South Sudan - Just NOT a another mission.

Hello Ajoy, This is Farhat. how are You?.

I am fine, you?

I too.

What is up?

Hmmm..intersted in South Sudan?

Any out break?

They need a watsan to be based at Malakal, for emergency kalazar  response. 

Farhat is the  the overseas  recruitment coordinator  of MSF India.   The  call from Farhat  did not make me  think twice to say  YES. I was longing to work in Sudan  since long. I heard a lot about South Sudan.  The people are very nice and cooperative. And working in South Sudan is always a challenge . New environment, new people and culture, I was excited. It was   Friday evening,  3^rd December 2010..  Now the time to move on  again.  After spending the  weekend I started to pack up. The flight was on 8^th December , Wednesday.  The schedule was to get briefed by  MSF India Delhi office on 8^th evening and onward journey to  Nairobi on early 9^th morning. It was Qatar airways and  one stop journey to Nairobi  via Doha.  I reached Delhi office on 8^th Evening. Farhat briefed me  about the project and DO’S and DONT’s . I collected the documents from the office  and reached Delhi airport. The flight was at early morning at 4.40 am. I did  face  some hassle to convince the official  at the Check-in counter about the purpose of journey. Thanks, Farhat for providing me the official letter showing clearly WHO I AM, WHERE  I AM GOING AND WHY? The journey was smooth and comfortable. I watched two movies – “Debang”  starred by Soloman Khan and  “Three Idiots”  starred by Amir khan. I reached at the airport at 12.30 noon.  It was a  9 hours journey from Delhi. I purchased a  single entry visa  from the airport and came out. Vincent ,  wearing MSF T shirt, greeted me in the airport and take me to the guest house called WOODMERE . It was a nice guest  house with lots of  greeneries around .  The weather was cool  with temperature 18 degree Celsius.   I felt homely. My onward flight was to Loki in next morning.

On 10^th  morning Dawson, MSF driver, greeted me at the guest house, handed over to me the South Sudan travel pass and took me to the Wilson Airport, destination Loki.  It was 20 seated small aircraft. some seats were vacant . It took 1.30 hrs to reach Loki. Loki is a very small town  near to South Sudan Border. The infrastructure in the airport was very basic. At the airport MSF driver greeted me and take me to the office. Loki is the logistics base of  MSF and also base to passage to South Sudan and Kenya.   I was introduced by other MSF colleagues and my watsan mate Aggrey, big man with always smile. The campus was very big having the base of inpats and expats. There is a sky bar in the campus , nice to sit ,relax with some drinks and spend  hours.  As the name implies the sky bar is a elevated wooden balcony; small hills all around,   a soothing relaxation of eyes. The Loki market is very small  though basic needs of daily life are available. some good bars cum restaurants are available in the town.    748 is one of them. Pilots and expats prefer 748 .  No doubt it is a good place and first time I wondered to see infrastructure. It is really big with facility of playing   Pool ,   big screen  for watching  football, drinks and beers . A few years back  Loki was a important base of Kenya with lots of  NGO  activities and Government offices. War conflicts between North and  South Sudan made it  deserted.  The town is  very calm and quite, specially our campus; a good place to spend holidays . I spent 4 days before my jouney to Juba.   

 Next Monday I flew to Juba, the capital of South Sudan. The flight was a 10 seated small UN aircraft having passengers mostly from MSF. .It took one and quarter hours to reach to Juba. Juba is a international  airport only to the neighboring countries like Uganda, Ethiopia and Kenya. After immigration clearance we came out of the airport. Jackson, the MSF driver wearing MSF T shirt greeted us and took us the expat house. Juba is a administration base of south sudan mission. Juba expat house was not too big, facilities were moderate with individual rooms, dormitories ,dinning space, kitchen and TV rooms. After getting fresh and taking refreshment we came to the Juba office. Juba is the base of HOM along with Finco, HRco( Human resource coordinator), Medco, HAO ( Humanitarian  affair office) and Dy. HOM .Being introduced by office colleagues I was briefed by Elin ( Medco) , Jose( HOM), Renete( Finco). Since watsan is under medical my line manager Medco briefed me of  my details roles and responsibilities, objective for the post, present watsan need  and schedule of my  visit for next couple of weeks. 

It spent 9 months in the mission. My place of posting was in Juba. Being the flying watsan my responsibility was to oversee the water and sanitation situation of all the projects.

MSF had two missions in south Sudan. South Sudan I was comprising of three projects , lankien, Nasir and Leer, mainly, focusing on basic health care response along with treatment of TB ,HIV/ AIDS and undernourished patients. South sudan II had two projects, Malakal was the base for emergency response for kalazar patients and  Bentiu  was the base of  emergency feeding programme.    

All the MSF projects were located in the rural areas. In rural areas the public transport was almost non existent The project locations were connected through flights only. UN was the biggest flight operator in south sudan for the humanitarian aid workers.  . Except UN flights MSF and ICRC had their own 12 seated air craft. We used to travel mostly with MSF flight and occasionally with UN flight . Except Malakal all the rural runaway were of earth make. And landing of plane depended on weather and  soil condition. It was not  uncommon  to stuck in a project location for weeks due to poor landing condition of flights. Sometimes it also happened that the flight scheduled to land on particular project location  did not able to land and flied back over the runaway and returned to the base owing to non-landable  situation of the runaway.   


Owing to fly watsan position I had to work at all projects. Work was a bit hectic in emergency projects as I had to respond immediately for the project watsan needs and for regular projects my main challenge was to keep the minimum watsan need is in place in our health care settings and facilitate the project team  to solve day-to-day  watsan problems. Control of infection in the health care setting was one of my major responsibilities. It was very satisfactory for me that during my stay in the mission the projects did not suffer from any major  incidence of  water Bourne diseases. Some sporadic incidences of Hepatitis E were reported from  Nasir and cholera cases from leer and Lankien. However they did not come up heavily for timely action . One my biggest challenge was to monitor  the uninterrupted supply of about 120,000   litre of water at three projects to meet hospital and public need. My flying position  did not allow me to stay in a particular project for longer time . To that sense I was lucky enough  for not getting bored for being adhered  for longer time in a project. Every time I visited a project I gained  new experience, met new people , acquainted with their culture and food habits.

 Spending weekend is different in different projects. Fishing in sobat river and enjoying Ethiopian food in the Ethiopian restaurant was unique is Nasir project. For leer , on Sunday ,we used to go to the local restaurant to get typical Sudanese food. In Lankien good restaurants were  almost non existent. We used to cook on Sundays , sometimes as per our choice and sometimes on demand . . I used to make “Puri ” and  “ fish curry ” – it was a common liking for every one. All the projects had a good accommodation facility having enough space for every one with individual rooms – both Tukul( round shaped room with thatched roofs) and concrete building. We also used to enjoy the weekends by reading books, drinking beers, watching TV shows and DVDs, surfing nets( we were lucky enough to get high speed internet connection at every project) and playing chess. Roaming and spend some time in he market was restricted due to strong security reasons.. We used to enjoy  candle dinner often  in the compound with or without any reason.

I remember that very date. , 3^rd of March. I was in Malakal . My plan was to catch UN flight next morning to Juba.  Malakal was always a tensed place due to never ending conflicts between two tribes. We were sleeping at night. In the early morning all woke up with the sound of heavy gun shooting initiated nearby market place 50m away from our compound. The project PC ,Ania, who was responsible for our security instructed us to go to the safe room. That day experienced heavy gun shooting  with occasional pause for a hour or two. We entered to the safe room 6 times  and all 12 staff slept in the safe room at night .The size of the safe room  5m/4m and was difficult to accommodate all staff. The gun shooting continued for 3 more days. At last I was successful to avail UN flight and came to Juba.  

Cows are the central point of conflict for tribal clash. People having more cows are more wealthy and got marriage easily. One tribe wants to grab cows of other to be more wealthy. More than 20 years long history of war between North and south Sudan left  every family with arms. Due to availability   of  arms the attack of one tribe over other always becomes bloody and ended up huge life loss. The tribal clash between Nuer and Murle was long standing and never ending process.   

 I also would not forget that day. It was 19^th of August 2011. Our medical team leader and interim Project coordinator, Wendy, called for a urgent meeting told that the project would soon receive 34 patients wounded due to Murle attack over  Nuer tribes in Pieri.. She narrated the situation  and told us that she had the information of Murle attack on Nuer. With this arrival of 34 victims , there wasn’t enough space to accommodate them all. Hence 2  big tents were erected in open place inside the hospital premises. Our only surgeon Beinfre was on leave. Thankfully, the ICRC team arrived from malakal to help us out. My main responsibility was to oversee the water and sanitation situation and erection of additional  watsan setup.

Working in south sudan as a fly watsan gave me immense pleasure and helped me to grow personally and professionally. Though it was my 8^th mission still it was unique in the sense that  it was 9 month long mission and very much  diverse  and different from other short duration missions which were mainly of emergency nature.  Working with MSF always gave me immense satisfaction for  the working environment and for working for the people in need staying  amidst in the people. I am thankful to all of my colleagues who made my mission a grand success. 

My first experience as a overseas volunteer

I remember that very day. It was 3^rd January 2005. I was working with Oxfam in Tsunami response project and was posted at Nagercoil in Tamilnadu, south India. That day I was in the field in a small village named Kolachal. I was busy in my work.. Suddenly one white car stopped at me. Two ladies, still I remember their names – Carol and Elena- wearing  MSF T- shirt approached me and introduced themselves. We had a friendly discussion on various aspects of Tsunami response activities by different NGOs. I wanted to know about MSF. They briefed about MSF. I caught interest and asked for details.   They advised me to visit their web site. That evening I looked up the MSF website and knew that MSF is a politically neutral, humanitarian organization and is well known for witness and advocacy. It doesn’t discriminate on the basis of caste, creed, sex or color and works in places of natural or man-made disasters. I  found reasons to work with them.

After completion of the  assignment with Oxfam I applied  to MSF  for a  volunteer post. After telephonic discussion they called me at Delhi for an interview. And I was selected.

I attended the PPD training at UK in November 2007. It was very exciting. 30 volunteers from different parts of the world attended the course. The training was of seven days duration. We are taught about different sides of MSF - its evolution, values, principles, charters, areas of expertise, mode of operation, operational areas, roles of a volunteer and experience of volunteers of return-projects. No doubt it was a wonderful experience for me. I retuned home from PPD with  great  hopes and expectation for my first mission. Next six months it was only “wait” , “wait” and ‘wait” …. for a call from Delhi – MSF  office. As the days passed by the dream of working with MSF started becoming faint.   

 It was 14^th of May. In the morning I got a call from one Delhi based INGO  for the confirmation of my selection as a Sr. watsan specialist in their organization.. I requested them to give me two days time for the confirmation from my side. That time I was jobless and I did not have any choice and by this time I lost all hopes to work with MSF. Still I don’t know why I asked for two days time , may be the God had some other  thought for me. That very evening  I got a call from MSF, Delhi  to know my availability  for a  mission in Uganda. I did not have any other thought and without any hesitation I told them “YES”

Since it was my first assignment overseas I was bit anxious and tensed, thinking if I would be able to meet the expectation of the organization especially in a circumstances where every thing is new to me – people. their culture, way of life, food habit ,language, weather , … every thing. But I accepted the challenge.

I arrived at Kampala on 26^th May. After a short briefing at Kampala office by HoM, Logco and Finco I arrived Kitgum on 28th^th May. The team consisted of 7 expatriate members: a Project Coordinator from Kenya, a logistician from the Zambia,, two medical doctors from Holland and Norway, a watsan specialist from UK and two nurses from Holland and Germany. Out of 7 expatriates two – one medical doctor and one watsan specialist were specially deputed for Hepatitis E intervention. Kitgum office was the base of the operation of two projects  - Hepatitis E and MSF’s regular programme on HIV/AIDS and support of operation of health center at Mudi Opei.

On 29^th May at Kitgum office I was briefed on project activities and security guidelines and proceeded to Mudi Opei. The MSF flag was flying high on the vehicle. I was bit inattentive and also anxiously thinking of my coming days in the project. Suddenly I heard the voice  of the driver over radio phone .

 “ base  base  at Hug 10” 

   “Hug 10 go ahead”

              “We are departing from  base to  alpha . over”

  “Affirmative”

 “Kilometer 00 and 1 pax on board.. Next contact after 30 mikes. Over and out”

“Safe journey”

This was the beginning. Every time I traveled within the project area it was the common practice to keep in contact always with the base through radio. I was very thrilled and excited. Though the security staff appraised me earlier it was a wonderful experience and never faced before. It was a sunny day, the .The sky was very clean and greeneries all around. The road was muddy. Only some NGO cars and cycle were on the road. After one-hour drive I arrived at Mudi Opei. I was greeted by expatriate and other national staff including Guro - the expatriate doctor for Hepatitis E intervention, Regina- expatriate out reach team leader, Mariana – Nurse. Christine – the medical doctor and other national staff, Richards, Samuel, Peter, Charles, Catherine and many more.  After a small introduction session I went to Patika  IDP camp to meet Mat (Mathew Arnold), watsan expatriate. I was hired to replace him. That day soap and jerrycane distribution was going on in the camps. Thousands of people were in the queue to receive our assistance. As usual there was confusions, complaints and annoyance of some people but at the end of the all were happy. Mat received me well and introduced me with the camp commanders, village volunteers and with other MSF and non-MSF mates. I spent some time with Mat and moved around to see the MSF’s intervention in the area. In the evening I  returned to Mudi Opei with Mat. That evening Mat appraised me every thing about the project – its Strength, weakness, opportunity,  challenges, strategy, work progress and work ahead.

Except the PC and the logistician all other expatriate staff used to stay at Mudi Opei in week days . Mudi Opei compound was fairly big having 20 tukuls for accommodation of both expatriate and national staff. In the compound there was a kitchen, one drawing cum dining place and one storeroom. For water we used to depend on a adjacent village hand pump (Water carrier was there to fetch water for us). Though the type of latrine( pit latrine - no need to use water) was not my choice still I accepted  it sportingly. There was no electricity in the compound. We used to use solar panels for limited time for computer work and mobile charging. In the evening we used to spend time in playing games and gossiping and also star grazing (thanks Aslak – the medical doctor for his powerful binocular). We used to eat variety of food – Posho (cooked maize flour), bean curry, marshed potatoto, ground nut paste, dried fish curry, boiled cabbages, noodles, low spicy meat/chicken, boiled green leafs and rice. No doubt here the eating food was a fun; different people.. different Food habit … different taste. Any way I managed to habituate myself with this .

Work was a bit hectic as there was spreading/increasing of Hepatitis E cases while I was there and as a result there was always pressure of govt administration .The work was challenging. Every thing was new to me. Since it was my first mission I hardly had any experience on MSF’s modus of operandi, strategy, principles and values; (yes,  I got some idea/input during PPD and briefing) Also I was in doubt if  I will be received well by people with different attitude and culture, by national staff, by govt department, by other NGOs. There was also security threat. As it was an emergency I could not expect leisure in getting time to cope with the situation. Any way I accepted the challenge. In first few days  I kept myself occupied in making rapport with people by meeting people, attending meeting and visiting more camps. I spent four month in the project. MSF’s intervention in Hepatitis E intervention was mainly to contribute in promotion of public health condition in the camp areas by providing water and sanitation facilities  and support health centers with essential drugs and human resources.

We used to spend the weekends( Saturday and Sunday) at Kitgum. We had a good accommodation facility at Kitgum compound having enough space for every one with individual rooms – both Tukul( round shaped room with thatched roofs) and concrete building. We used to cook on the weekends as per our likings. . I used to make “Chapati” and  “Dum Aloo” – it was a common liking for every one. We used to enjoy the weekends by reading books, drinking beers, watching TV shows and DVDs, surfing nets and playing games – Vollyball at AVSI compound. Roaming and spend some time at  Kitgum market  was common to most of us. We used to arrange candle dinner often  in the compound with or without any reason. we were able to manage three days off  from the project and went to see Murchison falls and Safari.

MSF’s effort to combat Hepatitis E was well appreciated by locally and nationally by govt and non –govt organization.. It is satisfying for me that Hepatitis E cases have been reduced more than 50% over last 4 months. Local people seemed happy and friendly. I enjoyed a lot in working with  all of them including expatriates, national staff , friends of others agencies and govt department.

Four months gone. It was the time to leave.. National staff arranged a farewell party for me. It was a perfect farewell. Staff of MoH, friends of other NGOs, my expatriate friends and all national staff was present at the party. They greeted me with  honour.

 It was 20^th September,  morning. All my expatriate friends bid  a big goodbye to me . We hugged  each other, tears in my eyes. I slowly moved to the car… there was  “pin drop silence”

The car started  “  base base hug 15 ….. we are departing from   base to alpha . Kilomike  00 , 1 pax in board… next contact after 30 mites” .  The car rolled on .I felt pain in my heart and a sense of emptiness. GOOD BYE