Pick ‘n’ Mix

We’ve enjoyed a rather varied week!

We started with some outreach prep work, staff meetings and for Dani a couple of visits to the hospital (a pastor from a village asked her to visit one of the young men who was in ICU following a serious head injury).

On Wednesday we returned to Nagado for the purpose of following up on some of the patients who had presented with various benign lumps and skin lesions. We set up a mini surgical operating clinic and Dani spent the day wielding a scalpel with the help of Ali, Ane, Ben and Kaba as assistants, light holders, steriliser and translators. It was also Ali’s first time driving the beast that is the medical truck over the hilly dirt roads. We all survived 🙂

Holding the gauze is a very important job, you know.
Holding the gauze is a very important job, you know.

Team Nagado II
Team Nagado II

We also took the opportunity to visit Tomasi at home. He is now able to walk with crutches and is putting some weight onto the bad foot. It’s wonderful that he’s escaped amputation this time, although there’s a high risk of an infection returning in the future because of his diabetes.

On Friday Ane and Dani attended a government seminar on the rehabilitation of sex offenders. There was a speaker from the USA who taught the delegates on the importance of instituting a programme of counselling in order to reduce rates of re-offending. The stakeholders present at the meeting included the prison ministry, police, education ministry, health and women’s ministries (and local NGOs – a.k.a. us!) . Abuse is not a topic that is discussed much in Fiji and it was hugely interesting hearing different perspectives. In true relational Fijian style, as it came to the question time at the end the questions posed were not related to Dr. Bernal- Ward’s work but all focused on her personal story and life. In the end this speaker answered questions on her faith and heart for the people she calls ‘the most broken in society’. This was like no seminar I’ve ever attended!

In the mean time Ali is beginning to resurface from his stint in the Marine Reach office now that the new website has gone live! He has put a tremendous amount of work into raising the web profile of Marine Reach Fiji by chasing down dead links, updating our info on other websites and developing a shiny brand new site that will hopefully draw more people to come and work/train with us.

Check it out at www.marinereachfjij.com

Our humble desk. The seat now has my groove in it.
Our humble desk. The seat now has my groove in it.

Yesterday we were super-blessed by a free trip to a resort via Daeseong’s contact with the local Korean school. It was their end-of-year day out and we tagged along and got a big yummy lunch and pure tourist experience. The Shangri-la resort is on its own private island just of the southern coast of Vitu Levu. Just picture white sand, palm trees and swimming pools made for lots of splashing and throwing kids around in. Are we making anyone jealous…?

Pooling Around
Much nice
Sweet Beach
The camera doesn’t lie – gorgeous beaches
Pretty nice spot to go for a swim
Pretty nice spot to go for a swim

3 thoughts on “Pick ‘n’ Mix”

  1. Dear Alistair and Dani, This is for the first time that I visit your blog. Thank you, oh how greatfull I am to visit your work!, It was so good to see you on the wedding I;m very curious to know; Danielle
    how was your interview? My prayer is for you, love, xxx dikke zoen Els

    1. Lieve Els,
      It was lovely to see you again too! We are back in Fiji and preparing to go to some remote villages on Monday. My interview was OK thank you, quite difficult but I find out the result at the end of this week.
      Thank you for your support!
      love, Dani and Ali

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