Tolley's Adventures: March 2008

Sunday, March 30, 2008

Aboriginal Friends

Here I am with my new Aboriginal buddies. Aren't they cute? The one on the right was playing the diggerie-do.

I have attended planning meetings this week with the National Department of Health (NDOH) steering team for the immunization campaign and with the national social mobilization steering team. Both teams have made me feel very welcome and have shown good interest in what the Church can add to the campaign. The NDOH committee is made up of members from various departments in the NDOH along with representatives from the major organizations the Church is partners with in the measles initiative (the World Health Organization [WHO], UNICEF, and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention [an organization headquartered in Atlanta Georgia that is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services]).

The social mobilization committee wants to adopt the musical jingle we played at the meeting in Sydney as the national theme song/jingle for the campaign. It will be played on radio stations throughout the country. We wrote a script for the voice-over message that is now going through the bureaucratic process for approval. It's only 4 lines long but you'd think it was an amendment to the constitution. As soon as I get the final approvals we'll go into production and get some Primary children to sing it in both English and Pidgin. I'm not sure if the words are going to fit the music in Pidgin but we'll give it a try. A member of the Church is working on the translation.

The biggest challenge in the campaign is going to be the National Capital District which includes Port Moresby. One of the main contributions the Church members can provide in the district will be to conduct Rapid Assessment Surveys in areas where immunizations have been given to make sure all applicable children have been vaccinated. We did the same thing in the Philippines campaign. It's an important part of the campaign here and the area we will probably focus on for Church involvement. I will be asking for permission for our members to wear the Helping Hands vests instead of ID badges we have usually provided for all volunteers, members and non-members, in other campaigns. We were allowed to use the vests in the Philippines. Campaign officials prefer to have Rapid Assessments done by "independent" people not connected with the NDOH so I think the vests would be appropriate.

Officials in NDOH are writing letters of introduction for the Church to the appropriate province and district officials. That should be done next week.

Things are still moving along a little slowly but they are moving in the right direction.

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Meeting the Members in Papua New Guinnea

This is Dad with some members of the Church in Port Morsby. Check out the outfit the bishop is wearing. (He's the one on the left, holding the baby). Who do you think looks more comfortable--the Bishop or Dad?

Riding the Camels

One of the single sisters really wanted to go ride the camels at Nelson Bay, which is about a three-hour drive north of here, so off we went, early Friday morning. It took a little courage to get on the camel, but it wasn't as difficult as expected. They just knelt down, we hopped on and then they raised up. It was easy. The camels have really, really long legs. We went out across the sand dunes and then down to the beach and our leader, "Rod" took us out into the water a ways. It was really fun. One little boy in our group was about 8 years old and was scared spitless. He screamed his head off for about the first 10 minutes, but then he stopped, so we were all happy. My camel's name was Auzzie. She had a bolt imbedded in the top of her nose. You can see it if you look close at the picture.

Aunt Susan's Cookbook

Look what I found in Nelson Bay! We climbed the stairs to the lighthouse, watched the ships sailing in the bay and talked to the volunteer harbor safety crew. Then we looked around in a little gift shop and I found this book of recipes written by Susan Locke.