by John Algate
Excitement is in the air as Indonesia celebrates 50 years of Independence. Flags of all colours are fluttering along all the streets (even in Wamena). All the homes and cars have a red and white Indonesian flag flying. All kinds of special activities are planned for the week of 17 August. Korupun of course is far removed from all these festivities and so life goes on as usual. (August 1995)
13. Through others’ eyes
‘Yetty nekna’ – Jessie is sick. Unfortunately Jessie has contracted hepatitis A and asked the four of us to put down our impressions as visitors.
In February 1989 Jessie’s sister and brother-in-law Thelma and Jim Minto and friends Laurel and Jim Thiessen visited Korupun. At Jessie’s request they provided an outside perspective of missionary work in the remote mountains and their insights were shared with Jessie’s prayer network.
It is February, the so-called ‘dry season’. Firstly Korupun is situated in the floor of a valley surrounded by steep cliffs and tall mountains which are more often than not shrouded in clouds and mist. There is scarcely a flat piece of ground anywhere, it is all up and down. There are 38 waterfalls around the perimeter of the valley, some small, others falling many hundreds of feet, absolutely spectacular. A continuous background sound of raging rivers is present and it rains every day, over 800 millimetres a year. This combination of mountain and rain creates mud. In fact mud is a constant companion and good boots are essential.
The people are delightful with an engaging sense of humour, and no one passes without greeting. They work very hard on their sweet potato mounds and their prized shovels gleam like stainless steel from use. When the people who have virtually nothing share with you what they have it is a very moving experience. Jim and I helped out with numerous odd jobs and the frustration of such isolation becomes apparent. There is no convenient hardware store nearby! Elinor waited four years to have her kitchen bench re-laminated. Jessie has to continually go outside to turn off the pipe which feeds into a drum, which in turn feeds her toilet system. We were able to fit a new stopcock for her and tidy up Elinor’s kitchen and bathroom amongst other things, but could have spent more time doing more of the same. Someone remarked to us: ‘The missionaries have to be disciplined or they can spend 100 per cent of their time just living and get no work done.’ It is one thing reading about their work and quite another to experience it first hand and we have unbounded admiration for those people and the work they are doing.
Living in Korupun is on two levels, neither modern. On the higher level it is basic nineteenth century accommodation for Jessie and Elinor. Pit sawn floor boards with gaps between, palm internal walls which offer little privacy, wood stoves and bucket showers. The only modern concessions are a flush toilet, fed from a recently installed hydroelectric plant, and corrugated aluminium roofing.
The lower level is almost prehistoric; the local accommodation is circular huts and hand-hewn timber with thatched roofs. Aluminium roofs are highly prized (and priced) as it allows a church building to be large enough to accommodate the village attendance or the clinic to collect fresh water. The local people carry their possessions in a net bag hung off their heads, their water is from the many surrounding streams, their food mainly sweet potato, the occasional pig or chicken and a variety of indigenous plants. Their warmth, light and cooking is provided by an open fire.
These three weeks have been a great adventure, an incredible holiday. The first thing you feel is the love of the Kimyal people for Jessie and Elinor Young. We went on a trek to two nearby villages, about four hours of steep climbing and descending cliffs and negotiating scary bridges. These villagers so anticipated our visit (Jessie, Elinor and us four) they repaired the bridges, built ladders on the steep, steep parts, and prepared a feast at both villages. They vacated houses for us (except for the fleas) and had special toilets built for our use. When you realise how few possessions these people have, it really was ‘the widow’s mite’. I spent a lot of time with a lump in my throat.
There were many touching moments. On the way over we were half way up the mountain and exhausted, when the local pastor suggested we should pray. So there on the side of the mountain he thanked God for the people who loved them enough to come to their village and for the strength to get to the top of the mountain. With Jessie we ate the local vegies, mainly pork for meat (pork spaghetti, pork rissoles, pork pickled, stewed etc.). The house girl gave us a chicken which we had to cook for four hours!
By comparison in Australia we have so much, and yet we are so quick to complain. I wonder what Jessie thinks when she comes home. She doesn’t waste a single thing. When Jessie became sick and went over to Sue Trenier’s at Soba, Thelma and I were left to run the house for a short time. We decided to cook a meal and invite Elinor over. First we thought we would fix a banana cake which took us nearly all afternoon to organise. What nearly put us under as we were ready to put the cake in the oven was to discover that the fire had gone out. After 30 minutes (Thelma blew and I prayed) we got it all under control. A fairly simple meal was a marathon effort under these conditions.
A lasting memory was coming in and going out of Korupun airstrip. It had two bumps and gathering speed for departure take-off was akin to a roller coaster with a gorge and cliff directly in front of you, then that quick right hand turn with no room for error. We all developed white knuckle syndrome. Those pilots are a race apart. There were many stories told of cool heads and remarkable skills in terrifying circumstances. We were very grateful for the good weather and safe travel. On one occasion the helicopter we had been travelling in broke down and the pilot found metal fatigue in the tail rotor.
This country has been described as ‘the end of the earth and an hour beyond’. Living with the remoteness and the inaccessibility we were amazed at the resourcefulness, patience and flexibility of the missionaries, isolated, but with little privacy, constant demands on their time, always faces at the windows, bodies at the door, someone constantly at your elbow, all requiring patient help and care.
Jessie and Elinor speak Indonesian and the local Kimyal dialect. They have done a great job in maintaining the people’s culture, self-sufficiency, and self-esteem.
In late 1992 it was another sister Vera and her husband Ken who visited. Their reflections give us further insight into Jessie’s world.
To see photos and coloured slides of the areas where Jessie has worked is one thing. To experience it and to breathe in its atmosphere has lifted our understanding far beyond what we had imagined.
To have your hand taken by a small boy in the Wamena market. We could not communicate verbally – his eyes said it all. He saw how much more we had and knew how little he had. Yet to respond to individuals was difficult without being swamped by dozens more in similar circumstances.
To fly through thick clouds along lengthy valleys, flanked by mountain peaks rising above 10,000 feet. Then to fly above these clouds, seeing only the mountain tops, before descending through the clouds again to make a landing. Such was our experience when flying from Korupun to Soba in a MAF Cessna. How we appreciated the skills of these pilots.
To talk to three missionaries about their experiences when their mission stations were hit by earthquakes – Art and Carol Clark at Lolat in 1981 and Sue Trenier at Soba in 1989. We saw much evidence of how mountains were carved up and stripped of all vegetation. We were told of tragedies as well as remarkable rescue operations. We sensed the traumas these missionaries experienced as well as the tower of strength they were to the people as they tried to come to terms with all that destruction and its traumatic aftershocks.
Living with a missionary can mean – seeing her drool over a cherry ripe – seeing your gift of rice bubbles for breakfast bought at a local supermarket at a price missionaries cannot afford, turn out to be stale. Hear the concerns of missionaries after deadly snakes have been killed in the yard where their young children play. Hearing a missionary double check a weather report that it’s OK to fly to her area when all other areas are clos
ed. Seeing a missionary being polite when a tourist criticises her for ‘spoiling the area’ with European buildings, then ask where the shop is to buy water bottles. (Late 1992 - early 1993)
14. Clinic workers
‘Jessie worked a medical revolution among the Kimyal people.’
– Sue Trenier
The missionaries were often the first contact tribes’ people had with the outside world. Government services were almost non-existent when the missionaries arrived, and there were no modern medicines or medical services. So the missions developed a very practical and innovative model of health care, training some of the best and brightest young men to work as paramedics in their remote home villages.
People often asked me why I didn’t train girls. When we suggested it to the local pastors they said, ‘No. The girls are too dumb and stupid to learn. Train the men.’ Of course they wanted the job and prestige of being a clinic worker. I knew that if I pushed for women trainees they would not be accepted.
The care provided by clinic workers was very basic but effective. In both Karubaga, and later in Korupun it fell to Jessie to do most of the training. Rosa Kidd recalls:
‘One of the first things Jessie did was start a training program for our local people. This meant that we would have trained Kimyal clinic workers for a good number of the villages. Most of them did not have a clinic worker at all so this was greatly appreciated. Among other things, Jessie also gave us, her fellow team members, training on how to suture, give shots, do skin grafts, apply a proper bandage, deliver a baby, and diagnose and treat diseases common to our area. She was our constant source for medical knowledge.’
Training clinic workers was a practical, if less than perfect, solution to meet a great need. It required infinite patience and great commitment, for while the candidates for training were usually well chosen, intelligent and capable young men, the concepts underlying western medicine were completely foreign to them. The training process remained remarkably consistent throughout Jessie’s service, with Jessie reporting the same difficulties with her early classes in Karubaga, as with her final classes at Korupun almost 35 years later.
The slip-ups, frustrations, cultural misunderstandings and comic moments became part of the banter in Jessie’s letters with each new intake of trainees unleashing a fresh round of mix-ups. The ever patient Jess took it in her stride, making light of her difficulties and sharing some humourous moments with her network of supporters.
‘Yetty, my temperature is 102 degrees,’ said one of my clinic workers one morning in class. Each Monday I teach all our eight clinic workers from the outposts. At the moment they are struggling to read a thermometer. Held upside down, sideways, and back to front it is no wonder some of them came up with the weirdest readings. On the whole they are a bright lot of men and learn quickly. With no text in Dani they have no real reference books so what they learn and write down in class is their library. (June 1972)
‘Yetty his blood pressure is 170/100.’ As the normal Dani blood pressure is around 100/60 this was rather startling news. ‘Take it again just to be sure,’ was the answer. He did so and with an embarrassed grin said it was now 110/70. Emergency – no – just teaching the clinic workers to use a sphygmomanometer with rather amazing results. (November 1975)
Most of Jess’s trainees had little formal schooling. They came from villages with no running water or electricity. They had no grasp of concepts underpinning western medical thought, yet they were driven by a deep sense of the good they could do with their training as well as the responsibility that went with it – as was Jessie.
‘Now what do you do if a man broke his leg and you are far away from the clinic?’ ‘What do you do if a man falls out of a tree and hits his head on a stone and lies like one dead?’ ‘Whatever are you doing?’ Striving to clarify in the clinic workers’ minds what needs attention and what they can safely cope with on their own. Do pray for me that I might be able to make these lessons clear and simple, yet deep enough for them to grasp easily.
Each week the men came in from their outposts with stories of people they have seen and treated. Often they bring in a patient that they have been puzzled about for me to check and explain what to do. Next time they will know what to do themselves. One of our clinic outposts is eight hours walk away and it is a long way to carry someone on a stretcher. The people still relate all their sicknesses back to some old arrow wound or injury and one has to sort out the real needs from the past history. Sometimes this is hard for the clinic workers who have been brought up with this same kind of belief and it is hard to shake. (November 1975)
How do you explain to someone what is oxygen? You can’t see it, smell it or feel it. They don’t even have a word in their language to describe it. This is just one of the many problems that I have run into in my clinic workers’ training class. Starting from the grassroots level has its problems. ‘Why shouldn’t I wipe my nose on the back of my hand?’ ‘Why shouldn’t I pick up pills with my toes, they are just as good as my fingers!’ Please pray that I will be able to make things clear and simple for them that they will understand clearly and remember what they have learnt.
In many ways they will have more responsibilities than a nurse back home. What do they do if you break an arm or leg? What do they do if a woman has a baby and the afterbirth doesn’t come out? Call the nearest doctor? They may have a five or seven days walk to me let alone a doctor. These and many other things they have to grasp and remember. People’s lives may depend on their ability to cope in an adverse situation.
In some places where they will be going it may even endanger their lives if someone dies whom they have been treating. Would you care for that thought at the back of your mind as you did your best to help someone? So often they come too late to be able to help them and often they have tried their witchcraft first and when that fails they come and try our medicine. (October 1980)
The other day they left the tap on in the clinic and wondered why there was no water in the barrel the next day to wash their hands. We catch water off the roof in drums. Then surely, if someone is very ill, you would of course give them a double dose of medicine to make them get well so much more quickly. It’s no wonder that my hair is turning grey. (May 1981)
But if the training of each new cohort of clinic workers produced similar difficulties and frustrations, it also produced similar, positive results that greatly improved health care in the highlands and provided a network of trained and willing people to treat injuries, diagnose ailments and undertake vaccination programs when deadly epidemics threatened.
A couple of weeks ago we found that the whooping cough had hit a village a day’s walk from Korupun and six babies had died. I felt sorry for the clinic worker as he did not know what to do. We were all gone and nothing he did helped. I quickly sent medicine across the trail and there have been no further deaths. (March 1982)
I have begun to teach my trainee clinic workers how to suture up wounds. They have been diligently practicing on lemons to get the right technique in tying knots with a needle holder. At the moment they are still all thumbs, but trust they will improve. People have a little more feeling than lemons. (April 1982)
Jess also realised that in the clinic workers she was leaving a permanent legacy of care that would outlast her time in the mountains. The government also recognised the quality of their training and the value of the health care they provided.
…after much hassle and paperwork, two of the men whom I have trained have finally been accepted by the government as village health workers. This means they will receive a small wage each month. It also means that if we have to leave the country they will be responsible for the medical care here. Do pray for the clinic workers as they have a big responsibility. (March 1985)
The government has decided that the clinic workers, who have had their application in for some time to be registered, are to receive a wage from the government. They have to be in Wamena in two-day’s time. Panic. There was no way t
hey could walk from here in two days so we tried to get a plane for them. We just hope it works out. They will be most disappointed if they can’t go. (June 1985)
We just got word that two more of our clinic workers are to receive a government wage. They went off to Wamena this past Saturday. It will be a big experience for them as they have never been away from Korupun to a larger community. They have never seen a car or truck. It will be amazing for them. I hope they don’t get their money stolen. (1986)
At the moment I am endeavouring to teach two men from Sumo in the lowlands to be clinic workers. (These two men from the Momina people were the first Momina trained as medical workers). They, of course, do not know or understand the local language so I had to get out my rusty Indonesian and polish it up. It has been very hard for them as they are used to a hot climate and Korupun is just the opposite. (March 1986)
I now have three men that I am training, so would ask you to pray for them as they grasp all these new names of medicines and when and why they should be given. Why it is important to give fluids to people with diarrhoea etc. One of the outpost workers came in and said he had a child come who had been hit in the head with a piece of wood. It had split his scalp open. Because he hadn’t come in for treatment the flies got in and it was crawling with maggots!! What should he do? One never knows what will happen next, and it is hard to give them a comprehensive training in all the things that might happen. (March 1987)
Money was always tight and there was little government help, so the clinics had to be supported by the local community. The men trained with Jessie for a year. Their local village or community had to agree to support them and raise the money for a simple building with an examination table, shelves and bench tops. They were also required to have a metal roof to collect clean water. The village often paid by instalments. They would meet the plane as various pieces and components were flown in and carry them on their heads to their village up to eight days walk away. They truly valued their local health service, primitive and basic as it was.
