February

Last weekend, we had a going away party for our head of mission and our supply logistician. It was my first going away party in Nigeria, and it was just as good as the other countries. Africans know how to party – great food, great music, great dancing. Our office cleaner – his name is Thankgod – spent the whole day in preparation. They had purchased a goat and slaughtered it the very morning. He served all of us in the office what they call pepper soup at noon. This is the intestines in a spicy soup, although he was gentle on us, knowing that the expatriates in the team cannot support TOO much spice. It was great. And all afternoon, he did the barbeque for the evening.

This country is wonderful. One of the most interesting things is the mix of religions. In the south, it is 90% Christian. In the north, it is 90% Muslim. In the middle it is very mixed, the percentage depending on how north or how south. So you get names like Thankgod, or Love, or Sunday, Monday, Tuesday. Then you get Abdul-Azeez, Zainab, Salisu, Mohammed, and Adamu. Normally everyone lives in peace. But for the moment there are a few flare-ups. It is often attributed to religious conflicts, but that is too simple. These conflicts can come from a combination of religious, political, economic, tribal and MONETARY influences, all together. Have no doubt about it – this is a developed country based on the American capitalistic system.

This week I have had two people here from headquarters.

One, Soumia, is the person who is responsible for the accounting and budget software. We have implemented a new system for work on the budget which is based on a local and plus a centralized database. Basically, I have all my budget data in a database on my computer. From time to time, I synchronize with the central database in Paris to upload my revised data and retrieve centralized parameters from that one. I had installed the software on my system, but I made a few errors in the configuration (oops) so it was not working. Thankfully Soumia had already planned a trip in Africa, and she corrected the error. But it still did not work! So we went to a cybercafé to try another connection – voila, it worked. So now we will have to find a new internet supplier, at least for my work. I will need to talk with the Spanish and Dutch sections of MSF who are also here working with such software, to see what systems they are using. It was really a relief to get this going – the next budget revision is at the end of March, and it would have been impossible to do without this new software.

The other visitor is a finance support person, a Ugandan with the lovely name of Emmarine, who goes all over the world to fill gaps or work on special projects. She spent 5 years in south Sudan so she is obviously a tough lady, but she is always smiling. She is a great lady, and has given us some good help already. She will be going into the field with my accounting manager on Monday.

We had crises this week with a couple of our expatriates. An anaesthetist in Port Harcourt has been supporting back problems for a number of days, and it finally got too bad – he had to leave early. The other one is more serious. Our operating theatre nurse in Jahun had some serious heart problems on Wednesday morning. We were able to fly her back here Wednesday afternoon and we took her to the clinic we use for our national staff. We then contacted our international medical evacuation company, who worked with the clinic and spoke with her over the phone. Our medical coordinator, Dr. Chris, did all the work on this, really making my job a lot easier. She has had no more incidents since the first one, and she feels comfortable flying back by herself to Vienna, leaving here this evening. It really gave us all a scare. Besides, she is a little younger than me, so I need to prepare myself for this sort of thing.

I have just been informed that things are not so good for MSF-France on the east side of Democratic Republic of Congo, where I just finished 2 years. They have had 7 rather violent security incidents in the last 4 months. It has become so bad that we are abandoning our projects there, although 2 high-level people from Paris will be going shortly to discuss the situation with government officials to see what can be done to insure our safety in case we return. This breaks my heart. Congo is a wonderful place and our projects (like all of our projects in the world) are really helping the people in need.

Here in Nigeria, we are greatly relieved. We have had a number of people finishing their missions, and there were no replacements for them, especially the coordination positions – project coordinators and the head of mission. Our New York office has done a great job of finding replacements for all these posts at the last minute! I have already worked with the incoming head of mission while I was in Congo. She is great. And all the new project coordinators also seem good. We attract good people, but it is more and more difficult to find people willing to do long missions – 6 months or more. For these key posts, this continuity is essential.

The dry cold season has just ended. Cold means that in the north it can be down to around 50 degrees Fahrenheit – 10 degrees Celsius in the mornings (in Jahun, I even slept with a blanket!), although it is still hot in the afternoons. The first rainy season should start about now. We had a fantastic thunderstorm about 10 days ago. They say after this short rainy season it will get HOT, getting up to about 95 degrees Fahrenheit most days – 35 degrees Celsius. Then there is a longer rainy season (still hot), then dry hot, then the cold season again. It’s about the same as when I was in Niger.

I will probably be returning to France around the middle of March for around a week, to get my Nigerian residence visa (I am now on a business visa, and the residence visa must be issued by the Nigerian embassy in the country of residence) and to take my break while waiting for the visa processing. It will be good to be in my place again for a while.

Anyway, it is the weekend. This morning I took a 2 ½ hour walk in the neighbourhood. It was good. I stopped into a local market to buy some dates, got some money out of the ONLY ATM we are allowed to use (because of scams), and bought some great bread from a new bakery near the house. It was great but HOT – I was sweating pretty profusely when I got back around 11:00am. I have worked some this afternoon (Saturday) and will probably work a bit tomorrow, but not too much. The rest of the day will be dedicated to naps, films, a book and preparing dinner for the house. We are 6 tomorrow – being the capital, we always have people coming and going from the projects as they begin, end or go on their break. The photo here is our house. It is as good as the house in Congo.