34 
St. Barnabas A'ota, Matliwag Church Site September 22, 1972 
Don Rubenstein and I are seated in the Bishop's house at the Diocese 
of Melanesia Church site. We hiked here along the trail which goes east 
from St. Paul Lekwel via St. Johm Lewatnok and reached here in about Ih 
hours of easy walking in wind and moderate rain. Clouds covered patches 
of the ocean whipped by 30-40 mile per hour wind into a heavy swell. The 
whole day has been very windy and our team of three caught on the Alpha 
Helix could not be landed all morning. In mid-morning they made attempts 
to land but could not manage the huge swell at St. Paul and at the calmer 
landing below St. Luke Levetmise they could not scale the cliff-like rock 
formation rising 10-15 feet above the boat along the shore. I kept in 
radio contact with the ship and tried all morning to urge them to find a site 
for landing, but the high winds and heavy seas have made all such 
small boat movements dangerous! 
Paul, Raymond and Franco ise had arrived at 5:30 p.m. last night in a 
very dangerous landing. The three left on board managed to separate all 
the remaining bloods, freezing down the clots and sera to -70°C in the 
Revco and leaving a small suspension of red blood cells in residual sera 
at 4°C, in the refrigerators. Thus 220 specimens are already processed. 
The three who joined Jean Guiart and I found lodging in Father Thomas 
Butu's home and late in the evening we had pumpkin cooked with coconut oil 
and other fine dishes to eat. 
I slept again at the school with about eight St. Paul's boys, William 
sharing my mat with me. There is now an almost full moon. There will be 
dancing at St. Paul's, St, Steven's and at at St. Barnabas and the latter 
village dances also on Wednesday night. 
We have had one hour of St. Barnabas at dusk, and we have now moved 
into the Bishop's house for the night. The "family" of Alban Lias, my 
closet helper from here, has had "market" open this evening and I have 
purchased from his family at lOc a slice most of a large pie of laplap 
made of manioc and "cabbage" (greens) and coconut and yam and four large 
plates of grated manioc "dumplings" covered with cooked and grated coconut 
in coconut milk! ! This has filled everyone. 
After eating, we arranged mats on the floor of our house for the six 
"strangers" (i.e., St. Paul and St. John boys). With a group of boys and 
three small girls we climbed steeply above the Matliwag site to the home 
of Erik Por, the father of a family of small children, who is febrile and 
toxic. He is no longer able to walk from a severe systemic reaction to the 
huge deep abscess and CTellulitis, and perhaps even osteomyelitis and septi- 
cemia from a deep and penetrating wound of the right arm resulting from the 
penetration of his arm muscles with a stick, while doing garden work. He 
pulled out all of the stick, but obviously much debris has remained. I came 
with no medical supplies other than a small vial (250 mg. capsules) of ampi- 
cillin and 250 mg. capsules of tetracycline. . .thus, I could treat him, and 
have given him 750 mg. of ampicillin stat and 500 mg. for consumption at 6 
a.m.; tomorrow , I shall arrange for the dresser, Andrew Gon, to come here 
with procaine penicillin injections for a few days. I must examine the patient 
moire carefully tomorrow. 
