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Abstract
This 50th anniversary of the first diagnosis of kuru brings back so many memories
and these reminiscences are for all the ‘kuru wives’, especially Wendy Alpers and
Fay Hornabrook.
John and I went to live in the Fore area early in 1966. It was expected that we would
live at the government administration centre of Okapa as John, we found on arrival,
was often required to double as the medical officer for the Okapa Subdistrict. We
did sometimes manage to escape the colonial pressure and spent periods living in the
Glasse's house in Wanitabe and in the kiap's hut (house built for the use of patrol
officers on patrol) at Purosa.
Travelling to and from Okapa with a young family was always exciting, and often totally
worrying! From Goroka, you would take a single-engine light aircraft that bobbed between
the mountains. Sometimes there would be no seat for you and you would be squashed
on the floor (no seat belt and knees tucked under your chin) in the tail of the plane
behind all the cargo, which was often made up of Carleton Gadjusek's equipment!
Road travel was by army-style four-wheel-drive vehicles that slowly edged their way
along the narrow ledges of the steep valleys and bumped through river crossings not
infrequently getting bogged. Monday was not a good day to travel because each village
was required to work on their part of the road on that day (figure 1). Many of the
roads were a pile of rocks with bridges reduced to a few planks. This meant lots of
forced stops where you took the opportunity to buy kaukau (sweet potato) and small
sweet pineapples from the women in the nearest village.
Travel between villages and hamlets was by walking along narrow paths between the
kunai grass and over stiles built along the fences of diwai (wood) and bamboo, which
kept the pigs out of the gardens. And much of the walking was up and up. I can remember
going to Mugaiamuti early one Sunday morning to help with an autopsy and being pulled
up the steep muddy track with a stick of bamboo held over the shoulder of a sturdy
and helpful local kuru assistant.
Single-log bridges over gushing rivers were a fearful ordeal for me. I would give
the baby and toddlers to the sure-footed local guys who would whisk the children away
to the other side of the ravine in no time. I would then falteringly and fearfully
slowly step across sideways like an injured crab clinging to a patient helper on each
arm. I probably whimpered all the way as well!
The settlement at Okapa was a physically beautiful place that looked out over a long
valley with the village of Pusarasa nearby and Mt Michael in the distance (figure
2) jutting his (this mountain was definitely male) head out of the clouds that filled
the valley. It was my morning ritual to greet the tip of Mt Michael as I stumbled
to the kitchen and the warmth of a wood fire.
In the early evenings, the women of Pusarasa would pass through, laden with kaukau,
firewood and small children, on the way from their furthest gardens. They would call
out and chatter, whereas the men carrying axes were much more serious. By this time,
the axes were bought at the trade store and not the stone axes used in the very recent
past.
A group of Australian wives started working with the local women. There were many
Fore women who walked in from their villages to talk about child health and a tentative
start was made, at their request, with a family planning clinic. The local women were
very enthusiastic and vocal about these issues. We also had fun playing baseball and
other games. Local crafts were displayed and there was much excitement when our women
won first prize in the Goroka Show.
The mid-1960s was the last of the colonial era: a period of Pax Australiana. The Australian
flag flew proudly over the kiap's corrugated iron offices (a kunai grass hut would
never have done) and the sun never set upon it. The flag also rose at dawn as I discovered
one misty cold morning when walking back from helping with an emergency at the hospital.
There alone in his uniform, a policeman, from the Manus islands and posted to Okapa,
played his bugle and raised the flag! No one but he and I heard it that morning and
for most sunrises he was alone!
Kuru pervaded all parts of our lives. All the Fore people who worked at Okapa, who
helped in our house or who played with our children, had close relatives who had died
or would die of the disease.
There was gentle Yat, a young teenager, whose mother would soon die and then, some
years later, Yat also. Hani's sister who lived at Paigatasa was dying from kuru. He
took the long walk home with John and Mark (our son) to say goodbye (figure 3). Abote's
wife with a very young baby was already dying when the baby was born. There were the
trips to villages to dress pressure sores to try to ease the pain…but nothing could
be done to treat the disease.
The orphanage at the Lutheran Mission at Awande was a stark reminder of the emotional
deprivation caused by kuru. Babies and toddlers, too small to get adequate protein
from kaukau, were taken to the orphanage with an older child as their carer. The carers
were approximately 8–10 years of age and they provided adequate physical care and
fed the younger children with milk and weaning foods provided by the missionaries.
But the carers wanted to play with each other and were too young to provide emotional
care for infants and toddlers. So their charges would spend hours sitting passive
and alone while the sound of excited play was heard in the distance.
This was the legacy of kuru that I saw in the 1960s: the loss of loved ones and the
sadness of so many babies and young children.
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