In Grand Gedeh County in Liberia, a day's health assessment involves a very small jeep, five grown men and me.

Merlin and the County Health Team are following up on increasing reports of pertussis, or whooping cough as it's more commonly known - one of the biggest killers of children under five.

The jarring journey, along deep green avenues of rainforest and past paddies of "swamp rice", leads us to Bartijan Camp.

A labyrinth of open-sided, cracked-mud huts clings to the sloping hillside. Bartijan, a gold mining camp, is a far cry from the scattering of houses that usually make up Liberia's communities.

We set out on foot, accompanied by a Guide from the Camp, asking parents if their children are suffering from a cough ending in the tell-tale "whoop whoop whoop".

Unable to explain the symptoms to many, the team resorts to acting out the coughing sound - much to the merriment of onlookers.

We wander through narrow alleys, leaning over the waist-high walls of people's homes. Women answer the team's questions, slowly stirring cast-iron pots of rice and fish. Empty sacks piled high with glittering gravel dot our route.

As Lorenzo, Merlin's Clinical Supervisor, squats down to take a closer look our Guide warns not to touch: "There are bits of gold in there, if you touch the gravel people will think you're stealing gold on your fingers."

I struggle to keep up with the team as children accost me to take their photos, striking cheeky poses before running at me to see their beaming faces on the small digital screen.

I walk into the middle of the health assessment questions and a half-naked toddler starts to scream. "He's never seen a white woman before", his mother explains as she hoists him onto her knee.

As we try to gather a random sampling of the Camp's children, our Guide seems focused on a more set course. Soon we're at the top of an eroded bank, looking down on a well.

A couple of teenagers are pulling up water, using plastic cans attached to ropes.

"Only this well and one other provide water for the whole camp," our Guide explains. Almost 9,000 people live in Bartijan: two wells of water for a place larger than the City of London.

Water, rather than whooping cough, is at the top of Bartijan's agenda. A visit from our team of health workers provides the perfect opportunity to air the Camp's concerns.

Still, the Guide knows it's completely out of our hands.

Bartijan's not privy to the same privileges as Liberia's other communities. With no Traditional Chief, but a Camp Master instead, it is not recognised as an established town - a status which would secure basic services such as water. Still, with its shops, police station and bustling family life, there is nothing transitory about this place.

The team manages to finish its assessment without finding any symptoms or a case of whooping cough.

Making our way back through Bartijan - passing open doorways where crouching men separate gold from muddy gravel, tossing it in large metal bowls like chefs making stir fry - we're told how the Camp is doing everything possible to start the process of appointing a traditional chief.

For the time being, the people of Bartijan have gold at their fingertips and yet barely enough water to drink.

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