Our mini Sunday adventure

I We decided to venture out of Coconut Palms yesterday and actually see part of the island. Our biggest problem is the heat, we want to go on expeditions but as typical Brits other than at 7am and 6pm it just all seems too hot. We managed a walk down to the wharf where the big cruise ships come in, to see the handicraft market and look for somewhere to have lunch. We were silly, it was a Sunday so nothing was open but we got to see some amazing views and sought out a place to go on another weekend. 

Outside coconut palms

Amy in her snazzy trousers 

Very hot but still happy 

Some cool graffiti 

Anyone need a car 

Handicraft market 

The gas plant 

We had a late lunch at the same place we feasted at on our first night, we had fantastic views over the harbour and after a glass of wine (our first of the holiday) and another burger we got to watch the sunset in its entirety. It was truly gorgeous. The nice man who owns 'cafe du village'  invited us to a music night this Friday which we hope to go to  and we made friends with a lovely local woman who has promised to cook us some local food, the national dish of 'lap lap' in her family home, everyone is so friendly here we've never felt more welcome I don't think.

At lunch 

Cheeky wine

Our burger. Yum

Sunset 

Back at coconut palms we sat chatting on a sofa when suddenly the sofa started moving. We weren't sure if this was a result of too much wine after our abstinence or what was happening! We'd watched many reports about the dad happening in Nepal wth the earthquake so decided we were probably being melodramatic. A lovely Aussie lady walked past and asked us if we'd felt the earthquake. at least we weren't going mad! On checking quake monitor this morning the shakes we felt measured 4.8 on the Richter scale. It's all happening here, apparently this is a common occurrence here as vanuatu lies on the fault line. 

Today we had another day at the hospital, we almost did a full day. This morning we watched the delivery of two healthy twins, a natural birth of twins is very hard to come by on labour shifts in the UK so this was the most amazing experience. The labouring woman made no noise after she was told to shh, the two babies were identical twin boys and after a few tentative gasps they both screamed and squeaked, born half an hour apart. Truly amazing 

We then attended a Gynae clinic where we saw women with previous ectopic pregnancies , cervical problems  and massive uterine masses. The doctors taught us about pelvic masses and the cervical cancer screening programme that goes on in Vanuatu which we were surprised to learn went on. 

We went back for lunch and sat by the pool. After eating a slightly miserable piece of bread and cheese we made our sweaty way back to the hospital for another ante natal clinic. This was strange we only saw about 3/4 patients and for the last 2 Dr Kevin had his backpack on ready to go! 

Back at coconut Palms we sat with the Aussie lady who checked on us after the earthquake. She was a photographer and had been capturing the devastation in the outer islands of vanuatu. She showed us her pictures, which were truly eye opening and absolutely amazing pictures. She had such interesting stories about her travels and the people that she met. 

We've bought food for the week and the kitchen has been fixed so hopefully we'll be well fed, we've also bought a good amount of diet cokes as a treat to ourselves 

A lizArd!!

We had another cockroach situation last night but hopefully tonight will be less eventful 

The cockroach, the lizard and us

Night before last we had a bit of a fright, we were brushing our teeth milling around our hotel room, then suddenly Amy saw something on the wall, I screamed before I looked. It was a massive cockroach, not knowing what to do, but knowing this was probably something we shouldn't be screaming about on a Pacific island Amy sheepishly went down to reception to ask for some help. A nice man called Jim came and after a bit of mockery some flailing round the room the cockroach was finally captured. Phew. We did quite well and got into bed without too much worrying! 

Our accommodation otherwise is really nice we have two single beds in a room with air con. An en suite toilet and shower and our own microwave and fridge. We have tv with minimal channels but it's nice to have on while we're heading off to sleep as the pool bar tenders like to play the Beatles on repeat until about 11pm! We're struggling with our climate control, we often wake up too cold, turn the air con off then wake up sweaty! It's embarassing that a luxury is causing us such trouble! 

We have a communal kitchen called the 'baby DOCs' kitchen, it used to have a microwave a big fridge a stove a sitting area with a Tv and lots of crockery but it seems of all the hotel the baby docs kitchen seems to have suffered the most. Wholst completely understandable this is a bit frustrating as food is a lot more expensive here than we anticipated so cooking our own food was to be a necessity rather than a once In a whole thing. We have managed in our room with our microwave having jacket potatoes and baked beans, and cheese and ham sandwiches for lunch ( I had gluten free crackers which i was super surprised to find here!)

My noodles heated up by the hotel he'd because we've got no stove!

It was actually quite nice 

Amy had 'bowl noodle!'

We're off to find some nice food and a beach today. Wahoo. It's so hot, amys been swimming. Ive been sunbathing (a little bit of swimming) write more soon!!

First day at the hospital

Our first day at hospital was nothing short of eye opening. We got up and had a breakfast of ice cold milk from our own fridge on some cornflakes with banana. It was surprisingly enjoyable after we woke up starving despite having a huge burger the night before! We got up with so much excitement we failed to look at the clock before leaving for Vila Central Hospital. It turned out it was only five minutes from our hotel and we were a proud thirty minutes early! 

The hospital was so much more modern than we expected, it turns out the Japanese government sponsored the building of a brand new part of the hospital housing the opd, the operating theatres, the X-ray department and the pharmacy. There was no obvious main entrance tho which posed a problem when it came to meeting the lady from the ministry of health. 

We made or way down to the wards (in the old part of the hospital ) and found a nurse to speak to about the fact we were meeting mrs Asha. We were informed she doesn't work in the hospital and we'd have to get a bus to the ministry of health to find her. Luckily. We turned round. And there she was! She explained she'd forgotten we were coming and all the other medical students had cancelled because of the cyclone. She exclaimed it was just luck that she was here when we were. Needless to say it was a great stroke of luck as she sorted us out, showed us aroj d and introduced us to Dr Kevin a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology. 

We participated in an obstetric ward round and went to the surprisingly well equipped operating theatre to watch a few procedures.

What has struck us the most is that the knowledge that the consultant ts and registrars have here is exactly on par with those in England just the level of care they appear to be able to give the people of vanuatu seems so much less because of equipment shortages and reduced fAcilities. It seems the cyclone hasn't had too much of a negative effect on the hospital they have restored most of the roofs and cleared most of the debris. It seems sad that the other medical students have cancelled as it seems like it's going to be a brilliant experience 

We were back at Coconut palms by lunchtime. Had some cheese, ham and bread and had a good sunbathe. 

Sunset at coconut palms 

Amy's terribly embarassing experience of the day; 'On walking back from the room. I was approached by a friendly elderly Australian chap who mistook me for someone he had been speaking to the night before. He asked me if I could 'do him a favour' which entailed embarassing his nephew explaining I had seen him naked on the roof of a bar in Australia in order to get alex and I a drink. Needless to say the nephew was having none of it. We ended up red, embarassed and drink less' note to self. Never agree to do any favours without the drink first :)

We went to the organisation site for natural disaster relief. This was really cool there were unicef tents and women's aid tents. And a distinct absence of volunteers which seemed to suggest the clean up had gp e well and they were scaling things down 

Our second day at hospital: we had the privilege of visiting the special care baby unit, we saw the smallest baby we think ether of us had ever seen. He wasn't premature but growth restricted and weighed about 950g at birth. He was so adorable and it was incredible to learn that they endeavoured to give the babies the same care they'd receive elsewhere, despite this the baby had no monitoring on so they just use clinical examination to assess wellbeing. Very cool. We did another ward rob d and attended an antenatal clinic that was the fastest clinic we had ever been to. We both got to palmate the pregnant bellies and listen to heart beats. Very cool, might need to do a bit of obs and Gynae revision thoufhb 

We're back sunbathing again , the doctors are chilled about Fridays (or maybe every day)!? 

We haven't managed to take many pictures but will do in the coming weeks 

An epic journey

A celebratory bottle of Prosecco, half a chicken, some sweet potato fries and a hop skip and a jump to the gate we were on our first plane on our way to Vanuatu. 

Having booked our flights through a student travel agent they had kindly found us the cheapest route, needless to say this goes hand in hand with being the most scenic and therefore longest route possible. This was a 'pretty epic trip' quote miss Kelly. It was maybe not her favourite birthday but we had a lot of laughs and a number of free gifts thrown our way; some champagne, some headphones from first class and a pudding from business (the metal cutlery was so exciting at 4am UK time). 

Free champagne. Yes please 

DVT socks that are pink because you can never be too careful 

Birthday girl 

We endured so many hours on planes we can't even count them. A medical emergency in Dubai, a Storm in Sydney and an airport buggy ride later we arrived In Auckland for a much needed sleep in a real bed. We watched vintage Malcolm in the middle had a dinner of chicken and crisps and dip. A Mars bar. And a good sleep. 

We found Nottingham friends in Sydney because of our delays though!

The airport was only a 20 minute walk from the hotel and we were almost on our last plane! The Air Vanuatu flight was really colourful, the air stewardesses 'resting faces' were happy ones! A stark change from those from home! We flew over the North of North Island and landed on Vanuatu 2.5 hours later. 

View from our Auckland hotel at sunrise 

There was a band playing tropical tunes as we walked through a very primative customs department. As we hitched a ride with a very friendly taxi man we were shown the devastation left by Cyclone Pam. He explained for the most part the roofs of the little shanty huts were blown off but the people just picked up the roofs and put them back on. There were many trees knocked over and buildings damaged but on the whole people seemed to be going about their daily lives.

We set out in the afternoon to find a supermarket to buy our breakfast and somewhere to eat dinner for the evening. A place that we originally thought looked too expensive for us turned out to be just within our price range and had a gorgeous view of the Pacific Ocean. We chowed down on two massive and perfectly arranged burgers with a diet coke (we've probably had too much already) this was such a lovely way to end our first day and seems like a place we might like to frequent. 

Hospital tomorrow 8am. Gosh. Night !