I've been grumpy the last couple of days. Feeling disillusioned, questioning professionalism and effectiveness and purpose in this place. I made it to Bangui and back. Spent a weekend half composing stories to record or share but not finishing. One about Bangui, first impressions vs more than a year later, conspicuous and/or thoughtless consumption. Another about the New Year's Day incident, holding down that boy while the technicians pronged for the bullet in his foot, picking through bone fragments.
A long flight with several bumpy takeoffs and landings later, I came back to the project, had a quick, maintenance bite to eat and went to my bed only to emerge what felt like two days later, having been the next in line to catch whatever that virus was going around. Still grumpy.
But tonight, frustrated, searching for the floss the cleaning lady must have misplaced in her sincere effort to dust the nightstand, I came across a handwritten letter I'd found laying on my bed on my return from Bangui. I'd skimmed it at the time but deeming it not of urgent importance I put it aside. I read it for real tonight.
Translated from French, it reads:
MOTION OF THANKS TO MSF
We, the people of the four camps in Zemio for internally displaced people, united in a general assembly on 7 Jan 2012.
We address our sincere thanks to MSF for their health care assistance and for our protection since 2010 to 2012.
Happy New Year and keep up the good work.
Signed in Zemio, 7 Jan 2012
The Displaced
I don't feel so grumpy going to bed tonight.
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Resolved
What if I just sneak back on here like I was never gone? Just as though I haven't been guiltily ignoring my burning desire to document and share my thoughts and experiences for the last year?
Today, in a near fit procrastination, I pushed though the haze of inaction to open up this site and write something down. I really should have been writing H's evaluation. She's leaving next week and I should have gotten to it earlier. No one is ever in a rush for an job evaluation, despite their incredible potential usefulness. The Mboki report that never really got formalized could have also been done instead of this. End of year report? Solving the contract issue with the Kondo Health Post property; yeah, that too. Probably not coincidentally, the deputy mayor happens to own that house. We don't want to move it, 'cause we've already invested in making it a health post. She wants to tear it town and build something she can rent for more money.
I could be revising the evacuation protocol to be better prepared for the onslaught of visitors in the coming months. Or refining my topics list for next week's country management meeting. For some dumb reason we call it that as though we are the ones actually managing the country. I can't think of a cleverer term right now but actually it's just me in this corner of the country and Tom up in the other corner. Well, that and the pile of support coordinators at the capital.
So what's happened since that hopeful post in March, 2011? I went to Somaliland all right. An amazing place, totally not what I, or very many I came there with expected. Cell phones, interenets, kids wearing shoes. It's a pretty long story and one I regret not having more closely documented - I'd have liked to have read it myself in the future to remember. To summarize, I wasn't happy with my job there. I had expected something different based on both my own prejudice and the info I got from my HR channels in accepting the job. In the end, it turned out full of valuable lessons learned and experience gained.
And it lead to here. I am back in the Central African Republic, this time as a full-time project coordinator in a totally different part of the country than last time. There's this little town in the southeast of the country called Zemio. The Lord's Resistance Army (google it) came into the region in late 2009/early 2010 and several thousand people ended up becoming displaced - meaning they fled their villages for bigger population centers, overwhelming the fragile infrastructure in those centers. That's where MSF came in, to support the health center of Zemio.
Now we have a hospital with 26 beds, a maternity with 9 beds. An outpatient clinic that sees between 200-300 people per week and a malaria health post on the other side of town. A couple of months ago we started HIV and TB programs to treat those suffering most from the diseases. We also support two health posts in two not-entirely-depopulated villages on the roads outside of Zemio as well as two health centers (a little bigger than health posts) in the two most neighboring towns to the north and east. I manage 6 expat staff who in turn manage another 90 or so personnel. Our budget for 2012 is around €1.4 million. I am responsible ultimately for the program direction, material and human resources, finance, and security.
This is the job I always wanted with MSF. I think. Everyone higher up says that PC (project coordinator) is totally their favorite job, even after they've surpassed it in responsibility. For me, though, it doesn't come without lots of questions; the same ones I've been asking since I started with MSF about efficiency versus efficacy, development versus humanitarian aid, and general concern over the plight of people in poverty. Defining poverty itself. Those are the kind of questions I would like to spend a little more time exploring but unfortunately, I do not feel at all qualified to talk too much about it. Barring the heavier discussions, hopefully I can dally with the little details of fine Zemiote cuisine or bike rides through the jungle paths.
Come along. Post comments and encourage me if you like what you read. Send me facebook messages or emails when I fall off again. Every week a story is my goal. My nine month mission is 2 months done and I still feel like I just got here. The next 7 will slip by with only gmail chats and non-contextual facebook posts if I don't keep some kind of journal.
Today, in a near fit procrastination, I pushed though the haze of inaction to open up this site and write something down. I really should have been writing H's evaluation. She's leaving next week and I should have gotten to it earlier. No one is ever in a rush for an job evaluation, despite their incredible potential usefulness. The Mboki report that never really got formalized could have also been done instead of this. End of year report? Solving the contract issue with the Kondo Health Post property; yeah, that too. Probably not coincidentally, the deputy mayor happens to own that house. We don't want to move it, 'cause we've already invested in making it a health post. She wants to tear it town and build something she can rent for more money.
I could be revising the evacuation protocol to be better prepared for the onslaught of visitors in the coming months. Or refining my topics list for next week's country management meeting. For some dumb reason we call it that as though we are the ones actually managing the country. I can't think of a cleverer term right now but actually it's just me in this corner of the country and Tom up in the other corner. Well, that and the pile of support coordinators at the capital.
So what's happened since that hopeful post in March, 2011? I went to Somaliland all right. An amazing place, totally not what I, or very many I came there with expected. Cell phones, interenets, kids wearing shoes. It's a pretty long story and one I regret not having more closely documented - I'd have liked to have read it myself in the future to remember. To summarize, I wasn't happy with my job there. I had expected something different based on both my own prejudice and the info I got from my HR channels in accepting the job. In the end, it turned out full of valuable lessons learned and experience gained.
And it lead to here. I am back in the Central African Republic, this time as a full-time project coordinator in a totally different part of the country than last time. There's this little town in the southeast of the country called Zemio. The Lord's Resistance Army (google it) came into the region in late 2009/early 2010 and several thousand people ended up becoming displaced - meaning they fled their villages for bigger population centers, overwhelming the fragile infrastructure in those centers. That's where MSF came in, to support the health center of Zemio.
Now we have a hospital with 26 beds, a maternity with 9 beds. An outpatient clinic that sees between 200-300 people per week and a malaria health post on the other side of town. A couple of months ago we started HIV and TB programs to treat those suffering most from the diseases. We also support two health posts in two not-entirely-depopulated villages on the roads outside of Zemio as well as two health centers (a little bigger than health posts) in the two most neighboring towns to the north and east. I manage 6 expat staff who in turn manage another 90 or so personnel. Our budget for 2012 is around €1.4 million. I am responsible ultimately for the program direction, material and human resources, finance, and security.
This is the job I always wanted with MSF. I think. Everyone higher up says that PC (project coordinator) is totally their favorite job, even after they've surpassed it in responsibility. For me, though, it doesn't come without lots of questions; the same ones I've been asking since I started with MSF about efficiency versus efficacy, development versus humanitarian aid, and general concern over the plight of people in poverty. Defining poverty itself. Those are the kind of questions I would like to spend a little more time exploring but unfortunately, I do not feel at all qualified to talk too much about it. Barring the heavier discussions, hopefully I can dally with the little details of fine Zemiote cuisine or bike rides through the jungle paths.
Come along. Post comments and encourage me if you like what you read. Send me facebook messages or emails when I fall off again. Every week a story is my goal. My nine month mission is 2 months done and I still feel like I just got here. The next 7 will slip by with only gmail chats and non-contextual facebook posts if I don't keep some kind of journal.
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