Note: This post was written 25/02/2013, but I could
not connect to internet until today, 04 March.
Even now, I had to find an internet café to have a good enough
connection.
I left Lyon
for Paris on 21 January, 10 days after returning
from South Sudan. I arrived in Bumba on 28 January, where we are
responding to a measles epidemy. Case
management started the same day I arrived at the local hospital and 16 health
centers in the zone. We are starting the
first vaccinations today, 25 February (it takes some time to order and receive
all the vaccines and logistics material necessary in this remote corner of the
world) targeting 85 000 children between 6 months and 15 years old. We may be vaccinating in 3 other zones with
about the same target population in each zone.
Bumba is a
small town situated on the Congo River, at the
top of its course through the Democratic Republic of Congo. I have been in country capitals the last few
years, so it is refreshing to be in a small town again, although the choice of
food and supplies is very limited.
Fortunately, in Congo,
beer and bars - and churches (but this does not really affect me) - are rarely
is short supply.
We have
taken over a small hotel with 12 rooms – with the last arrivals there will be
19 of us. One of the big rooms serves us
as an office. The dining room is our
pharmacy. The commercial kiosks facing
the street are our logistics store. And
the storeroom now houses the electrical generator. We have arranged an indoor/outdoor kitchen
and a covered outdoor dining room. And
as we have taken over the hotel, we have also taken over their 3 cleaners and 3
watchmen.
Most of our
movements inside and outside of town are by chauffeur-driven motobikes. As ot today, I have my own chauffeur – what
class! A lot of my time is spent
changing US dollars for Congolese francs, and distributing both currencies for
staff, purchases and rental contracts.
When not doing that, I am seeing the local authorities, revising our
budget, recording the accounting, recruiting, and training.
I joined
the emergency group in June, but this is really the first project opening I
have done since then. It is pretty
exciting and very interesting. Until
now, I have been pretty much tied to the office. But we just hired a cashier which should free
me up to get out to the sites. I am
looking forward to seeing how a mass vaccination campaign works.
The
organization of such a campaign is amazing.
First, we have to assess the gravity of the problem, start treating the
cases, calculate the target population for vaccination, order the vaccines and
other consumables, and find the freezers, icepacks, coolers, and refrigerators necessary
to keep the vaccines at the correct temperature (some coming from our central
supply in France). There is also all the logistics material for
the site circuits and the vehicles. And
then there is the personnel. We have 3
supervision teams consisting of 1 nurse and 1 logistician each. Each supervision team works with a circuit
construction team of 1 carpenter and 1 laborer.
And each supervision team managers around 8 vaccination team a day
during the 8 days of vaccination. For the vaccination teams, we are using staff
provided by the local health center (each team consists of 14 people) so we
don’t have to worry about recruiting these people, but we do pay them an
incentive for their participation. The
vaccination kick-off was today. It will
be a very intense 8 days.
It is
incredible the difference between here in Equator province and North Kivu, where I spent 2 missions (a total of 2 years
and 9 months). Equator is close to sea
level, and as the name insinuates, on the equator. Sun is up at 6:00am and down at 6:00pm all
year round. It is HOT – between 90° and
105° F each day. If you read this blog
regularly, you know that I am happy. North
Kivu is also on the Equator, but like Denver,
it is very high, so it stays between 70 and 80° all year round (if there was
peace in that district, it would be the perfect tourist spot, with animals and
all – I would gladly take my retirement there.
But that is still not the case.)..
I can tell you that I suffered from the cold in France arriving
in January. I have spent 7 winters in
central Africa. I love this weather.
In Equator,
this is the dry season. That means it
only rains 2 days a week rather than every day.
And when it rains, it pours. In North Kivu, this is about the same. For us that is good, because starting April
the rainy season starts again and the roads (big word, because road means a
dirt path – in some places less, where only the motorbikes can pass along a
path or in a creek) are
impracticable. If we have to vaccinate
the other 3 zones, it must be very soon.
I am once again in a country with a new
language. In the west of Congo,
the language is Lingala (in the east it is Swahili). Since I already have enough problems with
written French, I doubt that I will be picking up a lot of Lingala.
Our MSF
team is great. By the time everyone
arrives, we will have 15 international staff and 4 delocalised Congolese
staff. We have 12 local staff today (1
more to hire), the hotel staff, and godzillians of staff working for the Congolese
ministry of health.
All in all,
I am once again enjoying my new experiences.
EXCEL is still my best friend, for generating the payment frameworks,
and creating automatic receipts. And I still have contact with people from my
previous missions, when I can. The
internet here is worse than terrible. If
I try 2 times a day, I am able to connect maybe 2 times a week, so contact is
not great. So please forgive me if I
have not contacted you.
