Call from home too strong to resist

The newly employed nurse returns to hisdistrict after servingonly a few weeks inthe Nembi Plateau ofSouthern Highlands.Nurse-turned MPWake Goi’s storycontinues…

By PAUL MINGA
THE first-year of nursing studies came to an end for Wake Goi after the end of the 1987 academic year in mid-December.
Wake thought of going home to spend his Christmas break in his beloved Gope village, but then he decided not to. He knew that his dad would not be able to find enough money for his school fees the next year during the school holidays, so Wake decided to share his father’s burden. It was tough for both him and his father.
Since his mum had passed away more than six years ago, Wake thought of taking up an odd job over the holiday period to earn something to support his father. Therefore, he stayed back at the college to do odd jobs and save money to help out with his school fees.
Wake helped the college and hospital workers in preparing the land and planting kaukau. After the completion of his second-year studies in 1988, Wake again did the same thing. Wake used his 1988 Christmas holidays but this time the nature of job was unpleasant. He was assigned to clean the hospital patients’ toilets.
He did that cleaning job for the two-week period of 1988 Christmas holidays. He was paid K30 which was a lot of money in those days. At that time the student pocket allowance was K8. Despite the difficulty of raising funds for school fees, Wake didn’t give up hope and he strove to overcome the challenges in front of him. He believed in himself and didn’t give up hope easily.
He had a positive thought as he set his hopes high for his future. He knew he was from a remote area in the district, but he did not see himself as inferior to those around him. He knew that if he continued to have a positive mind, and remained focused and studied really hard to accomplish something in life, he would do well to please his family and even become somebody in future.
Studying nursing was not a walk in the park, there were tough times. There were medical terms that Wake had never heard of. They were fascinating yet hard to pronounce. Therefore, he had to be careful in his theory and practical lessons. During practical lessons when American doctors working at Kudjip Nazerene Hospital asked Wake to do a job or to get something for them, he was always cautious and tried to get it right.
In a situation where he was asked to bring something over from the central supply or the main pharmacy, he had to be careful because certain medical items and names of tools were hard to pronounce. To get it right, Wake would whisper the term repeatedly to remind himself as he went to get whatever was requested by the doctors. He said the words to himself because he was afraid he might call something else or would forget the name by the time he got to the central supply storeroom.
In his third-year of studies, Wake came across someone special, a girl named Catherine. She was a fellow college student and was doing her first-year of studies. She was from Kainantu in Eastern Highlands. From their meetings in college, the friendship developed over the time and eventually led them into marriage a few years later.
In his fourth and final year of studies, Wake realised that his study time was to be only six months. So he needed to learn and study as much so he could be prepared for the final exams that would qualify him for the workforce. He didn’t want to be called a failure a second time. So, he fully committed himself to study and focused on his final exams. As an average student at that stage of his studies, he managed to maintain his standing and scored all upper pass grades in his final exams. As he had not received a fail or pass mark in both theory and practical, he was recommended by the college to graduate and join the workforce.
Wake graduated in June 1990 with a certificate in general nursing. The boy from the remote Jimi area who was once deemed a failure had succeeded. It was a wish that had come true and was a celebration for all the hard work that was invested in the four years in the college as well as the support he got from his father and his relatives.
First job assignment
Soon after his college graduation, the Christian Union Mission showed interest in Wake and drafted him to work at one of their establishments, at Pombrol Health Centre in Nembi Plateau, Southern Highlands. He was recruited on graduation day and a message was later sent to him go up to Mt Hagen to meet his employer’s representatives.
He was asked to go up to Mt Hagen where they would spend the night there and travel the next day together to Pombrol.
Wake remembers that it was on a Monday that he travelled to Mt Hagen and met the City Mission staff. After their meeting, they spent the night in that town and the next day they started their car journey for Southern Highlands, particularly heading for Pombrol.
Their targeted destination was Pombrol Health Centre, the place where City Mission had its set-up, which included a church and clinic. As they were driving along, he was intrigued by what a white missionary did inside the vehicle, something he still remembers today. Never at one time had Wake seen someone praying and driving at the same time. Along the way, the missionary driver told the others in the vehicle that they would have a word of prayer. Wake thought that they’d be stopping the vehicle and whoever wanted to say a prayer would pray and then they would start the engine to continue their journey. But that wasn’t so, the driver started to pray while continuing to drive at the same speed. It was something completely new for the nursing graduate fresh out of training.
As they were driving on, they came to a place where Wake was again intrigued by another strange sight. From inside the moving vehicle, Wake saw that they had come to a place where there was a stream of water running downhill. What was amazing though was that the stream of water wasn’t flowing right down to the road. He questioned what was preventing the stream from flowing further down the side. Water always flows downhill and cannot be reversed or made to flow uphill, so he reasoned. But at that section, it seemed that the stream had stopped flowing downhill.
Actually, the stream flowed downhill and came to a spot where it sank into a big hole and followed a tunnel for quite a distance before flowing out of an earth opening a few metres away, and on the other side of the highway. This was another unusual observation for Wake as they travelled to Nebeau Plateau.
After several hours of being on the road and covering more than 400 kilometres, they finally arrived at Pombrol Health Centre. Wake was introduced to the community within and near Pombrol station as a new graduate health worker who would be serving the community in that part of Southern Highlands. Wake was then allocated a room to occupy and was very pleased with himself as a trainee nurse to have got formal employment straight after graduation. Knowing that he would go on to enjoy other good things as his fortnightly salary and would be regarded as working class man, he just felt he was at the top of the world.
He knew he would be given recognition and title ‘wokman’, a typical PNG expression which means someone is on a payroll and enjoys free accommodation and other benefits and privileges. Wake happily adjusted and counted himself privileged to have secured a job after completing his training. He worked for a week and the first fortnight was due. He remembers that he was paid K70 for about a week that he worked. He was impressed with the one-week pay and gradually began to adjust himself into his new job and environment until the second fortnight was due. This time Wake was paid his full salary of K140. As time went by, Wake forgot the loneliness and was no longer feeling homesick and was enjoying every moment of the working life at Pombrol.
One day, in his fourth week, a 10-seater Land Cruiser drove into Pombrol. While busy at work, Wake could not help but gaze through the clinic window to see who was arriving at the clinic. To his amazement, the name Tabibuga Health Centre was written on the side of the vehicle. Wake was excited when he sighted the name Tabibuga because that was where the headquarters of his home district was located. That was where government institutions such as the health centre, education office, police station, court house, electoral office and the office of district administrator and their local MP’s were located. He was super excited and he stopped what he was doing and walked out to see who were in that vehicle.
As he walked out of the clinic, Wake could hear people in the vehicle speaking his own Jiwaka vernacular. It was like music to his ears, having heard people speaking his mother tongue in a setting where people had a different vernacular. He was extremely glad that he would now converse with someone in his own vernacular. When he approached the vehicle, the driver smiled at him and he realised it was Kimb Tai, a familiar Jimi local. Kimb was then the experienced health officer-in-charge (OIC) of Jimi District Health Services.