Conwell's Blog

Monday, 1 July 2013

June 2013

June seems to have flown past. Looking forward to school holidays coming up in early July. Pictures below.

Weighing babies as part of remote clinic work

Our new hospital incinerator finally up and running

Compensation or exchange of pigs between two fighting tribes

Taking the medical students for a walk down to the river

Nancy's little Hercules Moth (laid some eggs on her hand and they have subsequently hatched)

Red capped flowerpecker knocked out of a tree by the boys with their sling-shots and then brought to Heather for repairs (unfortunately it didn't make it)

The Mill's family and Owen

Ambulance mishap, slipping off the side of this iron bridge

Found a new water hole

Saturday morning walks with Wendy and Kompiam in the background

The new Paediatric building which is due to open in August

This months butterfly and moth collection

Heather's Irish Dancing lessons

Our new kitchen complete with solar fridge

Our new house in the foreground, identical house being built behind for one of the new doctors

The high school girls ready for their speeches

Thursday, 30 May 2013

May has seen us move into our new house, and with the arrival of the container from Australia we have been busy putting together Ikea furniture and getting a lot more settled. Another highlight was a trip down to Goroka for Russell and a few others from the hospital to have a look at AT Projects who are doing some great work in remote communities and health centers around the country. Sandy continues to grow and finally got a flea collar sent up from Australia so hopefully this helps with the problem common to all PNG dogs. The girls have had fun playing soccer and volley ball and we have started touch footy for sport on a Friday afternoon so enjoying playing again.

Sandy having his bath

Kids Playing in the Guava tree - local playground

Heather and Chelsea-Vienna

Outside the new house

Wiring the new clothesline

Water tanks for our health center on the new truck with Charles the driver

Bird of Paradise

Bridge that we had to use when the road was cut

Micro bat drops in for a visit

Bridge repairs on the road - the hospital does a lot of this work to keep the road open

Kompiam little terrors / cuties

Police Highway Robbery Unit on the way to Goroka

Took a walk into one of PNG's few National Parks with our trip to Goroka - Mick, Garry and our expensive, but informative guide Apex

Doing a fan dance in the National Park

Chooks at Christian Leader's Training College - where we get all our eggs

Russell's 'relatives' the Andira's (parents of a workmate from Talisman)

Family snap including out youngest Sandy


After the Kompiam Hospital Youth scavenger hunt - great fun!

A new swimming spot on the river

Nightly guests

Another nightly guest who decided to check out the new house (A "Manaken" in Engan, apparently this is a baby and it's venomous but not deadly)

Monday, 29 April 2013

April 2013

April has seen us continuing to settle into life in Kompiam, with the main highlight for this month being the road condition. Early in April we had 102mm of rain in a 4 hour period which resulted in a significant landslide just up the road, as well as a washed out culvert at the start of the road. This left Kompiam cut off for about 2 weeks and even now we still can't get the truck back up the road as the culvert is still not fixed. It's just a good reminder of the remoteness of Kompiam and how much we depend on the road. Hopefully dry season isn't too far away. As they say, a pictures worth a 1000 words so read on...