Done in a day
Written by Mandy Glass. Photos courtesy of Michael Duncalfe and Mathias Glass
It is one of the joys of life in Papua New Guinea that when villagers get excited and commit to something, they can work with a tremendous will and achieve a great deal. Uniting a community can sometimes be a challenge, but in this case the whole Megau community were all on board very quickly: to build an aid post for their small and remote community.
The village of Megau is high up on a mountainside in the remote north of Papua New Guinea’s Enga Province, and is listed as one of the most disadvantaged in PNG. Megau is one of nine other rural communities in Enga Province supported by the Kompiam Rural Hospital. Jointly known as Enga Baptist Health Services, it is a ministry of the Baptist Union of Papua New Guinea. Beside the hands-on work of seeing patients and performing surgeries at Kompiam Rural Hospital, Medical Superintendent Dr David Mills is very dedicated to supporting these rural communities in setting up, maintaining and supervising their health centres and aid posts, and in training local staff.
Dr Mills explains, “Megau has been a target area for a while. Being very stretched as we are, at first we were only able to put a community health worker there, but no infrastructure. The health worker was working out of a bush material house. Importantly, there were no buildings with roofing iron in the village and therefore no way of collecting rain water. With the help of the Rotary Club of Naracoorte, South Australia, funds were given for the purchase of roofing iron and some 1000 litre water tanks. Other funds had been given for the purchase of a kit house for the health worker, and work on the house has now started and is ongoing in Megau as I write.” (This update from Dr Mills was provided on 8th June 2016.)
Dr Mills also reports, “One problem we faced was that we had been given until April 30th to complete the aid post building project, but with our project manager recently returning to Australia we were very stretched to capacity. Eventually, on 28th April, MAF was able to help us with two charters – 24 hrs apart! There being no other access to Megau, we had to be in and out, done in a day!“
Kompiam has road access, and most of the building materials they need gets delivered and stored there. But the 5 x 1000 litre water tanks would need to be delivered by air.
Dr Mills explains what occurred once the MAF plane arrived in Kompiam: “After a long time loading the gear onto the plane in Kompiam, we were finally on the ground in Megau by 11.30am and immediately offloading the gear. Then we had the task of explaining to the villagers what we were needing to do – design the layout of the aid post, mark the site, dig the post holes, find the timber we needed from the bush and carry it to site, erect the structure, put on the roof and gutters and join the tanks AND install a solar vaccine fridge – all before 12pm the next day! It was going to be busy!”
“Teams set off into the forests to gather the 18 upright posts we would need, plus timbers for rafters. Tie wire was twisted together ready to use for bracing. While that was going on we were marking out the site and digging the post holes. Other people were levelling the area where the tanks were being set up and bringing some sand and stone by bag to put underneath the tanks, so as to prevent too much mud.“
“We had no ladders so these were made from bush timbers too. It is incredible to see these guys from Megau climb vertical posts with no aids except their strong feet. There hadn’t been too much exposure to tools as Megau is very remote. Not many guys knew much about using hammers or saws and none had previously seen a cordless drill like the one I brought. They thought the sound it made was hilarious and kept imitating it, which was pretty funny – for a while anyway.“
“By dusk we had the basic structure up, and the first roofing sheets were going on in the dark. We eventually finished the first side on a very wet and slippery roof around 7.30pm. Time for a break!“
“Next morning we were up early. By this stage the guys had sort of worked out what the drill was trying to do and could manage the roofing screws pretty much by themselves. So while they were doing the other side, we had another team building a suspended floor in one side of the building.”
“Part two of the project was to install the solar vaccination fridge, so I got busy with this while the roof was taking shape above our heads. The hoards of interested onlookers were gathered as we got the batteries wired up.“
“Last of all was getting the gutters on and plumbed to the tanks so we could start catching water. As the MAF Twin Otter touched down, we were still working on this. The clouds rolled overhead and a take-off was looking unlikely–but in fact this was perhaps the Lord giving us another 45 minutes to finish the work, and so in the end we had two helpful pilots working on the finishing touches along with us.“
“Then it was time to board the plane and head home, feeling tired, sweaty and pretty dirty, but leaving behind the start of Megau’s new aid post, with its first water supply and a new vaccine fridge. All in all, a good day’s work.”
“Since then the villagers have completed the aid post walls and doors and it is now in full use. The new staff house is well underway and will add to the water catchment capacity as well as providing comfortable and clean housing for the Community Health Worker who lives there with his wife and child.”
“Many thanks to MAF once again“, concludes David Mills, “for the help without which this sort of project would not be possible.“
