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Introductory Regime

2020-03-25Blog-00001

I am getting old!

He now has more time to think abstractly and write blogs.

I grew up in Oceana in a relatively poor family with no radio, bathroom and an outside toilet. A toilet, that when the bucket was full, was emptied into a hole dug specifically for that purpose. As soon as we were old enough, old enough to dig, this became one of my chores. We all lived in a small country cottage, a bed for the parents, a smaller bed for the kids; a large enough yard to play cricket and kick a football – all you could ever need as a small boy growing up in the country. Continue reading “Introductory Regime” →

Ethiopia – a country with many rivers and lakes

Ethiopia, about two thirds the size of Queensland, Australia, has an abundance of lakes which are mainly situated in the Rift Valley. Where ever we stayed in Ethiopia we were close to a huge lake, except for Addis Ababa! But some of the hotels in Addis had swimming pools!

On our very first trip out of Addis when being taken to work at Shashemane we stopped for lunch at the Koka Lake for lunch. It is man made and one of several man made dams on the Awash River for hydroelectricity production! Later when passing, we sometimes stopped to buy catfish. In the late 1960’s early 1970’s and even during the 1990’s when we arrived home they were still flopping around – 100+ km later to Kuyera or 300Km to Soddo – and the fillets even jumped around the frying pan when being cooked!

The two photos above are of Lake Langano which was about 20 Km from where we lived at Kuyera near Shashemane during our first stay in Ethiopia. It has a number of memories for us. We occasionally used to go for a swim on a Thursday afternoon, but were often called back to the hospital for an emergency! Annoying! There was a pizza fire-place, out in a paddock, on the way in from the highway to where we used to swim at an hotel and a camping area. There wasn’t a pizza hut in Addis at that stage! It was a holiday site on the Lake and as they supplied a real reminder for foreigners of their homelands. They did a reasonable amount of business! Not at that time but in the 90’s grandson Adam, visiting with his parents, had his first swim in that Lake (really his first splash not in a bath!) One of the quite interesting medical cases which came from in the water was….a lady washing the family clothing and bending over with her bottom pointing ‘seawards’! A hippo saw an opportunity and took a nibble. Fortunately it was a fairly large pair of buttocks and so he left a moderately huge piece of skin and fat, hanging downwards but with enough tissue still attached to allow the ‘mouthful’ to be cleaned up and sewn back on! I think after that she probably washed keeping her eyes ‘seaward’ after that!

The lake on the left is connected to the one on the right by the creek seen above

The panoramic view above the animal pictures and the two below them are of the lakes near Arba Minch – Lake Abiya and Lake Chamo which are connected by a southward flowing connecting creek! The difference in their surface heights is 65 metres! Abiya covers about 1175 sq kilometres and Chamo 320 sq kilometres! As a doctor I have operated on dog, hippo, crocodile, donkey, monkey, baboon, snake, hyena and human bites. ‘Human bites?’, you may well ask. Two stand out – both from tiffs between ‘lovers’ or that is what they said! Both were on men (I could show photos but had better not!) One lost about two fifths of his lower lip and the other about 2 sq cms of the full thickness of the right side of his nose. So they have Domestic Violence in that country!

Lake Bishoftu is beautiful for swimming and boating! We used to go there for our annual holidays. It was owned by our mission but now the government has acquired the site!

Lake Zeway has many birds as seen above, Marabou storks are huge birds which either take a run up before ‘taking off’ or commonly rest high in trees and fly by dropping from the tree to let gravity give them some speed to allow them to fly! There are also plenty of delicious fish!

Dominic Cartier

Retirement Is it for the birds? I can’t make up my mind!

I didn’t want to retire but my back got so bad that operating became agony. Fortunately, as had not been the case when we first went to Ethiopia, there were now many able to and wanting to take my place, when I retired! It meant leaving the country, the people and the challenges which over the last x years I had grown to love!

But even en masse, birds can look beautiful. Followed by some individuals.

For many of these pictures I have vivid memories. The kookaburra used to eat out of my hand as I sat on the back veranda recovering from cancer surgery! If I didn’t get up early enough for his liking and the backdoor was open into the laundry he would come in and sit on the kitchen bench and squawk until someone answered his cries for attention. Then a young boy came to live with us – a kid missing three limbs and the bird gave his attention to him!

Which of course lets me flit a bit further to the fun we had while he was being fitted for limbs! In the picture he was enjoying washing the car on the front lawn, and I grabbed the hose! He climbed, and still resides, in our hearts but the government wouldn’t let him stay in Australia. So birds can take people through memories into great joy but sometimes while the joy lingers sadness tinges the edges! But what happens if the pictures in your mind bring guilt. Two verses of scripture allows me to find, without just excusing myself, real peace in forgiveness. In Hebrews it says ‘Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful.’ And in Micah it is written, ‘He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.’ The deepest sea is 10,994 metres! It seems sometimes as if someone or something wants to take my peace and joy away, but God says ‘Stuff ’em, believe Me!

An Old man but still young!

How many years make up a generation?

I was 25 years old when we had our first child. My first grandchild was born when I was about 50 and my first great-grandchild when I was 80. I have therefore seen life through three generations and into a fourth.

Every now and again, pretty often, I hear people on TV talking about the ‘Australian Way’. This comes up frequently when people are discussing immigration, multiculturalism and antisemitism! When Australian Mateship is mentioned, it seems to be about drinking beer over a BBQ. That, quite frankly, is pretty shallow!

0-25 -WWII, schooling until University Graduation and I started my first job. I grew up in the country, went to a small grade 1-7 school with one teacher for the 20+ children then I went to a large over 2,000 student High School and Graduated MBBS with a good credit! Most kids went to Sunday School, and the vast majority had Christian Education at school. There were few broken marriages although there no doubt was some under the blanket mis-behaviour! There was no formal sex education, but we all knew that storks were a fairy tale. Lots of time was spent outside playing sport in which all ages were prepared to play together. Boys were boys, girls were girls! We appreciated the differences!

25-50 – national service; 2 major wars and a cold war between the West and the USSR oriented group! The pill became increasing less controlled and became the open door to risk reduced sexual enjoyment before marriage. Sexual perversions began to be more readily accepted as normal alternatives. Broken marriages and divorce became common. The Judeo-Christian basis of Law began to wear thin. Children lived on what their parents had believed and had acted accordingly but ceased to believe in God and Truth. Previously forbidden media was justified as the right to Free Speech, and immorality began to become a selling point for enjoyment to the masses.

50-75 – God definitely was out of favour. Truth became just personal opinion. Morality became outmoded and immorality accepted as normal – even by teachers, University Lecturers and Politicians. This left the children to wander intellectually wherever they wanted to, except that Judeo-Christian thinking was not in favour! Although, and as a result of these changes, it has become necessary to protect children from strangers! Neighbours used to be like parental substitutes for children when I was a child, now they are likely to rape or murder them!

present – people are frightened to speak the truth because they are likely to be imprisoned for saying what made our country so liveable! Our politicians, by and large, have become a mishmash of liars who are more interested in false goals to keep themselves in power while the country goes down the gurgler both economically and morally!

More money or more education of the present type isn’t the answer. Neither is listening to the church leaders, nor to the Educators, nor the political activists unless they wake up to themselves and be transformed. A minority against the tide speak truth! We all need to hear God speaking through Christ Jesus. This is the answer!

Dominic Cartier

What is Truth? What is THE Truth? Two different questions!

This boy, now a University Graduate, is very like a son to me. Is he in truth a whole person? I believe that I can answer both ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and be correct with both answers. It depends upon what I mean by ‘whole person’. He had traumatically amputated both legs and his right arm, when he was run over by a train. He calls me ‘his Aussie dad’ and considering him as my son he is just as real a person as any of my other seven children, all of whom have 2 legs and 2 arms! But, if we wanted to be finnaky we could ask have any of them lost their appendix or maybe even ask if they were circumcised! The fact that they were circumcised caused many Jewish males to be considered non-persons and led to the gas chambers of WWII. So they and their relatives might not consider the word ‘finnaky’ as the appropriate one!

To talk about ‘Truth’ – I am bold enough to say that you are a fool if you don’t admit that Jesus has had an enormous effect on the history of many nations in the world. But you may argue as to whether his effect was good or bad but most would agree that Jesus had a very significant effect on many even if not most countries in the world. There is a well known exchange between Pilate and Jesus when Pilate was considering how to judge Jesus – guilty or not as being guilty justifying crucifixion. The short passage as recorded in the Bible reads ‘Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”
After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews and saying to them, “I find no guilt in him!”, committed Him to be crucified!

Is the world in a mess? – If I may say ‘they’, whoever ‘they’ are, I think that our leaders in many fields have made a mess of the world! War, uneven distribution of wealth, lack of honesty and integrity, climate change distorsions, terrorism, denied basic anatomy, legalized murder and a list as long as your arm could be added without doubling up to the problems we face as humanity in a Universe that we cannot agree upon to whom it belongs! The simple truth is that we are in a ‘hell of a mess’! Many will not like my answer which I talk about. They will argue that it is just ‘my truth’ but I would argue the answer which I am suggesting is Eternal Truth. And the sections of the world which believed it and practiced it, even though imperfectly, were much better off than any group of people are these days! Before you write me off as a religious crank, of which there are plenty, I ask you to consider these facts as true – you might later decide that they are not true, but just for now accept them as true for discussions sake!

A list of things which we are accepting for the moment. 1. Not everybody has the same abilities to logically think things through, and we should be fair to one another. 2. The Bible should only be considered as a ‘for’ or ‘against’ argumentative tool if it has been read in its entirety and in a non-prejudgental way. 3. The Bible is God’s revelation of His plan, culminating in Jesus who is the Incarnate Son of God! 4. Scientific proof in not the only proof available and often is only accepted theory which the future may change. 5. God is the Creator, is a person and understands everything. Thus He as the Creator and being all knowledgeable is able to formulate and dictate what is true truth!

The Proposed Cure – a) God in Religious and Governmental things will be given the Pre-eminence due to Him. b) Where stated as a principle or can be honestly deduced from Biblical Principles these laws shall be considered as the basis for truth! c) all present laws which go against Biblical principles will be changed to fit God’s revealed plan. Major things where this would have an explosive effect are – education at all levels, sexual relations, marriage, roles of responsibility, political honesty, unemployment benefits, work ethics, inter-religion harmony, wealth including wages, privileges, taxes and responsibilities.

Somewhere this needs an honest discussion. You may say that this has already been rejected and it is not worth reconsidering. Do you remember when the appendix was considered a useless vestigial organ in the human, useful only in koalas? As science has found and reported in the following words in Wikipedia ‘Yes, the appendix is directly related to immunological development and function, serving as an important part of the gut-associated lymphoid tissue (GALT). Long considered a useless vestigial organ, modern research indicates that the appendix plays a significant role in training the immune system, particularly during early life.” Maybe the baby has been thrown out with the bath water!

Would the plan work? My answer is a yes and a no answer. If with good will and enthusiastically it were applied – YES. Because of human nature and our commitment to seeking to get our own way and being committed to evil rather than good in the majority – NO. So why do I think it worth discussing? Because I think that any answer that rejects the basics of this hasn’t even a ‘snowflake’s chance in hell’! So why do I bother? Because God’s answer, His plan as disclosed in the Bible gives us the answer that He will at any rate. in His sovereignly, work it out! So let us all work ‘you in your small corner and I in mine’, and let us hope that some of the religious mislead, filthy rich and politically naively stupid will read this and learn something worth learning, and look up the Way that He talks about!

Barry Hicks.

An Interesting visit to Southern Ethiopia.

One is interested in tribal customs. Some seem excellent, some queer, but these days we are discouraged from questioning things as everybody is considered to their opinions being as legitimate as anyone else’s. Unlike these days, in my time there were very few doctors to cover the increasing population and many of the doctors tended to stay in the bigger cities with more facilities and more money! The population were mainly rural.

The mission with which I had a close association ran several nurse clinics which were very useful but obviously limited in their capabilities. One such clinic was near the Kenyan border where the tribe had a, to us, different custom. Before a young man was permitted to get married he had, as shown in the picture, to run back and forth, naked, over 20 cattle tied transversely. By their custom boys were not circumcised as babies (the Orthodox, Muslims and some other groups are circumcised near birth or as puberty approaches). As uncircumcised penises in adulthood, unless erect, are a bit dangly and lengthy, it was their custom to be circumcised around this time. The technique was to hold the foreskin slightly stretched out over a rock and cut it off with a swift sword swipe. Not every sword wielder was accurate with some disadvantageous results.

The tribal elders came to the lady nurse who was in charge of the clinic and asked if she could arrange for someone (eventually me) to train a young Ethiopian male dresser who worked with her to perform circumcisions. It was agreed that I would come down for a couple of days and perform 40 such procedures. Interestingly there was in the area an American Army squad vaccinating goats and their young doctor asked if he could join the process and be also taught. (The dresser was the more capable student!) Very little had been prepared and I guess it was my fault as I had expected an American nurse to realize what was necessary if I wasn’t to only use a sharpened sword! So the first evening was used making sheets to be sterilized, hunting up syringes and local anaesthetics, suture material and enough tools to do the job professionally. The next morning I met the line up, had them bathe themselves and set about with a couple of demonstrations, self performed on them, teaching them to use local anaesthetics, making sure how much you wanted to remove etc. I then guided the two trainees through the process. We did the forty finishing late in the afternoon. We stopped for a lunch of ‘Injerra b wot’. When the local anaesthetic wore off I bet there were some unhappy chappies but at least still with all the necessary bits there!

There is a very different side to that trip at that time which I might tell at some other time.

Dominic Cartier