Indonesia: A journey of trust in the little white homeopathic pellets

What should I report from my trip to Indonesia? Of course it was hot, dusty, dirty and a great challenge, but the experiences there also brought me a lot, broadened my horizons and led me to new insights. Many people either think I'm very brave or rather crazy for having undertaken such a trip. In retrospect I'm glad I didn't know everything beforehand, otherwise I probably wouldn't have gone. As a student in my second year at the "Bay of Plenty College" for homeopathy in New Zealand I set off - armed with only a few homeopathic remedies, my Kent Repertory and two therapy books. And I can tell you: be careful what you pray for, it will come true – and perhaps in surprising ways!

I boarded a mission ship to Indonesia, which was mainly staffed by allopathic doctors – I was the only homeopathic nurse. We sailed to the Mentawai Islands, a small group of islands off the coast of Sumatra that aren't even listed on many maps. The small island group was badly affected by the tsunami in 2005.

On arrival in Medan it quickly became clear we were no longer in a Western country. Our luggage was searched and ripped apart, all allopathic medications were confiscated to be opened later and sold in small quantities on the black market. They left our sanitary pads and dressings, but everything else was taken from us. When it was my turn my luggage was also inspected; my globules were examined and I could already picture myself imprisoned for months in a tiny, filthy Indonesian

cell. As if by a miracle the guard gave me my globules back and said in broken English: "No, not good, not good." Someone later explained to me that the "little white globules" were "not good" because they couldn't be divided and sold as easily. I could hardly believe it – I was free and could go wherever I wanted.

So we set off and were immediately confronted with harsh reality: there was no hospital, no ambulance, no electricity, no running water, many had nothing to eat; for miles there was no help to be found. People were dying on the streets. My "globules" and my faith in God were all I had.

Unfortunately most of the doctors felt they couldn't achieve anything without their medications and decided to return home immediately. So I stayed behind with another nurse and some backpackers. I travelled for almost four weeks and treated nearly 400 patients in that short time. There were extreme cases from gangrene (full of maggots!) to dengue fever, malaria, tuberculosis and leprosy. I worked for 10 days in a leprosy colony before we began setting up various clinics along the coast. People travelled for hours,

to be treated by us. They waited – at a temperature of 30 degrees – often the whole day for a 15-minute consultation. I'm sorry I couldn't take more photos, but my batteries ran out at some point, and the nearest shop is a three-day journey away.

After a three-day journey we arrived exhausted on the island. On the first night after my arrival I was called to a patient at 2 am. It was an elderly woman of about 73 who had fallen three months earlier. The family had no money for a doctor. The only mission doctor on the island had refused to help her: "She will

Leprosy 2

apparently already set in. The skin was so destroyed it was slimy and beginning to slough off the foot; I dared not touch it in case it stuck to my hands. What could I do here?

Rotten flesh: Pyrogenium; blood poisoning: Arnica; severe pain: Hypericum, all three at once. One might object: "No, you can't give three remedies together!", But this woman was in severe pain and needed rapid and effective treatment. I gave the remedies in 1M, every 30 seconds for about five minutes, until I saw the pain gradually subside. At 6 am I went back to check her condition. In the previous four hours she had slept like a baby, the awful smell was gone, and the flies had found another place. One further dose each of Pyrogenium, Arnica and Hypericum 1M was all that was needed.

The woman died the next day, but she passed away without pain, which meant more to her family than words can express. Her body was laid out so people could pay their last respects; her face was peaceful and calm and no longer contorted with pain. Attending her funeral was one of the most humbling experiences I've ever had.
Another case was a very quiet cycle-rickshaw driver with a wound on the inner ankle that tore open every time he pedalled his rickshaw. He

had to work, but it got worse whenever he worked, creating a vicious circle.

He limped into the clinic with a weeping wound. As he didn't speak, I had nothing to go on except "honey-like discharge"; I prescribed (after Nash) Graphites: "weeping discharge; thick, honey-like fluid". He took Graphites C200, 5 doses, once per minute, and went away. He returned three days later. The discharge had stopped and the wound had begun to heal well. Three days later it had improved even more, and the last time I saw him it was completely healed.

One last case: a mother rushed into the clinic in great fear with her child in her arms. The boy had a temperature of 42°C; I had never seen such a high fever. The child lay in his mother's arms; he kept drinking from his bottle and urinating just as quickly. When I tried to lift the boy he began to scream; when I put him back into his mother's arms he was calm. "Grumpy old bear with a great thirst"; Bryonia 1M, every 10 seconds. His temperature fell within a minute to 40°C, then to 38°C, and a few minutes later to 37.5°C. The temperature was now down, but his skin was extremely hot and dry, so the next remedy was Sulphur 1M (3 doses), which returned the hot skin to normal. Ten minutes later the child stood up, staggered a little around the treatment room and gave a astonished look to a stressed mother and a stressed homeopath, as if to say: "What was all the fuss about?" He then went outside to play.

Photos: Joanne Gundry
Categories: Cases
Keywords: extreme poverty, leprosy, malaria, tuberculosis, dengue fever, gangrene
Remedies: Aloe vera, Arnica montana, Bryonia alba, Graphites, Hypericum perforatum, Pyrogenium, Sulphur