A target no longer.

So after fifteen days trapped by an uncompromising weather situation I had
almost resigned myself to the fact that I was going to spend another week
doing the square root of not very much. Teshome, one of the doctors also
stuck in the rain soaked base and I enquired about the chances of flying on
Wednesday. 'Non-existent' was the reply. Fine. Not flying tomorrow, nice to
know where we stand, lets go and play pool.

After endless games of pool, a few beers and a VERY late night home crashed
to bed in the wee small hours safe in the knowledge that tomorrow guaranteed
a lie in of biblical proportions. At 8.03 am precisely there was a crisp rap
on knuckles on my door. "Marcus, get up, the landing strip has dried up, and
we are flying in an hour". Not since Dunkirk have so many people had to pack
up so much stuff in such a short space of time. Panic and chaos reigned. We
were tripping over each other and running in all directions, like some long
dormant volcano was imminently about to erupt.

Finally with moments to spare we piled onto the single engine prop plane
(The smallest plane I have ever SEEN, let alone flown in, the other aircraft
would have eaten this one as a light snack!). As I gazed at the two
gentlemen walking across the tarmac to in white shirts I thought, 'ahhhh isn
't that great, the pilot has brought his son along for the flight. This
person turned out to be our planes co-pilot and I can't say he did a bad
job. For a twelve year old!

The country stretched out before us, unsurprisingly for wet season, it was a
vision of green, pockmarked with trees and small huts. It resembled a giant
reptiles skin, with its small ridges and divots. A more serene and peaceful
land it is impossible to picture. Ironic considering how war torn this place
was, and is. Hours of flying through a storm, all occupants of out tiny
plane convinced the landing strip would be a long straight pond. And we
would do a graceful circle before heading back to base again.

The pilot broke the plane through the thick cloud and swooped low to assess
the quality of what he was about to attempt to land his plane on. A large
heard of cattle were grazing in the centre of the landing strip and, at the
sight of the plane, people could be seen desperately pushing them off to the
side of the runway. A deep turn to the right, a sharp ear popping turn to
the left, a rapid decent and WALLOP! A vertebrae jangling landing. And then
that was it. Hundreds of people unpacked the plane, and the pilot, clearly
in no mood to hand around, was off again. No more waiting, no more briefing,
just a minutes walk and there I was.

The compound is a collection of huts with straw roofs mud and stick walls.
The power is solar only. The toilet is a glorified (though there isn't much
glory to it) hole in the ground, and the shower is outdoors and consists of
a large tank with a tap. This will be my base for the next year, though were
I'm actually working will be many different sites dotted around this base
and another which is currently being opened. The base team consists of two
nurses, (From Kenya and Holland) a doctor (Ethiopia) A lab technician
(Kenya) and logistician and a boss (UK). This is complimented by a plethora
of national staff. All, it appears, called James, which is helpful.

Then there is the outreach team, of which I comprise fifty percent. The
other half is Suza a German nurse who has been doing this kind of thing for
years. For this I am eternally grateful, as it is great to have an
experienced person around to answer my many stupid questions.

I lay awake last night listening to the all encompassing sounds, trying to
work out what animal produced them. Today I'm none the wiser.

My first full day in the base, which is drawing to a close under a blood red
sky, has been frantic. We plan to leave tomorrow to go to our first out
reach position. All the food must come in tins and we have to take all the
supplies with us. Trying to pack what you think you will need personally for
two weeks into a bag that constitutes hand luggage on most airlines has been
tough. Again, thank you God for Ipods!

With most of the planning down by the German, and therefore ruthlessly
efficient Suza I had the afternoon off to go and see some actual patients.
The first patient I saw needed a few stitches in her head. Previously the
only thing I've put stitches into was an orange. Anyway with no one else to
do it I put in three (reasonably neat) sutures. This was made more
stressful, because halfway though a chicken wandered into the hut where I
was working and took great interest in what I was doing! I think it may have
been trying to give a few helpful suggestions!

Anyway, tomorrow the real work begins in earnest. A seven-hour walk through
a swamp to our first outreach post and then the fun begins! No blog for two
weeks but LOTS to tell after that I'm sure. It is GREAT to finally be here.

A rain check and a word on e-mails

             Well, it's been a very positive afternoon. predominantly this is because it hasn't rained. I've also learnt my first swahili. "Habari" which is "greetings friend". The problem with this is that the locals, particularly the kids, think then that i'm fluent and launch into a full ten minute monologue on something or other, to which I meekly reply "greetings friend". You don't need to speak the same language to know what "is this man a complete muppet?" looks like when demonstrated as a facial expression. If I was writing a school report on my Swahili I think it would include the line, 'must do better'!

 

            Anyhow, whilst I'm stuck out of my project i've got access to the internet and therefore my hotmail account. All those of you who've sent e-mails to my project e-mail don't worry, they're not lost, I just can't access them yet. Basically as soon as I finally get the project I won't have access to the internet and will rely solely on the project's e-mail. Which you all have, (if you haven't then ask your friends!) I hope this makes the situation a bit clearer and hopefully, not properly confused things!

 

            In the meantime life revolves around writing this and doing paperwork, none of which I really understand fully! Those who have had the misfortune of seeing me in professional capacity will testify to just how appalling my paperwork can be! 

 

            I've packed my bag, i'm ready to go, and I'm leaving on a jet plane. Well no... we shouldn't get too excited about this because i've done this pretty much every day for the two weeks! So i'm no nearer knowing when I'll be off, but if the weather holds, possibly tomorrow.I will find out more when the project staff call in tonight with the latest developments. Hopefully no-more fish!

IL PLEUT!

Glad I wasn't holding my breath, I would be a tinge of dark blue by now! It actually didn't rain last night (which is good) but it wasn't hot enough to dry up all water either.... So possibly tomorrow, but who knows.

This is certainly not a problem that would even have entered my thinking before I came out here, and is an excellent example of how difficult working in such remote areas can be. Frustratingly, I’m discovering the places that really need help, don't always have the African equivalent of Gatwick airport down the road. And at least they are getting rain, which will hopefully lead to a good crop and fewer cases of malnourishment, but we shall have to see.

A few people have e-mailed to ask for more detailed info on the fish on the runway. Firstly, no, I don't think the air traffic control became confused between a Boeing and herring, and I don't have any information on whether it was a flying fish! Have a good Monday morning one and all.

Fish On A Sunday

Since yesterday.....

1. It hasn't rained.
2. Someone found a fish on the landing strip as it dried up! Proof if proof were needed that it has been VERY wet.

Still not sure if tomorrow is going to be the day, but even the most pessimistic seem to think it might be. I've also met up with my immediate boss in the project who flew in for a holiday. She seems lovely and very much on the ball, which is what you want from someone in charge of your overall security! The work, she outlined, that needs to be done is extensive and I lay awake last night thinking of what is being attempted, the task seemed daunting indeed.

In many of these places we are not the alternative to shabby run down local health care service the we ARE the healthcare service. Certainly a sentence that grabbed my attention!

Anyway we will see how it all pans out. I'll try to write as often as possible, but there may be long periods when I can't write anything as many of the sites I'm visiting don't have access to clean water, let alone e-mail or satellite communications, please keep checking for updates as the whole reason for writing this is to provide a small insight into the current situation, as I see it, rather than a sanatised media version which, in terms of Africa is all many of us have been privy to. Once I get out for a holiday, at some point in October, I'll post some pictures.

Hopefully some form of flying movement tomorrow, but after so many false dawns I'm not sure I'll quite believe it until the planes wheels have touched the landing strip..............minus fish!

Ou Est Le Soleil ?

After my last posting I received numerous e-mails questioning my sanity. I think it was the Billy Ocean tirade that swung so many people into action. One very good friend questioned how it was possible, in such overcast conditions to succumb to sunstroke. It isn't, I wasn't, thank you all for your concern.

Anyway BIG news of the last few days, I awoke this morning to find not only had I been eaten alive by various creatures of the insect variety but also (and of greatest importance) the sun had finally split the, horizon filling, cloud. And you all know what a drop in the rainfall and glorious sunshine means. Yes that's right.......... I can charge my Ipod on its solar charger!

As an aside it also means I might in the next week get to where I'm supposed to be going! This all depends on the if, and it's a gloriously sized IF, it stops raining.

There is even talk of a flight on Monday, but I've been down this road a few too many times in the past week to get too hopeful at the moment. I’ve not exactly rivaled Nostradamus in terms of predictions so I think I’ll just keep stum! Lap of the Gods and all that. This week has demonstrated the fundamental problem with working in inaccessible area.... It’s inaccessible!

In the mean time I've been trying to keep myself entertained, trying to fatten myself up for the inevitable weight plunge that will happen once I finally get to my project. I will write with more news as soon as there is some.

Going Nowhere Fast

My understanding of the blog is that you should write something when an event worth documenting has occurred. Most peoples I saw before coming here seemed to be about something exciting, the birth of a first born, discovering a cure for cancer that afternoon, captaining a world cup winning side etc etc. May I say at the outset that nothing has happened today at all. Well actually that’s a lie.... It’s rained by the bucket.

In fact today has proved King Lear’s assertion - Nothing has come of nothing. It's rained some more, the ground is a saturated quagmire and to fly now would be to ask the pilot to come and share in the misery of those stuck in the project as he would be unable to extract his plane from the gloop he had just landed on.

Apparently it is not so much the landing as the taking off that is the problem. I sense this has been learnt, bitterly, after many years of people having to dig planes out of chocolate pudding like mud. Anyhow instead of continually moaning about a situation that cannot be sorted short of a parachute jump, or as someone suggested, strapping us to a food drop crate and hoping to land butter side up! Take it as read that I’m stuck where I don't want to be unless otherwise stated!

So for the rest of my blog today I’m going to remark on an African musical obsession.……….Billy Ocean.
Wikipedia (Up there with Google Earth in its ability to waist large portions of the day) defines him as..
'A UK based popular music performer, who had a string of rhythm and blues tinged international pop hits in the 1970s and 1980s.'
If you don’t know who he is, watch a mid eighties film and somewhere you’ll hear a Billy Ocean track. Or if you’re really bored with loads of time on your hands, see www.billyocean.co.uk/.

Actually, on that last point seeing as you all have proper jobs that don’t require you to wait around in the dust until it stops raining I think I’m the only one, bored, with loads of time on my hands!

Regardless, this cheesy disco crooner (that's my definition, not wikipedias') who I presumed to have gone the same way as t-shirts that changed color with heat or ninja turtles is enjoying a resurgence in Africa. And he's not even African! The man, apparently, now lives in Milton Keynes! You cannot go anywhere without hearing the strains of some of his, rather poor, mid eighties syth-pop. I've only been here a week and I'm beginning to think that being banished to Milton Keynes is some sort of karma!

That a continent with such wonderful musical heritage is even giving this man airtime is baffling! I just hope this is some 'in' joke I’m missing. Mind you, it could be worse (for worse please see Germanys ongoing obsession with David Hasslehoff, the only man to be out-acted by a talking car!)

I, possibly, could have too much time on my hands. I haven't gone near anyone sick in a few weeks, perhaps I’m heading that way myself as some form of compensation. A sunny few days would be welcome.

Stuck!

Apparently my first word, and also my current predicament. The landing strip is too wet and there's standing water everywhere. In fact the rain is so bad I'm sure there is a latter day African Noah rubbing his hands and gathering his animals in pairs in the belief that his moment has come! Certainly far away in Ethiopia there is widespread flooding that has killed hundreds, the rain, a continental problem.

Hopes were raised by a sustained period of sun all of yesterday afternoon and then last night it rained incessantly, depressingly for hours! You couldn't land a plane in the car park of the compound (which is concrete) let alone a mud strip. Stuck indeed.

The prognosis is also poor, some doom laden predictions (alarmingly, from people who have been here the longest) put our possible delay at two weeks. Rather like King Canute on the beach I'm powerless to stop the water.

Other than being bored beyond all possible comprehension. I'm actually all right. I went for a walk into town yesterday. Apparently the standard of living, by African standards is actually quite good. However there are areas of deprivation here, on a scale not seen in the UK for hundreds of years.

I was the only white person on display that afternoon, and recived a lot of attention from the kids who would come up behind me, touch my arm and run away giggling. Amazing that, in this ever shrinking globe, places like this still exist within easy reach of the rest of the world.

Off the main street, a large area of people existing in huts constructed from mud and plastic sheeting, no clean water or sanitation to speak of, the largest collection of woefully inadequate 'housing' I've ever seen, again, Apparently the standard of living, by African standards is actually quite good. Poverty clearly isn't history just yet.

At the side of the road sat a small trestle table, and, (rather like the women's institute would sell lemon drizzle cake in a church hall at home) a traditional healer selling medicines. Glaxo-Smithcline this was not. One bottle of potion contained a liquid that was a guaranteed cure for cancer, depression, malaria, TB and diseases of the toe (whatever they are!) Pretty powerful stuff no doubt. An indication, also, of the standard of healthcare available to vast numbers of this continents populous.

Returned for a night reading my book (the Wah-Wah Diaries by Richard E Grant) under the stars. A view denied by the orange glow of endless street lighting in London.

Russian dolls for planes

So I'm here... well, no... actually i'm not. I've been in three planes so far (and not reached my destination!) the weather has been unpredictable. I'm stuck a tantalizing hours flight from my final destination. The weather means I cannot progress any further until things improve.

It's impressively frustrating. A month of build up and now sitting around waiting, an Ipod and a good book for company. However it could be much worse.

The planes I've been on have got smaller with every flight. The last one was particularly impressive. A twin prop plane that skimmed above the clouds for an hour or two and then broke the clouds cover to reveal an all-encompassing view of sand and scrub. Fulham this is not. Hopefully something a little more, interesting in the next blog. (Like actually doing some work!)