'Cabin crew take your seats for take off', there was a flurry of activity. The plane began to turn slowly; I caught sight of the runway, the lights disappearing far into the distance. The sound of the engines increased, and the plane was soon lumbering down the runway. The giant Boeing slowly rose and with a bump was aloft. Disappearing behind it and me, Africa.
Long haul air travel does not, at first, have much going for it in terms on enjoyment. As much as airlines try to dress it up, it's impossible to escape the fact that apart from the ten minutes of take off and the ten minutes of landing modern, large aircraft, flying is interminably dull.
On this occasion however a third of a day spent with little to do allowed me the time to write down a few notes about how I was going to write my last blog entry, and generally have a bit of a think. In many ways the last ten months is a little bit of a blurry dream. I look through the pictures and can't quite reconcile the fact it is me in them.
In the last week of my time there I had to write an evaluation of my time. I wrote that it was 'the most frustrating and most rewarding time of my life' and I can't sum it up any better.
As I tucked into, what purported to beef, but tasted suspiciously of fish, I thought about all the things I'd not managed to achieve. We hadn't managed to solve loads of training issues, the storekeeping in many clinics was still a bit of a shambles and I never had heard from Rhonda…
Having said all that, the outreach in general is in a much better shape than when I started. I think the most satisfying achievement was uncovered recently. Looking back through the meningitis epidemic figures I worked out that the clinic in question had seen nearly fifty cases and not a single one had died.
Would I do things differently? Of course there are things that I wouldn't do again, but most of these were learnt through experience. Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat.
The in-flight entertainment film 'Fun with Dick and Jane' Half an hour of watching it indicated that Dick was present, Jane was present but the fun was sadly absent.
I got chatting to the person next to me, he asked me why I had gone at all. I'd simply replied that 'If it was me in that situation I would want someone to be there for me'
That's the message, above all else I want to have conveyed in this blog. But for an accident of birth, it could be you, or me there. The odds of being born into a comfortable western existence are very small indeed. We are luckier than we will ever know.Most of the world live in conditions that most of us would find intolerable. The responsibility is on us to help them, end of story. A number of people have written and said 'I couldn't do what your doing' I'm not sure it's as hard as people think, and everyone can do something.
Sub-Saharan Africa has twenty three percent of the total world disease burden and four percent of its health care practitioners. Currently, there are more Malawian doctors at work in Manchester than in Malawi. Malaria kills someone every twenty-three seconds. In terms of preventable deaths the same number of people who died in the Asian tsunami of 2004 die every twenty one days in Africa.
The figures are mind-blowing, the challenge enormous, but that doesn't mean we should just give up. Put very simply this situation cannot continue as it is. But for an accident of birth it could be you or me forced to drink dirty water and watch our children die of simple, preventable diseases. We know the problems; it's up us to find the solutions.
'Must be great to be back in civilisation' said the woman sitting to the other side of me. I'd just finished reading a newspaper article on a US massacre of civilians in Iraq. From where I'm sitting 'civilisation' doesn't seem that civil to me. (Though I didn't bother arguing the point with her) She continued ' I mean it's so difficult to give anything to the developing world' I hate that word developing. Developing into what? Into us? I sincerely hope not. And it's NOT difficult to do your bit. Find a charity that you think is doing something useful, give them some cash. Not rocket science.
The giant wing tipped, and we began our descent. In a moment we were thundering down the runway. Home.
I was soon queuing up in immigration, The lady behind the counter thumbed through my passport, as she arrived at my visa page, her eyebrow raised, about as excited an immigration official gets I think, 'what were you doing there?' she said pointing to the stamp.
Where do I start? I thought.
To all who've read, e-mailed, called and supported me, I will never be able to thank you enough.
Marcus
London, June 2007
The End
Long haul air travel does not, at first, have much going for it in terms on enjoyment. As much as airlines try to dress it up, it's impossible to escape the fact that apart from the ten minutes of take off and the ten minutes of landing modern, large aircraft, flying is interminably dull.
On this occasion however a third of a day spent with little to do allowed me the time to write down a few notes about how I was going to write my last blog entry, and generally have a bit of a think. In many ways the last ten months is a little bit of a blurry dream. I look through the pictures and can't quite reconcile the fact it is me in them.
In the last week of my time there I had to write an evaluation of my time. I wrote that it was 'the most frustrating and most rewarding time of my life' and I can't sum it up any better.
As I tucked into, what purported to beef, but tasted suspiciously of fish, I thought about all the things I'd not managed to achieve. We hadn't managed to solve loads of training issues, the storekeeping in many clinics was still a bit of a shambles and I never had heard from Rhonda…
Having said all that, the outreach in general is in a much better shape than when I started. I think the most satisfying achievement was uncovered recently. Looking back through the meningitis epidemic figures I worked out that the clinic in question had seen nearly fifty cases and not a single one had died.
Would I do things differently? Of course there are things that I wouldn't do again, but most of these were learnt through experience. Would I do it all again? In a heartbeat.
The in-flight entertainment film 'Fun with Dick and Jane' Half an hour of watching it indicated that Dick was present, Jane was present but the fun was sadly absent.
I got chatting to the person next to me, he asked me why I had gone at all. I'd simply replied that 'If it was me in that situation I would want someone to be there for me'
That's the message, above all else I want to have conveyed in this blog. But for an accident of birth, it could be you, or me there. The odds of being born into a comfortable western existence are very small indeed. We are luckier than we will ever know.Most of the world live in conditions that most of us would find intolerable. The responsibility is on us to help them, end of story. A number of people have written and said 'I couldn't do what your doing' I'm not sure it's as hard as people think, and everyone can do something.
Sub-Saharan Africa has twenty three percent of the total world disease burden and four percent of its health care practitioners. Currently, there are more Malawian doctors at work in Manchester than in Malawi. Malaria kills someone every twenty-three seconds. In terms of preventable deaths the same number of people who died in the Asian tsunami of 2004 die every twenty one days in Africa.
The figures are mind-blowing, the challenge enormous, but that doesn't mean we should just give up. Put very simply this situation cannot continue as it is. But for an accident of birth it could be you or me forced to drink dirty water and watch our children die of simple, preventable diseases. We know the problems; it's up us to find the solutions.
'Must be great to be back in civilisation' said the woman sitting to the other side of me. I'd just finished reading a newspaper article on a US massacre of civilians in Iraq. From where I'm sitting 'civilisation' doesn't seem that civil to me. (Though I didn't bother arguing the point with her) She continued ' I mean it's so difficult to give anything to the developing world' I hate that word developing. Developing into what? Into us? I sincerely hope not. And it's NOT difficult to do your bit. Find a charity that you think is doing something useful, give them some cash. Not rocket science.
The giant wing tipped, and we began our descent. In a moment we were thundering down the runway. Home.
I was soon queuing up in immigration, The lady behind the counter thumbed through my passport, as she arrived at my visa page, her eyebrow raised, about as excited an immigration official gets I think, 'what were you doing there?' she said pointing to the stamp.
Where do I start? I thought.
To all who've read, e-mailed, called and supported me, I will never be able to thank you enough.
Marcus
London, June 2007
The End
