Friday 12th October
Attendees :
P. Karen, PP Walter, PP Arnaud, Rtn Roy, Rtn Stewart, Rtn Dr. Johan, Rtn Gary,
Rtn Jaspal, Rtn Jonathan, Rtn Dr. Larry
An intimate table of 10 with a sit down lunch of mega proportions; served by the Millenium Resort was well received.
P. Karen gonged and opened the meeting at 1300 hrs.
<reporting>
Attendance records are from July to Dec and then Jan to June with the 40% attendance in requirements. Pls do let sec Walter know of all make ups, which includes all board meetings, committee meeting, events, and online "My Rotary" workshops of at least 30 minutes.
There was a gathering of RCs of Phuket at a temple in Thalang on the 10th of Oct to donate 600 plates and utensils, also attended by RCoPB. This is a good event and RCoPB should be more involved next year.
Jaspal - zzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Dr. Johan reported Nong Ai has a 16th Oct follow up with the doctors re the upper palate operation,the prognosis is very good....a life changing event for the young girl to be able to talk normally.
RCoPB has donated Bht 10,000 for Indonesian Tsunami relief
through our district 3330.
Last Board Meeting was on the 6th of Oct, and all members are requested to peruse the minutes put up online already. However minutes will always be one meeting short as they have to be approved in the future meeting.
Donation boxes to be "made anew" and distributed to the waiting outlets.
- Next meeting is on the 26th of Oct.
- Dinner out will be on the 6th of Nov.
RCoPB members are reminded to attend the RC of Koh Samui installation on the 2nd of Nov. Tickets still available at the time of bulletin release.
The floor was then turned over to Rtn Roy, our Public Image Chair :
<Roy's input required> Regret no input received - ed
The meeting ended at exactly 1400 hrs after SAA Gary had the happy hundreds from attendees.
Reporter: Jaspal Singh Photos: Gary Eidsvik Moody
Thank you ed Denis
Climb every mountain
A Rotaractor ventures deep into her native Uganda with a polio vaccination team as part of Rotary’s newest virtual reality film, Two Drops of Patience
By Patience Asiimwe - As told to Diana Schoberg
Rotaractor Patience Asiimwe worked with a polio vaccination team in the mountain community of Tapac, an eight-hour drive and a world away from her home in Kampala, the Ugandan capital.
In November 2017, I met the team of filmmakers in Kampala who would be documenting the polio immunization effort for Rotary’s newest virtual reality film. I had to request a week off from my job with the Uganda Cancer Society, where I work finding donors and funds to help with their program activities. We chartered a plane to the town of Moroto, which is way, way up in northeastern Uganda at the foot of Mount Moroto. There, we met up with people from UNICEF and the local government, as well as the Rotarians and Rotaractors who had driven three hours from the town of Soroti and would also be giving polio drops. Since there isn’t a Rotary club in this part of the country, Soroti Rotarians occasionally hold medical camps here.
It was another one-hour drive to Tapac, the community on the mountain where we were to work. I had never been in that part of the country before – it’s more than eight hours from my home by car. I was so shocked. I had only seen places like this in movies and television documentaries.
The poverty was overwhelming. The thatched huts that people live in are built by the women; the men do the cattle keeping. The women harvest long grass and dry it, and also tie together bundles of sticks. Some use the mosquito nets that they get for malaria prevention to tie their things together. Some of the homes are raised on sticks, and the family’s livestock are kept under the house. The doors are so small that you can’t actually walk through them – you crawl.
The health center is up in the hills. It’s really small, and people come to it from miles around. There’s no electricity in that area, but luckily someone donated solar panels to run the refrigerator, since the polio vaccine has to be kept cool. A nurse there taught us about the cold chain and how to place the vaccine in the coolers, and explained how to administer it without contaminating the vial – you have to hold the dropper above the children’s mouths without touching.
Then we went to one of the homes to get some hands-on experience. When it was my turn, I was shaking. I was worried I would make a mistake and drop in more than two drops. It’s like the way you keep blinking when you’re trying to put in eyedrops. The baby keeps moving! So it can be tricky. We learned the way to hold a child’s mouth so it remains open – you kind of gently press the cheeks together. You have to smile, sing to them. You couldn’t come with a tough face – you want the child to feel comfortable with you. And of course the mother helps keep her child calm.
We went up into the mountains the next day to give the vaccinations, but first the film crew needed to talk to people and let them know what was going to happen. Imagine a place where you rarely see visitors, and then you see that camera drone up in the sky. Suddenly people would come out, wondering what was going on.
And because the government has tried to disarm people in the area, which has a history of violent conflict among tribes, often related to cattle raiding, they are suspicious of everyone. They dress differently and do their hair differently, so you can tell an outsider for miles.
We didn’t know that people there believe you are not supposed to climb the trees or sit on the rocks. The people hold them in high regard; they’re sacred. They got angry with us because they thought we were provoking them. This is why, when you go places, you need to know the community well. Because who would think sitting on rocks is a bad thing?
We always moved with the nurse, because people knew her and she knew the language, Ng’akarimojong. We had to tell people why it is important to give the polio vaccine. One father asked me if I wanted to kill his child or if this was a family planning method. We had to spend a good amount of time with him.
I met a man in Tapac who had been crippled by polio. He can’t run. He can’t walk. He can only crawl. When it rains, the water rushes down the mountain carrying rocks and mud. He tries to get out of the way as fast as possible. But he gets stuck. Imagine being an adult and being pelted with rocks and mud. When I met him, I realized that wheelchairs don’t help in a place like this. Wheelchairs won’t get you up the mountain. You need your legs.
When we first started filming, I was focused on what we were going to shoot. But that changed when I did my first vaccination. I felt like a hero. It was a satisfying feeling, knowing you probably just changed someone’s life. I felt I had done something very meaningful. I had prevented somebody from being sick. I had given somebody opportunity.
Those two drops felt like a life-changing action.
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