Landslides

Clinic seems to be going about as usual here. We had another baby
delivery -- this one about 1am Sunday morning. The lady came to the clinic
around 9pm on Saturday evening. She had been in labor since that morning and
was almost completely dilated. It was her first baby though, so it took a
while to come. Then clean up of her, the baby, and the clinic took another
couple hours. We finally got to bed about 4am! Needless to say, we were in a
little sleepy in church that morning:-)

We had hoped to make a trip to Kundiawa (our province capital) last week. We
need diesel for the clinic generator, and Jennifer needs to meet with the
government health officer. We had planned to go on Thursday, but on
Wednesday we heard that several landslides had completely closed the road.
This is not the bush road, but the Highlands Highway. This highway is the
only paved road in the country and connects Lae on the coast with Mt. Hagen
in the western half of the country. Because of the landslides, none of the
towns on our side of them could get supplies such as diesel. The landslide
had also come down on top of school bus killing several people and injuring
others. The government health officer was thus rather busy as well. We are
hoping to try again to make the trip this week, but we'll have to see. You
just never quite know what will happen around here:-)