Colorado

Papua New Guinea is one of the worlds most well preserved and beautiful countries. It consists of several hundred offshore islands with unique flora, fauna and many diverse primitive tribal cultures. Its area is slightly larger than California and has a land boundary stretching for 820 kms with Indonesia. Papua new guinea stretches into the Pacific Ocean and is bounded by the Coral Sea in the South and Micronesia to the North. On a broader scale, the nation is divided into four regions namely Highlands Region,Islands Region,Momase Region and the Papua Region.

I worked briefly as a site physician in a remote township named Tabubil in the North Fly District of Western Province of Papua New Guinea. Set in extremely dense jungle it has one of the highest annual rate of rainfall in the world .The town was established primarily to serve the former gold mine of Ok Tedi which is currently mining copper. The area surrounding Tabubil was inhabited by the Min tribes who were known for cannabalism in the past .

After a warm showerand a hot mealIleft for the Airport again in order tocatch a chartered flight on a Dash-8 aircraft to take me to Tabubil.Initially I was quesy but the captain of the flightseemed to be adept at his job andsoon my fears were laid to rest and I concentrated on enjoying the scenic beauty and wonderful landscape below.

Tabubil has an international airportwith a 1280 metre dirt and gravel airstrip. Tabubil has a history of poor aircraft safety, and many fatal crashes have occurred in the nearby mountains but luckily this time we landed safely without any hiccups.

The township is situated upon an unsealed highway, one end of which terminates at Ok Tedi mine, about 30 km by road to the northwest, and the other at the river port of Kiunga, the most northern navigable point of the Fly River, about 100 km to the south by road.

The next couple of weeks spent at tabubil were truly memorable, once in a lifetime experiences.I was on 24 hr call which meant that I had to attend to medical emergencies at any time during the night or day.

Drug resistant malaria along with HIV is rampant in the nearby areas of tabubil and I remember myself being paged at odd hoursincluding midnight only to find that the patient was already dead or in his last throes since he had had to trek for days to get to the only medical facility in the area.

Telecom services were virtually non existent and I was permitted to sparingly use the only satellite phone available to communicate with the external world.

There was a nine hole golf course located closeby and there are also plenty oftrekking trails .I was cautioned by the locals to look out for the highly poisonous Death adder snake which isresponsible for a number of fatalities in the surrounding mountainous areas and villages.

Food and other essential supplies is brought in by bargesand ships across the fly river.During my stay,there were a couple of occassions when the towns only store ran out of food due to the low water levels preventing ships from bringing in the supplies.

I had the good fortune of enjoying the rich natural beauty of tabubil along with its flora and fauna including the beautiful internationally renownedbird of paradise which is pngs national bird.

Finally when I had to leave at the end of my contract I was given a very warm sendoff by the hospital staff and my patients many of whom were in tears as I had grown quite close to them.I was also sad as there was a lot more health carework that needed to be done.At the same time I was relieved at the prospect of ending my Tabubil adventurein one pieceand in the pink of my health.