Jakarta update

Early Saturday morning we met with Maybe, our Hope worldwide leader in Indonesia. We travelled about an hour outside Jakarta to Sentul, where Hope worldwide houses a clinic and orphanage. Once there we met with several local doctors and volunteers and set up a clinic at the local school. After clinic, we went back to the orphanage to take a tour and to see the babies.

For the evening, we went to a mall near our hotel. This mall is huge and has at least 8 different levels. Prices for American goods are ridiculously cheap too. For dinner we enjoyed a delicious all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ where we grilled our own meat. It was amazing and we will probably go back soon.

Sunday was our first full day on our own. We went to Pelabuhan Sunda Kelapa, an ironwood boat yard. The boating cargo is mainly wood and water. We hired a local to give us a tour. He took us onto one of the boats and into the neighboring community.

After the boat yard, we headed to MONAS, the national monument. Our driver got lost and it took over 2 hours to reach our destination, which turned out to be within 15 minutes of our hotel. Otherwise the monument was touristy and enjoyable. Late Sunday, Dr. Gossman arrived to our hotel and he will be helping us in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Yesterday we visited Hope worldwide's tuberculosis clinic. We set up clinic and treated locals. We also learned how to do a lab test for tuberculosis, which we later used to diagnose patients. Wednesday we will return to this clinic.

We are leaving shortly for our next clinic so more updates soon. We miss you all!

-Missy

In Jakarta

We just arrived in Jakarta last night at about 1:30 AM and we're already up and moving so we can leave for the clinic by 8. Needless to say, we're a bit tired but pushing on for now. We'll have a day off tomorrow to catch up on sleep and meet Dr. Gossman when he arrives.

More updates soon!

-Mike

Pictures!

In no specific order...

The crater at Taal Volcano

Laguna Clinic (Day 1) - This outdoor space was the "waiting room" to get into the clinic. Inside we had 6 different spots set up to take patients one at a time for examinations of their complaints.

All six guys posing on a wall around Intramuros, the old Spanish fort in the heart of the city.


Laguna (Day 2) - Migs (in the center with the white hat) was fantastic with the kids. If there was ever any down time he would just jump right in and get them signing and dancing. Abby and Missy got in the middle of it all this time.


Baseco Clinic - This room served as a wound or skin disease center for two days. Missy is helping patch this little guy up while Emily, Adam and Kati look on.

Team picture in front of the volcano!

Laguna (Day 1) - The wife of the Vice Mayor bought us all lunch and here we are taking a much needed break and chowing down on some mangos.

The view from Tagaytay out over Taal lake and the mountains.

Sunset at Intramuros


- Mike

Tagatay, Philippines

I still can't figure out how to upload my photos onto the blog so I'll just give a recap and then add photos later...

Anyway, after hiking the volcano, our group headed to a resort situated along Taal Lake called Club Balai Isabel. It was breathtaking with the lake and mountains as our primary view in the background. After checking into our rooms and eating a locally made Filipino meal (chicken adobo with fresh stir-fry vegetables), we all scrubbed off the pounds of dirt caked on us from the hike and then headed to the pool for a much needed swim.

The water felt amazing! It was exactly what we needed after 6 days of clinic and the volcano hike. The best part was that the pool had a slide that we each took turns going down. A few times we teamed up and went down in groups "banana-boat" style. Adam was the biggest fan of the slide and probably went down it 30 times Wednesday and 20 more on Thursday. To say the least, it was entertaining to watch his excitement for the slide!

A few hours into our swim it started raining so most of the group headed back to the rooms to relax. A few of us--Dusty, Emily, Kati, Adam, Abby, and myself--headed out to take a swim in the Taal lake. The water was really warm, almost comparable to a bath. But with the cold rain coming down on us, it made the water feel amazing! The biggest shock factor of the Lake was the amount of seaweed along the bank. There was so much of it! It felt like we were walking through some sort of netting. Either way, it was fun swimming in the lake with the cool rain coming down.

For the evening we had another locally made dinner of grilled fish and stir-fry vegetables with mangoes for dessert. It may have been the best meal we've had since being in the Philippines. It was absolutely delicious! After dinner, our group decided to stay by the resort and so we spent our evening sitting on the dock looking at the stars. Some of the more adventurous ones (Anu, Abby, Emily, and Adam) decided to jump off the dock into the lake and take an evening swim.

Friday was a relatively chill day. We woke up and lounged around the resort until checkout. The boys played basketball and swam while the girls laid out to watch. We then traveled to a park in Tagatay known as "People's Park of the Sky" to see the entire area in panoramic view. We could see all of Tagatay including the Taal Volcano from a higher elevation. It was beautiful from the top!

After a long jeepney ride back to Manila, we decided to spend our last night doing karaoke. We went to Music 21, a karaoke restaurant, and rented our own room to sing some tunes. Also during this time, Hope Worldwide rewarded our group with certificates thanking us for our service in the Philippines. The final count of patients treated was 2,160 patients.... in 6 days!

Well today is our last day in Manila and the other group has already departed for Kuala Lumpur. We leave in 12 hours for Jakarta on Cebu Pacific. If you'd like to follow our flight, we are on flight number 5J-759. The link is:

Anyway, we miss everyone at home and can't wait to update you with more stories from our trip. We hope you are doing well and please note that the comments are loved and much appreciated.

From the summit of Taal volcano

Longest 45 minute hike of our lives... but we loved every minute of it! The picture below is from the top of Taal Volcano. Hopefully we will figure out how to post the better quality pictures we have been taking along the way soon, but this is just a quick snapshot from the peak. It seemed like every bend in the path was another scenic vantage point so between all of us there are literally hundreds of pictures of the day and the hike.

Everything has been going great with our little R&R trip. Nobody seems to be having too much trouble unwinding after such a stressful week as evidenced by the enthusiasm with which we hiked up this steep trail with the temperature near 95 or 98 degrees and the humidity hovering around 100%. The locals followed us with their horses, convinced that we would never be able to make it to the top without taking a break and riding one of their trusty animals. We managed to do it though and collected a lot of great pictures in the process, which we can hopefully share soon!

When we get back to Manila tomorrow night we are planning on catching you all up with pictures and stories from the trip so far. So check in here in the next 24 hours or so and hopefully we'll be bringing a bunch more updates your way!

As always, thanks for the comments and words of encourgement. Although we don't always have the time to respond to everyone, we always love to read them and hear from all of you who are keeping track of our adventure.





- Mike

Pictures from Laguna

Our makeshift pharmacy at Laguna. The same structure was usually used for illegal gambling according to the locals.


It's a difficult job to sort through all the medicines we bring with us and even more difficult to make sure our patients understand the dosages and importance of taking what was prescribed.


This was right after the rainstorm that Joe described. The sun (and heat) returned in no time at all.


Here's the scene after a long day in the clinic. Every day has sent us limping back to the jeepney tired and sweaty for the long bumpy ride home. While it isn't the most comfortable ride in the world, it's probably among the nicest of all the jeepneys simply because it has air conditioning.

- Mike

Clinic Update (sorry no pictures)

Hello everyone,

Mike really wants everyone to share their experiences, aka doesn't want to be the only one blogging and thus I am sharing this grueling job of writing to all of you :-)

The action has continued non stop from the last post. The itinerary posted had 2 days of clinic followed by 2 days of rest with a visit to the Taal Volcano. We learned upon our arrival, however, that this was not to be. Our new schedule is 6 days of clinic with a relaxing ending.

So Mike left off with our first clinic in Baseco and to pick up this story I am going to start with our next two clinics: Laguna and Payatas. However, I want to mention that after our second and last day in Baseco we fit in a stop in Intramuros. This was a Spanish fort that held the national hero Rizal (a writer among many other talents that expressed his dislike of spanish rule and promoted peaceful rebellion). He was locked up and executed in the fort turned modern museum in 1819 (I think this is the right date, I am sure someone can wikipedia this and prove me wrong so dont quote me... it just sounds better to include the tentative year) Unfortunately, the visit was slightly tarnished by our exhaustion and the heat, but it was a richly cultural experience that we are all glad we made especially since we may never do it again. Again sorry for the lack of pictures (on the bright side you have even more to look forward to from the more skilled blogging members or our arrival home :-)

The usual pick up is around 7:30 am in the lobby of our hotel/hostel, and the mood among the group is surprisingly pretty energetic despite the hour. More surprising is that the wonderfully placed starbucks directly ourside our hotel doesn't open until 10am... I am a coffee person so enough said :-( The ride to Baseco was pretty short, but these last 4 days have been 2 hour drives in affore mentioned jeepney down highways in traffic and through the winding streets of the villages/towns (usually more than one 3 point turn is required in these areas) . When we arrive in Laguna on the first day we stop in at the Center of Hope for abused children. It is a very well taken care of and managed facility for physically or sexually abused kids. We are given a tour and give exams and medications / skin care to the 9 kids and handful of mentors at the center. One of the kids has polydactyly on all four appendages!! The kids themselves are adorable and very enthusiastic about our arrival. I think one of them may even grow up to be a future doctor as he went around with my stethoscope listening to our heart beats. From there we are taken to a small clinic by jeepney at which there are already huge lines of people waiting to be seen. We unload and quickly set up a make shift clinic of exam stations and a pharmacy. They placed Adam and I in charge of the pharmacy, so I don't have as much to offer from the front lines. However, seeing as every patient was sent to the pharmacy, I can tell you that after the 300 some patients we saw it was a different situation from the first clinic. Here there are lots more cough and cold cases, for which multivitamins were worth their weight in gold. We did still have some skin care and wound cases, but much less before and we quickly exhausted the medical supplies that we had. Lunch was local made food of stewed meat over rice accompanied by the ripest, juciest mango's we have ever eaten. During the break we toured the little town a bit. Dusty, Randy (both from the other group) and Mike played basketball with some of the locals and were quick celebrities for their size and capacity to dunk!

The second day in Laguna was even more of a treat. After the 2 hour ride, we arrived a a wide open space in a different part of the village with a single tent erected to house all 14 of us plus the 22 nurses also volunteering. It was going to be a long day... After setting up the pharmacy and having the locals set up more tarps to sit under we got started and it was fast paced. Nurses checking people in and doing vitals and then sending them to us and a translator for more in depth exams. Again it was much the same with lots of coughs and some skin cases with a few developmental disorders and some patients in need of more advanced medical attention or eye exams. Lunch was again locally produced and similar to the day before and we were very tired after the morning. It begain to rain as we headed back to the "clinic" and before we were able to see another patient it started to pour! The kids thought this was the greatest thing with the tarps set up collecting water and we spent a lot of time trying to keep our shelter upright and spilling water all over the kids for their enjoyment. It was a much slower afternoon and we left a little earlier and got home around 5... short day clocking in at around 9 hours :-) better than the 12 hour days previous!

Well it is getting late, but to wrap up the days have been long and exhausting yet very rewarding. In total over the last 4 days we have seen over 1100 patients! While our efforts are not a long term fix the smiles and thanks from the people we have seen have made this trip something special for all of us! Hopefully the next post will talk about the future clinic in Payatas as well as the Taal volcano. I also hope it includes some pictures as my words do not do justice to the things we have seen.

We miss you all back home and love reading your comments and emails. Thank you so much for all your support and love. Stay well and know we keep you in our thoughts everyday!

Yours truly,
-Joe

Hello from Manila!

Sorry for not posting sooner, but it's taken a couple of days to get our bearings set and get into a routine. It's just been nonstop action since the plane touched down. We had a big traditional Filipino meal on our first night and crashed early (there were some tired people around the table by 8 o'clock). On our first day of the clinic we took a 'scenic' boat ride that took us through the slum area that all of our patients were living in. 200,000 people are living in 5 hectares of rickety houses built on top of a decades-old land fill. It was shocking, to say the least. I know I speak for everyone when I say that I was very happy we got to really emerse ourselves in their community. Unfortunately it isn't easy to post the pictures we got of that trip, we will try soon.

That first day of clinic got started late and even after only beginning at 10:30, we saw 186 patients (mostly children) before 3 pm. Just this morning we saw an additional 300. It's already been a wild ride-- the sights, the sounds, the -smells-, have all been a completely new experience for the vast majority of us.

The medical experience has largely been a crash course in diagnosing bacterial or fungal skin infections and handing out huge amounts of antibiotics. Our huge stock of med supplies is already looking noticably smaller and we have been trying to buy more supplies (especially things like the antibiotics and hydrocortisone cream) from government officials that sell at cost. It's been a wonderful experimce already to treat these adorable kids and hopefully we are making their lives a little bit better.


- At the airport right when we landed, already feeling the mid-day heat



- Our hired ride, called a "jeepney." Most are left over WWII transport vehicles with elaborate color schemes. Ours is a deluxe version with air conditioning (a welcomed luxury after spending the day sweating profusely)



- Dr. Dave, with Geoff (from the other group) looking on.



- These kids are tough as nails. This poor little guy had a huge abcess on his forehead that had to be drained and packed with antibiotics and gauze.


More to come,
Mike

Made it to Korea

We all made it to Korea! Hard to believe we pulled it off, but the first big flight is behind us. Updates coming soon.

- Mike

The countdown begins!

Hey everyone! Thanks for checking in on the CURA SE Asia blog. We are all making our final preparations for the big trip and getting ready for one seriously long travel day across the Pacific. I just thought I'd let you all know that we will do our best to keep you on top of the latest information whenever we have access to a WiFi connection. This will largely be hit-or-miss at hotels and Internet Cafés but we should be able to use a handy iPhone app to make the process quick and easy whenever there is an opportunity. So in no time at all we should be beaming pictures and comments back from halfway around the world! If you would like to add comments to any of our posts, which is certainly welcomed, use the link in the upper right corner of this page to Sign In and you'll have a few options as a new or returning user.

In case you missed my note about the contact information before -- just follow the link to "comments" found right under the Trip Itinerary post to find more information about our hotels during the trip.

The Trip Itinerary

MANILLA, PHILIPPINES

May 18 – 19 Travel Day(s), aka the long trip across the Pacific Ocean:

Flights: Asiana 203 LAX [12:20 AM] to Seoul (ICN) [5:20 AM] + Asiana 701 ICN [8:40 AM] to Manilla (MNL) [11:50 AM]

May 19 – Orientation at HOPE in the afternoon

May 20 – Laguna Clinic

May 21 – Laguna Clinic

May 22 – Sight seeing – Intramuros (an old Spanish fort in Manila)

May 23 – Sight seeing– Taal Volcano

May 24 – Baseco Clinic

May 25 – Baseco Clinic

May 26 – Payatas Clinic

May 27 – Payatas Clinic

May 28 – Final evaluation with HOPEww

JAKARTA, INDONESIA

May 28 – Travel Day

Flight: Cebu 5J 759 MNL [8:55 PM] to Jakarta (CGK) [11:45 PM]

May 29 – Health care checkups at a Jakarta orphanage

May 30 – Jakarta sight-seeing

May 31 – TB Clinic - Jakarta Utara

June 1 – Cakung Clinic

June 2 – Cakung Clinic

June 3 – TB Clinic - Jakarta Utara

June 4 – Sight seeing/overnight – Bandung, Indonesia

June 5 – Sight seeing – Maribaya and Lembang, Indonesia

KUALA LUMPUR, MALAYSIA

June 6 – Travel Day

Flight: AirAsia QZ 7692 CGK [12:30 PM] to KUL [3:25 PM]

June 7 – Painting the center and visit the community

June 8 – Sentul Clinic

June 9 – Sight seeing – Batu Caves and around KL

June 10 – Sentul Clinic

June 11 – Travel to Penang (5 hour drive) to conduct pediatric clinic

June 12 – Sight seeing in Penang/ Children's reading program in the afternoon

June 13 – Return to KL

June 14 – Travel Day - everyone will be going their separate ways, and most will reunite later in Bangkok for the flight back.

June 24 – The long trip back home, via Seoul

Flight: Asiana 744 BKK [1:15 AM] to ICN [8:30 AM]

Asiana 202 ICN [4:30 PM] to LAX [11:30 AM]

Trip Summary:

28 days for CURA (38 days total)

13 days in the clinic

3 days of general volunteering

7 sight seeing days (plus 10 days after CURA has concluded)

4 travel days

I have a list of more detailed addresses and contact information from individual sites that I will attach in the comments section of this post soon.