Hello! Kathy, Mollie's mom, posting upon Mollie's request.
Micronesia was I think Pacific Partnerships' fifth country in the Pacific, and the final stop.
They had clinic for three days at Mollie's school and she helped translate for triage one day. There were
also clinics at the main hospital and at another school on the other side of the island. We saw the road scattered with many people walking to get medical care, more as the word got out.
We had fun watching softball and soccer games of local teams vs navy / marines teams. Must say the Pohnpei Football Club did shine on the day!!! (Kathy's a big fan!) Within one or two day's time, we saw an entire elementary school completely painted by a team working LONG days!
We worked with extra-duty military team volunteers when we were helping the Peace Corps Volunteers
with story time at the library. They were reading to the kids one-on-one! The "One World, Many Stories" theme sure was prescient and came true right in Pohnpei this summer!
The navy band played big concerts twice at the softball field by the Spanish Wall (ie town center) in Kolonia and also performed at Mollie's school to entertain the people waiting in line. They are really good and have a lot of styles of music they play with accomplishment and energy! The July 4th concert was quite fun, I heard.
And Pacific Partnership participants did all this in full fatigue uniform including boots -- except the athletes! -- in Noteworthy Heat!I don't know if most of the world is aware of this remarkable joint effort by military and medical volunteers from many countries, but it was amazing! They lived on a big navy vessel anchored out at sea and boarded the landing craft at about 4:00 in the morning to be in place on various locations on island on time. They got back to the ship about 8:00 pm every night.
Posted with appreciation by Kathy!
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