I came home this afternoon after a swim and some grocery shopping, and was about to get in the shower when a loud knock came at the door. I went to the door and Alice, Marcia’s “sister” (cousin), tried to come inside. She is a big drinker, so I stood my ground in the … More A Stab of Pathos at the Front Door
There’s an excellent book I recently finished reading, called “Mountains Beyond Mountains” by Tracy Kidder. It’s a biographical account of Dr Paul Farmer, an American doctor who became involved with a poor community in Haiti during his medical training at Harvard. Since then he has become a Professor at Harvard, a consultant at a Harvard … More Judging Disadvantage
I wrote this essay in 2001 as part of Master of Public Health & Tropical Medicine; subsequently published in online book: Rural and Remote Environmental Health. Keeping it here for posterity. Important factors in achieving and maintaining good health include adequate housing, access to clean water and the removal of refuse and human waste (ABS, … More Scabies Control in a Remote Aboriginal Community in the Northern Territory
In October 2012 I travelled to East Timor to volunteer at Bairo Pite Clinic (BPC) in Dili, for three weeks. BPC provides free health care to those in need, and is the most visited health clinic in East Timor, with over 530 people attending the clinic per day (with a single doctor reviewing patients, coordinating … More Timor Tuberculosis Tales
Very funny morning today. Maria (nom de plume, as are all the other names herein) – Mathew’s aunty who I like but drives me nuts – knocked on the door at around 6am. WB (7yo foster child) woke me to tell me someone was knocking (I don’t let him answer the door). I opened the … More Another Limousine Adventure
When I was 14 years old we traveled across the Tasman Sea from New Zealand to Australia on a family holiday. It was 1983 and one of the first international news items to enter my consciousness had been playing out on our tv screens. Footage of starving children in the throes of death had entered … More Third World Thoughts
This title describes perfectly, the existence of living with another culture. Most people, it turns out, will forgive you for being human. And nowhere is a person’s humanness so prominent, as during time spent with those from another culture. Misunderstandings abound, and only a minority of these misunderstandings relate to conflict. Most of them are … More Miscommunications Abound, as does Forgiveness
Last week some money was stolen from my bag by a patient who I left in my car, alone, with my handbag. Only about $20, and I know that he was hungry. I get why he did it, and because I can’t be sure of anything, as I only suspected something after he’d walked away, … More A Week in the Life
It’s ten years now, since I became involved with some local indigenous families. The first four years of my life, I lived in Alice Springs and had contact with indigenous people, some of which I have vague memories of; and for about four years in the 1990s I worked with indigenous people in hospital settings. But … More My Adoptive Family
13 August, 2010 Lunchtime today I got a call from Mutitjulu Community at Ayers Rock, from one of the aunties to the kids I know. “There’s bin bad luck <death>. Can you go over there and find out?”. Really, who? She guessed a couple of young men, describing them by who they’re married to as … More Unwanted flirt and unwanted bunny
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