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Hi! Thanks again for your amazing offer.
If things work out and Haken agrees, I can be found as of April 4 at... very slow email, i'm told, etc.

Again, thank you for your generosity in wanting to share firefly.

(minime)

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Thanks again for your amazing offer... just before I turned my computer on I
had been having a bad day. Needless to say your post was an amazing reversal
of 'fortune' (or whatever it is).
Hope all is well with you and yours on the other side of the world...
Minime

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...Seems that the snail-mail might get me in the least amount of trouble
(actually, I am starting out with a bit of trouble... long story and not a
happy one), if that's still ok with you... unless there is something that I
haven't thought of yet...is there? Lurking from a distance is more that I
thought that I would get to do!...

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... frantically packing things (I've been living with my
parents since I got back from Africa a year ago, and they're moving before I
get back... busy) -
cheers!

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Hi,

I'm not (minime), actually I'm her younger brother. She arrived safely in Port
Moresby today and rang home to say a few things, one of them being "Don't
use surface mail. Use air mail." I presume that has something to do with
sending her firefiy updates (which she has been raving about constantly)

(minime)'s brother

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Hi Zoid,
Got your email! Haven't received anything in the post yet - I've been
told 3 weeks mailing time, so not worried yet. The postal service from
Port Moresby (the capital) is notoriously slow. Plus, the post office is
about 45 min down the road from the station I'm working at, so sometimes
it takes awhile for someone to decide to go and check the mail. Will let
you know as soon as I get it!
Definitely the adventure of a lifetime... only been here a week, and
seen and done lots of exciting things (could have done without seeing
that number of fleas in my bed, though!). Medically very challenging but
also exciting and growing (but I don't think that verb fits
grammatically into that sentence).
Love to all the Browncoats! I do miss my regular dose of FFFn, but I do
have my laptop and the FF dvds... although I had to wrestle them back
from 2 newly-converted Browncoats who were reluctant to part with them!
'Keep flying' is a bit appropriate for this area, since all medical
supplies etc are distributed to outstations by plane (bad roads).

Thanks again,
(minime)
P.S. Pardon my ignorance, but I assume that USAF is United States Air
Force?

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Just to let you know, your outbound email is working, too. If you're
not worried about the CD yet, then I'm not either. I will go ahead
and create the next archive on my days off this week. I will likewise
trust the mails and post that next one on or about Friday the 22nd of
April, 'coz I'd really like to be on a bi-weekly schedule. It makes
things a lot easier on my end if I can ignore all the files on the
FFFn server that are older than 14 days (don't ask, it's a bit of a
nightmare).

Although you didn't specifically permit it, I'd like to post your
email and my response (probably just in part, with yours truly as
trusted editor), excluding any personal info like name and addresses.
It'll be titled "Minime's Report From the Bush" (unless we can think
of a better title), and will let folks know you're getting on okay.
But I'll wait 24 hours or so to hear back from you, if you have
objections...

And, yep, USAF is U.S. Air Force (1986 - 2000). Much like FFFn's
'Static', who is a U.S. Army attack chopper pilot, you and I have
shared a common 'enforced wanderlust': ordered by our organizations to
forsake family and friends and spend extended vacations in strange
lands, meeting exotic new people. Only you don't have to do the whole
'...and then kill them' part that's parenthetically tacked on to the
end of a soldier's job description. You get '...and then enrich their
lives', which sounds a whole lot more palatable and noble to me...

If you decide not to respond to this email because it's too hard to
get onto a machine, I'll understand. If you do respond, is there
anything you could share about your occupation with the other
Browncoats? In either case, please let me know when you receive the
first CD, and what kind of physical shape it's in.

Sincerely,

(zoid)

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You are very welcome to post any of my rambling from the
rim on FFFn. At the serious risk of repeating myself - what an amazing
community of people. For anyone's information: I'm a doctor, not a very
senior one and probably not a very good one. No speciality, but I've
worked a little in Africa, worked in Australia in Paediatrics and Paed
Surgery and am now a jack-of-all trades (jill???) in Papua New Guinea.
Not convinced about the enriching of lives at the moment - medical care
here is very basic (they're letting me make decisions and do procedures
I wouldn't be doing in a western hospital!) minimal access to
investigations and equipment, and I'm trundling along, knowing that if
anything serious happens to me, I'll be medi-vac-ed to Australia faster
than you can say 'sorry there's nothing I can do for your condition'.
But, lest I sound ungrateful and despondent, I am having a great time, I
enjoy the responsibility and the challenge, I picked this gig because I
like the work and I have a bit of an un-enforced wanderlust and the
people here are wonderful. I'm sure they'd be Browncoats if any of them
owned tvs... (minime)

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...got the 1st CD this morning! Very exciting - I will hopefully
have a chance to put my feet up with FFFn this afternoon...
unfortunately not feeling great at the moment (cold? malaria?) so it is
exceptionally good timing!

Thanks heaps,
(minime)

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Originally posted by Malicious:
I think we should mail her a dead guy!

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Originally posted by Cybersnark:
Obviously not a real one...

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minime:

Good to hear, 'mini. I was actually getting concerned that the disc
wouldn't reach you. I had this fantasy based on a scene from Mel
Gibson's "Gallipoli" in which some backwoods PNG 'postman' (barefoot,
loincloth, military-surplus jacket and postman's hat) was actually a
rabid Joss Whedon/Firefly fan, saw the CD-R and decided that the
address or postage paid was incorrect, and so confiscated/appropriated
it for himself. Of course, in the fantasy, he doesn't have a computer
to spin the CD on yet; but, he's sure one will come along sooner or
later. (NB: A psychologist once commented to me, "You have a very
rich internal landscape." I'm still not sure if that's a good thing
or not, but I choose to think of it as a compliment.)

I've got a sneaking suspicion that your physical ills are just because
of the move to PNG. There's different microorganisms in foreign air
and teeming on damp surfaces. At some point your body has to stop
fighting these critters (because they're gonna win anyway) and strike
a new balance with them by letting them settle into their new home
(*your* physical internal landscape). Of course, anyone who's spent
time in a jungle knows that even an inconsequential scratch can turn
septic in less than 24 hours; so definitely take care of yourself.
But -- to the maximum extent possible -- I'd let my body do it's job
and let it take care of itself without prying too much. Otherwise,
the 'finding balance' negotiations between your body and the
local-variety microorganisms might take longer, or even turn *nasty*.
I think there's entirely too much resorting to antibiotics and other
medicines, which only effectively hampers the body's
millions-of-years-of-evolution-learned ability to fend for itself, and
adapt to new environments.

If ya' start running a fever or develop a chronic cough, you might
think about taking some meds. Or you could just do it the
old-fashioned way and get pretty well-lit on grain alcohol (preferably
a dark variety like Jack Daniels, or other bourbon, scotch or irish
whiskey). Five or ten shots of alcohol in a three-hour time frame
should get you beyond tipsy (depending on body weight) and teach the
local critters that you ain't afraid to break out the toxins on their
ass... Just remember to avoid members of the opposite sex when
self-administering the 'beyond tipsy' dose of grain alcohol; no sense
complicating your physical maladies with morning sickness. A decent
hangover should be expected, and is indicative that the treatment is
working; but it shouldn't last more than one day and there should be
no continuing increase in waist size...

Anyway, enjoy the disc. There's another coming along in about 2
weeks. I'll continue sending the biweekly updates until about 1 month
before you go home. If everything stays the same (about 3 weeks
delivery time), you should get one on or about the first week of that
last month, and get the last CD-R on or about the third week of that
month. Then, you'd be getting home the next week, with no CD-Rs
orphaned in the bush mail system.

I suspect the disc is gonna be a little difficult to decipher, since a
lot of it doesn't link up (the links get broken during the download
process). Think of it as a book of one-page essays: The binding is
broken and all the pages are loose in the mailing envelope. Even
though it is no longer recognizably a book, all the content is still
there. One must simply select an individual page to read, rather than
the erstwhile book's table of contents. Analogically, when you get
the CD-R, it may work better to open the individual HTML pages from
Windows Explorer (the file manager) by double-clicking each filename.
If you strictly use the FFFn contents pages, you'll miss a lot of good
stuff that's actually on the disc, but that won't open because of
broken links.

If you can't figure it out, I can probably walk you through it. Or
maybe some cute co-worker is a 'computer geek' and could assist you,
in exchange for you converting them to a Browncoat, as y'all scour the
FFFn disc and your DVD set. (Mine is an evil laugh.)

Hope you get to feeling better,

(zoid)

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Hi (zoid),
Disc was great! Probably safe from maurauding postal workers by virtue
(?) of lack of technology... if there was post containing food or

something they could trade, it'd be a different story.
Speaking of... can I delicately raise the issue of... reimbursement for
expenses incurred while keeping my FF addiction supplied?
Really enjoyed some of the Blue Sun items, was able to open all the
'General Discussion' links, and if I wanted to access anything else, I
can work out the page link by holding the cursor over the link, then
open that file seperately. I'm trying to think of an analogy that
works... and can't. Sorry. Anyway, been having a great time. And only
just now read your post about wanting details of my time here for
FFFn... feel free to post whatever, but remember I'm no... BDH. More
like the statue that someone needs to believe that health care is
possible. Except that statue was one of the BDHs. Maybe I should try and
steer clear of analogies.

Feeling a bit better now, and suspect that your diagnosis is correct...
although I have been slack about taking anti-malarials, and there are
oodles of patients with TB on the wards, so my default diagnosis setting
is permanently tuned to 'panic'... not just for me, though. No
anti-biotics required! Although trying to 'drug up' enough to be fit to
assist with an emergency caesarian operation this afternoon.
Thought about the creative prescring, although I'm fairly sure that the
local brew would be horrendous, and also frowned upon on a church
mission station! (church of PNG is fairly conservative, even by Southern
Baptist standards)... also - five to ten shots? Are you kidding? I'm a
small female person of Asian descent. Try 2-3. Well... you could have
2-3 and see if it does me any good!

Here's a FFFn-type thought. If the 'verse is doing as well as
Firefly-lore indicates in 500 years, we'll be doing well. If people on
the rim have access to protein (standard village diet out here is the
most revolting carbohydrate conglomeration I've ever come across... and
that's saying something) and immune boosters and horses! and things,
they'll be streets (except they won't have those) ahead of where they
are now, and the progress will have been a lot faster than it has been
in the last 500.

Rich internal landscape is good! There's a rich external one here, too!

Cheers!
minime

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(minime):

First, don't think twice about reimbursement. I may not be a man of
means, but I can easily afford to send you the discs. It's no
problem, and my pleasure to do so.

Second, *do* take care of yourself. TB's nothing to be trifled with.
Same goes with malaria (my Dad caught it in WWII just down the road
from New Guinea and never really got over it). I was only
semi-serious about the grain alcohol suggestion. You *can* chase off
some bugs with it; but in many cases the cure is worse than the cause.
I'm 5'11" and 215 lbs. of Gallic stock, built like a bull. So, 5-10
shots for me to get 'more than tipsy'. I can easily absorb 2 drinks
an hour for 3 hours without going over .08. But the fact is I haven't
even had a beer since New Year's Eve, whereupon I had a bottle of a
nice white wine throughout the evening and split a bottle of Cristal
with my wife on the hour. I didn't even get tipsy (although I did get
sleepy).

Third, the Firefly thought. It has often occurred to me that those
fans who complain about the backwater existence of folks living on the
rim -- how it seems so dubious -- do not have any comprehension of how
the vast majority of humans live on the Earth today. While we in the
West have gas-guzzling cars and high-speed, instant communications,
widescreen plasma televisions and multiple networked,
Internet-connected PCs in a growing number of domiciles, the vast
majority of the world's population lives in amazing (terrifying)
poverty and need. Rather than rousing my incredulity, Firefly's
social commentary seems tame when compared with our reality. I believe
there is not only a deeper gulf between the rich and poor in our world
than in Firefly's, I believe that chasm is growing wider each year.

It's something that is constantly in my thoughts. We must find some
way to address this discrepancy; but until we of the West can learn to
sacrifice our toys in the name of equality, that can never happen. As
a result, I must sadly conclude that the inequality will continue to
grow -- that we of the West will continue to exploit the labor and
resources of the rest of the world, in order to provide ourselves with
more useless amenities. One day that strained link will snap; with
each year it grows tauter.

If one man could change that with a wish, I would. But,
unfortunately, I fear it's not in human nature to give things up for
the common good. And if we did, human nature dictates that someone
else would jump in and claim it for themselves. History proves that
the human race is nothing if not expansive and rapacious.

Okay, so that was kind of a downer. But, it's in Firefly and it's in
our world too, so I won't apologize too much. Which brings us to your
role in the world. I've never thought of myself as a Hero. And the
heroes I've met never thought of themselves as Heroes either. They
were just following their hearts, putting the needs of others first,
and helping where they could. If that's the standard, you'd be a
hero, too; but, I'd never presume to call you one.

To a certain extent, in order to be a Hero (capital 'H'), you have to
be looking for it. Heroes have a nasty tendency to get the people
around them killed (or at least walked on), in order to achieve the
fame they seek. The only truly good hero is a *posthumous* one. Only
the hero who achieves his status by laying down his life for others
can be said to be free of ulterior motives. So let's stop with all
the hero talk. You're much better than that: you're a living,
breathing person who has sacrificed her personal comfort and safety to
care for those who need your help to care for themselves. Now, let's
keep you alive and get you safely home again; that way nobody can ever
accuse you of being a Hero...

It may not be a Hero's acclaim, but you have my admiration and my
gratitude for making the world a more excellent place in which to
live.

Sincerely,

(zoid)

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(zoid),
Just gonna say - thank you. At this risk of repeating myself.

Well, historically, fermented beverages have been used as anaesthetics
(in large enough quantities!), disinfectants, as well as treatment for
hypothermia, various kinds of pain, depression (that one really doesn't
help), and red wine is still supposed to be good in terms of prevention
of heart disease.
I take it 0.08 is the legal driving limit in the US? In Australia it's
0.05... I generally make it a policy to not drink at all if I'm driving
though.

I think you're right about the growing 'poverty gap'; I think most
statistics bear that out. I started being interested in sci-fi because
I'm interested in what people think the future will be like; Star Trek
used to fascinate me, less because of the actual content and more
because of the incredibly optimistic view of humanity. We'd probably be
quite happy to share our plenty as long as it doesn't diminish our
plenty - we'd be quite happy for everyone in the world to have the same
access to the things we take for granted as long as it doesn't mean we
have to give up any of it.
I'm supposed to be living the 'simple life' at the moment, and I still
have heaps more 'things' than the majority of nationals... let alone all
the stuff sitting in boxes back in Aus. I know that even if I was to
give away a bunch of my 'stuff' that wouldn't materially change the
situation.
Appreciate the postive endorsement; being sick makes me miserable and
all "what on earth am I doing here?" Thanks for helping answer.
Maybe the reason our BDHs are our 'heroes' is that they are actually
'anti-heroes' (hanging out to read Finding Serenity! my copy is waiting
at home); people who in the course of doing things that were closest to
their hearts did something beneficial for someone else at the same time.

thoughtfully,
(minime)

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