December 1950 School Magazine

Brisbane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

December, 195~

December, 1850

~~bane Girls' Grammar School Magazine

Letters

room, natives, dressed in long white robes and red fez, waited upon us. Having stayed there for two hours, we once more boarded the plrme. Travelling through the night, we were lulled to sleep by the steady drone of the engines. About ll o'clock next morning, the plane landed at Karachi, India. Here, we had our first experience of really hot weather. The sun bore down upon us as we made our way through small crowds of curious people. We had a little bother here over our innoculation. The Indian officials are very thorough in their work and very careful about diseases. Our innoculation should have been done ten days before our leaving England but ours, of course, had been done two days before our departure. An Indian doctor came aboard the plane before we disembarked to examine our arms. Luckily we were passed satisfactorily or we would have been detained. We had a shower and then lunch amid cooling fans at a rest-house. After an hour or two we were aboard the plane again. At one time we had to use our oxygen masks, as the plane rose to a higher altitude in order to avoid a heavy storm. Dut of the windows we saw fierce flashes of lightning as though the gods were wrecking vengeance on the earth. The plane landed at Singapore on the third morning at at about 10 o'clock. After a brief stay there, we once more embarked on that monster of the skies. That evening, we had our first sight of Australia. We had landed at Darwin and through the hot night, were taken to a rest-house, where fans whisked away our weariness. The trees and plants outside were of great interest to me. Our next hop was to Sydney and on the next morning our long journey was over. It seems incredible that one could travel half way across the globe in three days ! I will always have the desire to return to the Mother Country, my home; but, when I do, I shall go by sea and obtain more knowledge of this wonderful, wonderful world !

From Port Moresby. News of Janette Chester (N D. 1949) Janette has been working ever since she returned, she has a position with the Health Dept., in the Child welfare section, for natives. She is very happy and, from all accounts from the trained nurse under whom she works, she is doing a very good job. She leaves home at quarter to eight each morning in a jeep with a trained nurse. They take their lunch and travel three miles away, where the clinic is situated. Here the native mothers bring their babies for treatment and advice . Twice a week Janette and the nurse visit the villages to make sure there are no undernourished or sick babies who have not been brought to the clinic. Here, Janette, who is able to speak the language reasonably well, is able to explain the advantages of the clinic to those mothers who are superstitious of the white man's medicine , and still prefer the village sorcerer. In most cases she is able to persuade them, especially as they themselves can see how quickly the sick babies are cured amongst their friends. It is a most interesting w.ork, and Janette loves it. She arrives home at about 4 p.m. each afternoon very tired and grubby, as the native babies are not always particularly clean, and the clinic nurses have to visit some of the native homes, which means climbing up rickelty sticks which are used for steps. She has got a lot thinner, but although she comes home very tired, being young, she can have a hot bath and feel fresh enough to play tennis, which she does. I am enclosing a couple of snaps which Janette took with her camera; one is a view of the Bomana Vvar Cemetery, which is really very beautiful, and the other is of two liitle patients who visit .the clinic. The baby in the · box was nearly dead from starvation, but is doing very well now, and· the little girl g1vmg the babe :he bonle, is recovering from whooping cough, which is raging_.. up here . Extract from a Letter from Marion Williams As I have been the Grammar School representative on the A.B.C. Youth Committee for some months now, I thought I should like to let you know of our activities to date. After I was appointed as the School's representative, it was some time before I received the first notice of meeting . This was a business meeting and at it we discussed the sale of programmes, and the annotations for the next concert. Wben the business was over, we were given a record recital by two members of the Committee . Unfortunately, I was unable to attend the next meeting as I had a very bad cold. The last meeting was held last Tuesday night and it took the form of a reception to the conductor and soloist of the 5th Youth Concert, Charles Groves and Marjorie Horn.

-DOROTHY BISHOP, III B

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