The Cyclone Pam Relief Festival

So after saying in the last blog that we were too tired to revisit the festival, we decided to go! We lay in bed listening to what sounded like really good music just a stones throw from our accommodation and decided that tired or not we should try and make it so that we didn't miss out! 

We threw some clothes on over our Pjamas and made our way to the festival with a torch and some determination. The festival was GREAT. Young talent of Vanuatu played lots of brilliant reggae versions of British songs like ed sheeran and passenger amongst others. We stuck it out til the end to see the headline act 'Stan and the air force' apparently a really popular really famous band out here! We trundled back to our beds feeling like we made a really good decision to go!

The next day we were faced with a cloudy day. This meant we would exercise plan B (plan A always being on sunny days) we had challenged ourselves to walk to the end of the peninsula we can see from the harbour front we sometimes sit on to watch the sunset 

The place was called Malapoa, and it was about an 8km round trip, and despite the clouds it was still hot!

On the way we found an iguana 

 

Or two

And our walk began umbrella in hand! We walked through a number of small villages where everyone shouted and waved hello as we walked past 

We found a boat, a victim of the cyclone, showing the damage those strong winds could do!

Eventually we made it to the very end!

We met a nice fisherman called Lawrence who told us about the local area. We could see some local people in the sea fishing with snorkel gear and nets. It looked very tricky and they looked very far out. 

Amy at the very tip of Malapoa!

What an achievement!

Monday brought our week on medicine. We were sad to leave the doctors we met on paeds, just like how we were ad to leave those on O&G. Medicine seems to have a lot more structure in that we attend a ward round in the morning and see patients in teams we took one consultant each and saw a variety of cases, the patients have literally been the most interesting we've ever seen. From leptospirosis to rheumatic fever, spontaneous flaccid paralysis and terribly uncontrolled type one diabetes in a boy who only gets his insulin once a month! The consultants try to teach and test us as much as they can and we learn a lot every day 

At lunchtime we come back to coconut palms have a sit in the sun and a read of our books toooo back in the afternoon for clinic. The clinics also provide us with a lot of interesting people. The other medical student here met the man who named Vanuatu in the 80s when it gained independennce  Amy and I have heard more heart murmurs than we've heard on YouTube and we often get to see patients ourselves and assess them clinically, helping to formulate plans and treatment regimes.