Richard Wesley

I flew from Bentiu to Khartoum and spent a good few days relaxing at the office, the hotel and the guesthouse, catching on up email and making a few calls home to close friends and family. I discovered a whole other side of the city with a large new shopping mall allowing fast, easy and slightly boring shopping for supplies, and a ten pin bowling alley complete with overpriced drinks. Although finished in south Sudan I've been asked to go to a place in the far west of Sudan called Mornay to help with the closure of a mission there for the next month of so. I'm quite excited at the prospect of being able to see some more of the country and help with another whole aspect of MSF operations. First stop for me was the capital of El Genina and a stay with the small Darfur coordination team based here. As we landed on the dirt airstrip, with various crashed aircraft left discarded along the sides of the runway, I noticed the same menacing green attack helicopters parked on the tarmac ...

I waved goodbye to Bentiu from the plane, having handed over my role to the new Logistics Administrator to a Frenchman named Jacques. After five and a half months my leaving was a subdued affair, as by a quirk of timing most of the team has been changed at the same time. With the MSF friends I had worked with so much during my time at the clinic already gone, it was good at least to have still some of the 'good old crew' from ACF for a few combined farewell and birthday drinks. They will almost all be replaced with new volunteers in the next weeks as well. I look back with fond memories of my time and I certainly learnt a lot about Africa, about MSF, about staff management, about getting along with people from completely different backgrounds and experiences to my own. The good times I had with the expats at the compound… Elodie, Marie No, Musa… really made up for the hardships of dealing with the problems of the clinic. The MSF program at Bentiu requires revision, and this wil...