The new technology to hit this part of PNG is the mobile phone. It's just like nostalgia: I carry around a mobile phone that doesn't send emails or have a web browser. It doesn't even have predictive text. It does have a pretty bright torch, which is good for finding your way to the hospital when generator power goes out at 10pm. The people who used to call by radio now call by mobile. And they still often say 'over' when they have finished speaking, or 'roger' when they agree, but the nice thing is that with a mobile phone, I can interrupt a long-winded story to steer someone back on track.
Probably not always a good thing.
And yet, the circle of life, death and resurrection continues. We have seen preventable deaths and difficult births. I see staff finding out new things about medicine, but also about life and about compassion. We laugh together when someone tells a good story, we get angry together when children come in who have been injured deliberately by their parents. We pray together and we celebrated Christmas together and we stitched up people who got injured in drunken New Year's Eve celebrating together.
Yep. Good to be back.
