Short stay in Jordan

My 3 week holidays in Lyon were wonderful.  As you probably remember, I am hosting a Tanzanian friend in my place, since I am never there.  He already knows more people in Lyon than I do, and we had a lot of visits in the place.  It was great.  He showed me some things I did not know about Lyon, and I did the same for him.  It was fun.  My last weekend in Lyon we saw the passage of the “Tour de France” bicycle race on Saturday, then the Bastille Day (the equivalent to the 14 July in the USA) fireworks on Sunday.  Perfect ending weekend to a perfect break.  During my break, I also visited a very interesting exhibition at the Lyon Museum of Art Contemporain  called “gray matter”(try to imagine a real-life-sized elephant suspended 4 feet from the floor, upside down, attached to the wall only by his trunk) and the construction site of an architecturally amazing museum the junction of the Rhone and Saone rivers.  I did, however, spend too much money during that time, so I will be recovering during my work months.  

I also had the pleasure of working in the vineyards of Beaujolais during my vacation.  My Tanzanian friend found out about a maker of bio wine there, and he had already started to help the guy.  This guy has been working in the family vineyards for a long time, and he has problems making ends meet.  So we and another friend helped him as much as we could a couple of days a week.  It was hard work, good times, and great wine.  I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.

I also had some quality time with a couple of friends, like my good friends Guy and Roby.  Guy is an old fart like me, and thoroughly enjoyable.  Roby is from Madagascar and a wonderful man.    I had the opportunity to spend a few days with him  and his sister and her children, who were visiting from the Reunion Islands. Wonderful.

And while in Paris for briefings, by hazard one evening, I met a man and a woman from Uganda who are seeking asylum in France (I already have another asylum-seeking friend from the Jamaica, in Holland).  Remember: I just returned from Uganda, so it was pretty amazing.  They are wonderful people, and I wish them the best of luck in their endeavours to stay in France.  I will stay in touch with them.

I left very early on Monday  the 15^th of July for briefings in Paris, leaving with 2 other members of our team on the 17^th of July.  Our departure was a disaster (late taxi, problems with extra luggage from MSF, long check-in, customs clearance of computers we brought, seat allocations, etc.), but once we arrived in Jordan, all was easy.

I have now been in Jordan for nearly 2 weeks.  This is my first time in 8 years with MSF outside of Africa. Even though Kampala Uganda was pretty nice, the difference is striking.  Amman, Jordan is a very comfortable city, even during the Muslim fasting period of Ramadan which lasts 1 month, ending with the Eid holiday around 10-11 August (depends on the moon).   We find all products (local, European, American) for a reasonable price.  This is already amazing.

The mission is really interesting.   All the Syrian activities in Jordan and Iraq have been grouped under our coordination.  We have a children’s clinic in a huge Syrian refugee camp (120 000 people) in Zaatari which has been running since March.  We are now opening a mother and child clinic in Irbid on the border for refugees not living in the camps, so they do not have access to health care in the country.  And after that (end of September at the same time that a new camp is opened) we will open an outpatient health care center in Iraqi Kurdistan.    

Our team is great.  We all live together in a 3 bedroom apartment - 4 ladies and 2 guys.  We don't yet have a cook, so I am cooking for everyone after coming home from work at 8:00pm.  We should have a cook/cleaner in a week, hopefully.

The muslim big prayer day is Friday, so this is the virtual Sunday.  The national staff do not come to work on Friday and Saturday.  I am having a hard speaking about the “weekend” of Friday and Saturday.  Besides, we expatriates always work on Saturday, which is sort of like a real Saturday., but the day after the “Sunday” and kind of like a “Monday”.  See what I mean?

Today we did interviews for an accounting/human resources/travel assistant for me.  They are all great, but they must give notice of 1 month in their old jobs before starting with us.  Our coordo team will be 5 international staff and 5 local staff in Amman.  Then we will have the 2 projects in Jordan and 1 in Iraqi Kurdistan for a total of 25 international staff and 200 national staff.

Our Paris headquarters has changed the plan for me, because of visa problems in Turkey.  I will only stay here until end of August.  Then I go to Turkey on the Syrian border for 3 months.  So I will not come back to Lyon before the end of November, inch’ Allah.  Since I am with the Emergency Department, it could change again several times before I go home.  I am happier than a pig in shit!