Nogut pik i bagarapim ples matamat

i’m frustrated tonight.

and i’d like to say it’s for all the right reasons. but the thing about the human brain – when the right reasons are too much, the little (wrong) reasons take over.

i’m frustrated because i can’t find a cheap flight home for christmas. and because christmas means the world to me, so there is no option to not go. i have to see my family. i have to hold on to that one single tradition. so i will pay an extraordinary amount to do it.

i’m frustrated because a good friend of mine is no longer a good friend. time and space wrecked a good thing. i love human connections, and when i find out it’s been trashed, it hurts.

i’m frustrated because i have a pile of paperwork facing me right now. and it’s all got a purpose, but i’m counting the hours of the days and the hours to do the work… and there’s a wee discrepancy that may cause some problems. unless i can finally leap over that barrier of space/time relations.

but yeah, the real reasons. the things that i finally had a good cry over the phone to my husband about. the reasons that occasionally make me engage in the type of vocalisation an ex-yoga teacher (dave are you still out there?) would be proud of (luckily it’s loud enough in the ‘hood that i can yell in the backyard without anyone getting worried).

the real reasons. ok. so perhaps it was the 3 hours i spent the other day keeping an eye on the men beating on each other in the street. all so drunk they could barely walk, and yet, they’d have the strength to stomp on the other one who had fallen. frustrated at watching the kids peering from behind the large tree. frustrated that i couldn’t do anything.

or maybe, it’s the woman who came into our clinic, who wasn’t actually a patient of ours (she was at the wrong place), who was so thin from tb that i was careful not to nudge her as i walked by because she looked ready to break. and she wasn’t our patient.

maybe it was knowing, that for all we do, and for all the people here who work so hard, i heard reports of a woman pulled out of a police station by her abusive husband after she’d gone there for protection. the police did not follow.

maybe it was the past week of struggling to find a way to refer patients to services, and have those services work. knowing that we could simply spend our days personally advocating for each and every woman who walks through our door. knowing we could pound our heads against overworked and underfunded services who don’t know what to do either.

maybe it was dealing with a case where a woman had decided to leave her abusive husband, but literally had no where to go.

or maybe it was the young woman who had been brought to our clinic by a stranger after she was gang raped in the middle of the day.

maybe.

so now to appreciate the other little things. the family next door is shrieking and shouting right now… with happiness. they are laughing. it is alright.

and we cannot do everything, but i know we do something.

and the women here, for all they go through, they are strong. they are incredibly strong. and it’s been some time since i’ve seen women who are so assertive and opinionated and loud. and yes, that makes me happy.

and again, go back to the people who bring in their friends, who bring in their family. go back to what is, not just what isn’t.

the paperwork will get done. the ticket will be purchased. and we will treat the survivors who come with respect and give them back some choices and let them take back a tiny part of what violence takes away.

we will go to bed and try to get a good sleep.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 7:35 am and is filed under Financial and Human Resources Coordinator,, Healthcare provision, Papua New Guinea. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.