Happy 2013

I am nearing the end of my time in South Sudan.  The guy I am replacing returns tomorrow afternoon, but there is no place available on departing flights until 9 January, so I will be leaving at that time.  I will fly into Paris for debriefings and to meet a Jamaican friend there for a day before returning to Lyon.  Then, I will head out again, although I am still not sure exactly when and where I will go.  I have been told that the break will be a short one.  Seeing how it will be very cold in France, this is ok.  Unless, of course, they send me to someplace even colder!

We had a wonderful holiday season here.  On the 24^th, I finished my work early and went home to make some Christmas breads – an Italian panettone and a German stollen, as well as a Linzer torte.  I had to start my panettone recipe 3 times before getting it right due to some ingredients problems.  Grhhhhh!  

 Having Christmas dinner outside under the mango trees in 90 degree weather is my idea of perfection.  The table was beautiful (thanks to the French contingent), and the wine was heavenly.  Almost everyone contributed to the cooking and we ate like kings.  We thought we might have too much food, but Christmas holiday is 3 days in South Sudan – 24-26 December – and we had no cook during that time.  So we finished everything by the end of the period. 

You might think we do nothing but party here.  Just to be clear, although we had no national staff in the office in Juba, our expatriate staff continued to work during this period, because our health centers operate 7 days a week / 24/24, and we need to support them.  The workload, however, was less than normal!

There were 15 of us in the house for Christmas dinner.  I am glad I planned large when buying small gifts while I was in France in November..  A couple of the other guys got together and did the same thing, buying small African crafts for everyone. It was a wonderful evening.

On New Year’s Eve we hosted a party at our house for the other sections of MSF.  This was also our housewarming party, since we moved into the house the new house the first week of December.  The organization was amazing, and we had a very good time, although there were a few pitiful faces the next morning!

I have enjoyed my 5 months in South Sudan.  I was originally slated to be here 2 months, but these things happen in MSF.  Tomorrow and the next day will be doing the handover with the financial controller, giving him back the work that I did during his absence.  Then I will be taking it a bit easy until my departure, since I am not sure how much time I will have before going out again.  I will miss a lot of the people here, both national staff as well as expatriates.  At least with the expatriates, I have a good chance of finding them somewhere else in the future.