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]

Small Small

A paediatric mortality rate of 6% for the first quarter of 2014 was one of the results we presented this week in the hospital. The target of staying under an 8% mortality rate was achieved. Just looking at the numbers you want to clap in your hands and congratulate each other on the good work. 

But when I was walking back to the office, I saw a young father carrying his deceased child out of the hospital. For a second I thought he was holding a small gift, trying to show it to the people around him. Wrapped in a beautiful blue-yellow lappa, he was holding the child in front of him and with a certain grace he walked out of the hospital. 

At the exit, the paper put on the small bundle said that it was indeed his child and that he would appear in my statistics as ‘exit outcome: death diagnosed as severe malaria’.

All of a sudden you feel that this 6% is nothing to congratulate each other on.

Attempt to play tennis in Bo Club, Sierra Leone [2014]

New York Kisses

She was supposed to celebrate her 30^th birthday today. It would have been our perfect excuse to organize a crazy party, to dress up as we did when we were 16 and drink (a bit) too much of that home-made cocktail.

So I promised her to get out of this life as much as I can for the both of us.

a birthday kiss [New York, 2006]