Tuesday 3 July 2012

Week 3

I can't believe I'm almost halfway through my time here. I feel like there is so much more I want to do here and like I have hardly been away. The tan feels like the main thing to prove I've been away at so long. That and my new SCUBA knowledge.

We went diving this weekend with a few girls from Australia who are here as part of their teacher training course and ended up sharing the same frustrations about how the laid backness of the islanders is working against them and their kids. But more about diving, we did the first two days towards the PADI openwater course which allows you to dive anywhere in the world with a qualified buddy down to 12m. We spent the Saturday morning in the classroom watching DVDs and doing quizzes before getting in the pool to do some skills. It is incredible even just being in the little pool breathing underwater but Sunday was the best. On Sunday under leaden skys and drizzle we headed out on the dive boat and did 2 short dives out on the reef. It was incredible, down in a deep blue world seeing more fish than I could ever name and feeling like you were flying weightless. As a kid I always wanted to be a mermaid and diving feels as close as I can ever get. We're all ready to do our next two days to get the full qualification at the end of the week as this Friday is a bank holiday so normal clinics are off.

Up at the hopsital things continue much the same, but for a couple of days some doctors came up from NZ to teach the Advanced Paeds Life Support course to some of the local Drs and nurses which seemed to go down very well, they brought a young new Reg with them who is part Cook Islander so he could help out with Dr Dawn's clinics while she went to the course, though she had mostly blocked them out. I split my time between helping him out and having him teach me and sitting at the back of the course and dismaying at the local proffessionals lack of confidence in their answers. It was quite eye-opening to realise that most of the doctors here are scarcely more confident than UK juniors or med students despite (I assume) more training and they have no immediate back up.

Meeting the trainee Teachers has made me wonder about trying to sort out doing a little health education on the island, as the number of things that come up to the hospital needlessly and the ones that present too late can make you despair. Not sure what or how to go about it but I'll speak to Dr Dawn about maybe some parent info leaflets about things like coughs/colds/ tummy bugs etc and what is serious and what not. Or maybe some nutrition stuff to try and help some kids with healthier eating, as there is a lot of obesity on the island.

Over at the hostel we have had a farily quiet week- we went out on Weds to the mini golf again but it was much busier this time and there was even a limbo competition (surprisingly I didn't win). Other than that we did do any drinking as you're not to drink the night before or after diving.We did have to move to another part of the hostel as the main site was being taken over by a Kiwi school band for the weekend, no we don't know why either. So Ali and I were packed off to a little A frame down the road by the beach and the rest went up to the hillside site. The A frame was fine but sleeping up in the eves was so cold I had a hoody and my sweat pants on!

This week coming we are not off to Aitutaki as the flights were too expensive but we'll finish off our Open water and Kathryn arrives from NZ on Friday for the final 3 weeks.

The first batch of postcards went today but if you want one don't forget to message me!

Love J xxx

No comments:

Post a Comment