd ppl of the village (population of around 7-800) to gather in front of Mary Jane's modest little health center (where we spent the nights) for our services. exCEPT that it was RAINinggg that morning, and therefore the patients and pregnant women just trickled in all morning long. Medea handled most of the first aid and health problems (she's a registered nurse in Switzerland) while Jen and I worked with the prenatals. IT was so cool because we were able to bring a Doppler, and most of the girls had not heard their baby's heart beats before..actually, everyone was intrigued by the swooshing sounds! The afternoon was spent finishing up prenatal and health check-ups and I was able to steal away for a bit a play with the kids... who, are sO adorable!! I remembered my hemp and they have tiny coins here with a hole in the middle of it, not worth much, and we made probably about 50 bracelets with these coins and hemp and tied them off on each child's wrist.


The coolest thing, ALSO, was meeting the trained hilot of the village - a 60-something year old shriveled up, soft-spoken woman who gave us acupressure massages (it really hurt...they are CRAZY!). A hilot is the traditional birth attendant here in the philippines, and are known for handling stressful complications. She was very sweet.

Whaaaaat else..., because it was raining there was no shortage of frogs and that first night we went out in the rice fields and caught about 20 of'em and stuffed them in a bag. The next morning i helped gut them, behead them, skin'em and fry them - wow, i neveer thought it'd be good, but they WERE! THat day we also hiked through a banana-tree forest to a pretty tall waterfall where we could swim and jump and play around. Thursday we did some Motorcross biking (except with 2 or 3 ppl to a bike) to yet another, more remote village. We did mOre prenatals there, and I assisted Medea in a minor surgery - a little 2-yr old girl had a crazy boil on her knee that we sliced open and drained (I felt sick afterwards..)






































































All in all, the week was relaxing but eye-opening and really very exciting! We accomplished a few physical things, but mostly just hung out and made solid friendships with people who speak a different language. IT always amazes me how easily bonds can be formed without the use of words, communicating instead through eyes and facial expressions and hand signals - i really like that. I was blessed oVEr and OVer again. Thanks to all who were thinking/praying for me while i was away...hopefully I'll get to go again!!