Nearly Finished in Jordan

I am nearly finished with my 6 week stay in Jordan.  My replacement has arrived, and we are in the middle of our handover.  I leave during the very early morning Tuesday 4 September.  Although it is not so far, it is a 9 hour trip, including a very long layover between flights.

This mission has been great.  (OK, I know.  I say this every time.)  It is the first time I have worked on opening 2 big projects in 2 different countries in an emergency situation.  I have opened small projects in an emergency situation in the same time; but never in a country where the structure was not yet in place for emergencies.  Also, I love Africa, but the comfort level in the middle-east is much higher.  Amman is very comfortable.  On the other hand, as an emergency coordination team, we are currently 12 people living in two adjacent 3 bedroom apartments.  Do the numbers - let’s say that privacy is a little lacking.  We also routinely run out of water – these were meant to be single family apartments, not adult hippy communes, so the storage tanks are not proportioned accordingly.

In Turkey, everyone  with us enters on a 90 day tourist visa.  This visa cannot be extended, so I am going to replace a person whose 90 days are up.  And she is the one replacing me here.  I have worked with her before, and she is great.  I am very happy that she is replacing me, and I know that she is leaving me a situation there which is as clean as possible.  Her project has been in place for more than a year, so a lot has been done already.  I am leaving her with a lot to do still – we have just established our bank account but need to work on details, we are still negotiating with one hospital in which we will work, and there are lots of other pending tasks to tackle.   She is up to it.

I am going to Turkey at a time when our team is moving from one province to another.  That will entail a lot of work.  Also, upon arrival a taxi will whisk me away from the airport to go directly to a meeting attempting to register as a representative organization in the country.  I hope I don't fall asleep - that would be an embarassing introduction to the country.

I am excited that I will meet up with some other people with whom I worked previously.  The number of people who do more than 2 or 3 missions with our kind of organization is very small, but it makes up the core of our teams.  My replacement and I are joking that maybe when my 90 days is up in Turkey, we will switch again. I would rather go to Africa then, because winters in either Turkey or Jordan are on par with those of Europe or the United States.  I hate cold weather.  Anyway, I am on my second 1-year contract with the emergency department, so I am a slave – I go where I am told.  The sad part is that I like it!

Our work in Turkey is actually Syria – even more directly than here in Jordan, where we are focused on Syrian war refugees in both Jordan and Iraq.  I am really excited to go there now, with the threat of international intervention being the news topic of the day.  Our medical programs, which are already aimed at war injured, risk to change day by day.  We do good work today in this field, but we will have to stay reactive to the change in context to be of maximum assistance to a population in danger.  It will be really exciting.

Are you tired of me telling you that I love my job?  If so, you are jealous.  Tough titties.  Hehehehehe