A tree is the limit

On the road to Kenema, the 3th largest city in Sierra Leone: It’s nice to escape Bo for a day, certainly if you are in the good company of two beautiful women from DRC and Malawi, another Belgian and my good friend from Ivory Coast. Seeing the Gola forest passing by, I immediately think of the chimpanzees that (just like the people) are trying to survive in harsh circumstances. It must be nice to be able to go look for them and see how the populations are doing in Sierra Leone.

Being a ‘first missioner’ I have to get used to all the aspects of living the MSF life. Before coming to Sierra Leone I was working in complete different circumstances, i.e. tracking chimpanzees and gorillas in the forest of Eastern Cameroon. It has been the most interesting, but also most disturbing working experience so far. It is amazing to live in the forest, never knowing what to expect the next day. But there is one thing you need to be able to do your job, regardless of where you are. You need the support of the organization in all its aspects. There will always be unforeseen circumstances, but if you are abandoned in the forest by your drunken field guides and you are planning to climb a tree to spend the night to avoid the risk of being trampled by elephants, you realize that as flexible you want to be, everyone has a limit. It is not always easy now to deal with all the security rules and protocols that we have to respect in our professional and personal life with MSF, but I understand more than ever that you need this to be actual able to do your job without being distracted and always switching to survival mode to make it through the day.

I miss the forest, the pollution in the city is difficult for me, but I love the fact that I can be much more productive and actually contribute to the well-functioning of the hospital. They warned us during our training before departure that working for MSF is like a marriage: some days you just want to run away from it as fast as you can, but most of the days you feel how much you love this lifestyle and would do anything to make it work.

An average working day in Dja Faunal Reserve, Cameroon [2013]