Approaching Christmas

My workload has been pretty intense the last 10 days. We have several recruitments going on simultaneously. For example, we are recruiting a pool of people whom we can call for manual labor and to replace guards who call in sick. We received 148 candidatures. We narrowed this down to 68, by selecting the people who have already worked for MSF in this capacity, or those who live in the neighbourhood of our office and our pharmacy warehouse (so that they can come quickly if needed). We had a short interview with each of these people. From that, we selected 14 people for the guard pool and 20 people for the manual labor pool. The final step will be to select 1 person from the guard pool to be hired full time to replace another guardian who has moved up the ladder to be a radio operator. This process takes a lot of time. At the same time we are recruiting a pharmacy supervisor, a country-wide supervisor of our sexual violence program, and a maintenance man. We have just completed recruitment for a mechanic, 2 psychologists, and 2 pharmacy managers.

We also had to fire our pharmacy supervisor and 1 of our pharmacy managers. This was tough. They have been with us for several years, but they still make the same mistakes that they have been making all of those years. That is a real handicap for our programs, so we decided that they had to go. The labor law here is based on French laws, and it is not as easy to fire someone as it is in the States. It took me a lot of time to build the file for each guy justifying our action. In the end, they accepted the decision much more quickly and easily than I expected. We had not even received the responses to a couple of legal questions when they told me that they accepted the decision and were ready to sign the termination letters and leave.

We are also restructuring one of our programs. The human resources aspect of this restructuring is fairly complicated. I have been working with the team there by telephone and email. At the end of next week, I will be going up there to continue the work.

Also, the outgoing members of our team have been working overtime to put their pet projects in place before finishing their missions. That has kept us all busy.

Finally, we have had an abundance of disciplinary problems in the last few weeks; some minor incidents and some very serious and complicated situations.

All this plus the normal workload has kept me very, very busy.

Our head of mission left this past week, and his replacement arrived today. Over the next month our deputy head of mission, medical coordinator and logistics coordinator will change also. That will probably create a change in policy and direction. MSF expatriates tend to have pretty strong characters and a will to get things done. We will see. Here’s a photo of a big part of our staff in Goma. It was taken last week just after the weekly staff meeting and just before the departure of our head of mission.


Bad news: my computer disappeared 10 days ago. It is usually in the living room at the house so that everyone can listen to music, work on photos, and watch movies. I have never worried about the security before, seeing that we have guards on duty on permanance. But at the time that it disappeared, we had a temporary housecleaner and 2 electricians working in the house. We never found out which person left with the computer and 2 portable speakers, and we never will. Fortunately, I had the major part of my files stored on an external hard disc. I was thinking of buying a new computer when I return in August, and I was going to give this computer to a local charity organisation for their use. Now that won’t be possible.

We are approaching Christmas, and I am looking forward to it. I love Christmas on mission. When you work with people a while in emergency situations, you really become a temporary family. It is great to spend some downtime together. In August, I bought quite a few small items so that everyone in the 2 houses will have a gift. And as usual, we will prepare a holiday feast with the local means.

I will be taking my next break the 6th of January through the 13th of January. This time I will be going to the south Kenyan coast, just south of Mombasa, to a place called Diani Beach. For 2-3 days during that week, I will visit the Tsavo game park. It will have been 4 months since I returned from France, and I need this break. Fortunately, there will be someone to replace me this time, so the workload upon my return shouldn’t be so bad.