June 2004 - Paul Jeffries

June was a busy time for me as I was away from the family for six weeks and in the bush working the whole time. Fortunately it was a little cooler! It was a productive time, we fixed a couple of water tanks damaged in the cyclone, and built another two and a half 20,000-litre tank. Our aim was to build four, but we were caught up in a land dispute that stopped our access to sand beach, where we get the building mix.

My vocabulary is continuing to grow, and bambae is a word used often. Meaning “sometime,” it seems to be used as an answer for most things! For example, “When will the land dispute be resolved?” “Bambae!” Fortunately, we are back in business as the dispute was since resolved.

The Malakula Medical Relief Trust is striding on with good inroads being made in the area of water tank construction and a bonus of being asked to head a provincial water program. This program is taking our tank design as a standard for future tanks throughout the region. We are still requiring a lot of assistance financially, as most of the materials still come from New Zealand and this incurs costs in purchasing and shipping, but we are confident that this support will come.

As part of this trip I drove several volunteer doctors down to Lamap, a health centre at the bottom of the island of Malakula, Vanuatu. The drive was fun as we had eight people in a Toyota Surf 4x4, with bags, packs and boxes of drugs stuffed in every available space. My roof rack was packed about four feet high!

We drove 120 kilometres in just under six hours and arrived in the dark. This made the last twenty kilometres interesting as it is only a bush track in parts and I was concerned that we would get lost! We didn’t and all arrived safely.

One job I have wanted to carry out for several months was to pull down a water tower that was in a dangerous state at Lamap. We were all concerned that the tower would fall in the next big wind and hurt someone. After depositing the doctors for the night, we climbed the tower (65ft), attached a rope and proceeded to pull the tower over. After several attempts, where my truck was jumping sideways, (and keeping the local villages in fits of laughter), we managed to drop the beast. The rest of the trip was relatively uneventful, a lot of hard work, whilst completing the two and half tanks.

I was in for a surprise when I got back to New Zealand. I was volunteered for the Vodafone Foundation ‘Shave for a Cure’ day in support of the Leukaemia & Blood Foundation. So, off I went with my family, managed to lose all my hair, but it was well worth it. I take my hair off to the women who had their heads shaved. You all got my respect for sure. As for the hair cut….oh what a difference….

Look for the next instalment…four Vodafone employees let loose in Vanuatu. Lukim yu…..

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