Small Team, Big Team, Small Team

The mission here consists of three sets of staff. There are the expats; running around organising things. There are the inpats; Ethiopian medical staff and translators who have been recruited to help and moved here from other parts of the country, we have about ten here now. And then there are the local local staff from Wamura; the guards and cooks and cleaners; the numbers keep changing but I think we've employed about 60 now.

Our expat team started very small in numbers of expats, Florence the nurse, Cameron the doctor, and me for the logistics. We swelled in number over the next weeks with the arrival of Damien, an experienced nutritional nurse, another US nurse Leslie, an Australian doctor Matt, and then two further French doctors Claude and Agnes, and two French logisticians, Anne Marie and Abdel. With visiting coordination people from Sodo and Paris, the food bill certainly shot up, along with the queue for shower (don't think hot steamy room, more bucket of cold water as fast as possible).

Then as fast as we grew, we shank. Suddenly there was a new project to be opened to the east of Sodo, which drew off Damien, Claude and Florence, then the Gocho project required more logistic help so Anne Marie and Abdel were reassigned there. Now it is back to just four of us expats, which suits me fine, all are excellent easy going people. It certainly makes a big difference having people around you get along with. We have only limited email via satellite phone, one tap for water up behind the health centre, electricity via a generator for a few hours a night, no TV or radio, and a diet consisting currently of basically egg and bread.

Comments

patrick said…
Sounds like you're keeping busy. Not sure about the egg and bread though. Surely egg is all you reeeeaaallllly need.

Me, staying with my friend Glynn in Wellington, about to tuck into a little more than egg&bread... but not being remotely as wothwhile as you are!

Would be awesome to see pics sometime... if it's a massive hassle you're welcome to send me a CD (if that's possible) and I can upload them all for you...

Well, hope you're well - and really enjoying the posts (are you ever coming back!??!!?)

p.s. mulled wine & mince pie party on Friday - you're more than invited!

Popular posts from this blog

What Just Happened?

Judith's Cameroon Visit

Hash House Harriers