06. Medical Ministry Begins with Joyce Walker, 1952

Mendi 1952

The wharf at Rabaul Harbour had been bombed and destroyed during the war, so when their ship arrived there in 1946, the women and other passengers had to climb down a ladder into a small boat to get to the shore. The women knew that it was not going to easy but they were happy and excited to arrive. This was the first time Joyce Walker worked for MOM in New Britain. Some of the other women who arrived with her had been in New Britain before the war. Two of them had spent the war interned in Japan and one had lost her husband in the tragic sinking of the prison ship Montevideo Maru.

The sixth woman in their little group was Mrs Grace Young, travelling to join her husband Rev Gordon Young who was serving in the islands as an Army Chaplain. Gordon Young was now joining the MOM mission staff as a missionary. All these women knew that they needed strength and courage in this difficult place.

When Gordon Young was beginning his new work in Mendi in 1951, he asked for another minister, a teacher and a nurse to join him. He and Grace Young knew Joyce Walker and were happy when she was chosen to go to Mendi to be the first nursing Sister in the Southern Highlands.

‘I believe it is not what I am able to do in my time here that will ultimately count, but the foundation that is able to be laid for those who will come in years to come.’

Sister Joyce Walker, first nurse in Mendi in 1952

After Joyce Walker arrived in Mendi in October 1952, she wrote a letter with her first impressions of the place and people of Mendi. This is what she wrote.

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‘I believe it is not what I am able to do in my time here that will ultimately count, but the foundation that is able to be laid for those who will come in years to come.

 When first coming from New Britain, the land of perpetual summer, we were never warm, and failed to thaw out even under 5 or 6 blankets at night. However, we are fast becoming acclimatized, and are not only learning, like England, to take it but to enjoy it as well. The people are getting used to the idea of having us amongst them and are not nearly as anxious to inspect us at every opportunity as previously. However, Malcolm Barnes is still a centre of attraction and steals everyone’s thunder when he goes out. [Malcolm Barnes was the baby son of Roland and Miriam Barnes, the first white baby in Mendi.]

The buildings are gradually growing around us, and Miss Wilson and I hope to be able to set up housekeeping on our own next week. At present, we are living in one partly finished bedroom.  Next week our kitchen should be ready for use. There is so much building to be done and the timbers take such a lot of preparing that it is slow progress. Besides, local labour is such that even the simplest tasks must be strictly supervised to ensure satisfaction or even passible results.

Gardening is disappointing especially to us who are so used to the rapid tropical growth in New Britain and New Ireland. Lettuce, tomatoes, beans, peas, carrots, etc. planted just after our arrival are only about 2 inches high now. Garden pests are numerous and seedlings disappear alarmingly under their onslaughts. However, I have no doubt that we will learn as we go along and be able to overcome many of what at present seem like real setbacks on our way to life here.

The people, some of a happy, cheerful nature, and not easy to handle, being arrogant and lazy, and demand payment for even the slightest service rendered or concession given. After returning from a walk, one day, a man who helped me over a few slippery patches on the hill asked what payment he would receive.  I have had men refuse to carry a bucket of water for their own use in the dressing room unless payment was named first. When I explained that their sores would be dressed for them, they tossed the heads and walked off, without carrying the water and without dressings. I feel these people must learn to help themselves and hope they will soon do so.

As for the medical work, I feel it is going to be hard and disappointing work for a long time before much progress is made. Firstly, they do not realize the need of help – they have managed all these years without us, and will continue to do so, seems to be their attitude. Then too, those who do come, or are brought for treatment, seem to think that one dose or injection or dressing should prove a sort of magic cure all.  They object to sleeping away from their own surroundings, and rarely return for further treatment.

Feeling that there is much to be done amongst the women and babies, I am trying to get as much help as possible to them, but here, too, it will be a long time before they begin to realize the need of help.  Babies are brought to Clinic gatherings these days though, whereas in the beginning, mothers would flee to the hills, if I happened to meet one, and attempt to touch the baby. Such looks of terror you would have to see to believe. I guess they thought I wanted to steal the child.  Every Friday the word is sent out and the people gather with their babies and children down at the government station for a clinic. I have a few busy hours, bathing, inspecting, and generally attending to their needs.

Oh! The filth of some of these wee mites.  I wash and soap and soak and scratch and scrape until I am afraid the skin will come off too sometimes. I cut hair clean nails and give a real beauty treatment, plus reams of advice through the government interpreters which they are good enough to lend me.  As yet, I am not allowed to go into the villages to do any work, but the government officers cooperate in this way, and are very obliging and helpful until the restrictions are lifted and we can go further afield. I have had numerous calls to extract teeth and have made many friends for life by easing toothache.  I do not care much for dentistry, but if extract I must to gain their confidence then extract I will.

I was quite thrilled one day last week when a boy came down the hill at the back of the Mission house to say his mother was very ill, and would die if I didn’t go to help her. This was progress in the right direction, and the sign of dawning faith which did my heart good. In spite of the fact that it was 5:30 PM and the thunderstorm was breaking, Mr. Barnes and I set out to investigate, and climbed and slipped and slipped and climbed for an hour in teeming rain to reach the patient. She was very ill and badly needed penicillin and treatment as pneumonia had affected her heart too.  After a couple of days treatment, she was able to be carried down to the station and has progressed very well and will soon be ready for discharge. About a month ago her husband broke his arm, and it has mended very well, because I was able to see and attend to it immediately. A few cases like this, and a few others who have remained for treatment, will I hope, bring about a much-desired change in the people’s attitude toward medicine and treatment, and so give me plenty of work to do.

I am not unduly discouraged, because I know we must hasten slowly with native people, and it is early days for us. Yet I believe it is not what I am able to do in my time here that will ultimately count, but the foundation that is able to be laid for those who will come in years to come.

Oh! If only one could understand and be understood! What a barrier language is! For the second time, I am realizing what it is like to feel helpless and tongue-tied, and this language will not come as easily as it did [in New Britian, learning Kuanua] as we have to sort this out for ourselves. However, we pray as we go and trust the time will come when the hidden things will be revealed to us because we will understand and be understood. We are all well here and putting on weight I fear in the cold climate. Young Malcolm is a pet and thriving on goat’s milk donated to him each morning by the Government officers.

We spent a happy Christmas season with Mendi having its first Christmas tree on Christmas Eve over in the Mission house living room. Mother sent up lots of silver streamers, stars and decorations and the place and tree looked lovely and was laden with presents for the teachers and their wives and families, the school boys and work boys. All enjoyed Christmas carol singing as our organ had previously arrived and afterwards, we served mugs of hot sweet tea, bread rolls, and cake to all for supper before they ventured out into the cold. The teachers went off to the government station to sing carols to the three European officers, and to the hundred cargo boys and 40 to 50 police boys. They then came back and sung us awake at about 1:30 AM.

Christmas Day, we all went to Government station for an early service with special singing and then back for a 10 AM service here. We and the government officers had got Christmas dinner together up at the mission house on Christmas evening. On New Year’s Day 3000 to 4000 crowd was gathered together at the government station for a singsing and celebrations. We all spent the day down there, as it was a good opportunity for us to see and meet such a representative gathering from areas which have been deadly enemies up till now.

Joyce Walker 1952, Mendi

Sources:
Margaret Reeson Whereabouts Unknown, Albatross Books, 1993 pp.457-461
Sister Joyce Walker, Methodist Missionary Review, February 1952