How I ended up in Africa, Part 2

Alternative Title: A brief summary of perhaps the most random month of my life

I drafted the timeline below (spanning exactly one month) on my second day in Juba, but for one reason or another waited two weeks to put it up.

16/5/12: Driving south from Deadhorse, Alaska. I spend a second night at the Arctic Circle pull-off.

20/5/12: On a train from Fairbanks to Anchorage to catch my flight out of Alaska. Cloudy views of the partial annular solar eclipse and periodically great views of Denali. Photos of my Alaska trip are posted here.

21/5/12: Arrive in Denver, CO.

23/5/12: Denver to Colorado Springs. I have dinner with family and stay the night.

24/5/12: Drive to Dallas. I spend some good time with family and old friends.

30/5/12: Depart Dallas, by car, for Connecticut. The goal: Brad and Rachel’s wedding on the 2nd. After that, I plan to drive to North Carolina to spend the summer with family outside of Asheville.

31/5/12: Thursday. I receive an email from MSF-USA. They may have an assignment in South Sudan: "Workshop Manager". We will have to move quickly to make it happen. After reading through some documents they send me, I accept the position via email that night.

1/6/12: Arrive in Connecticut and immediately go out for drinks.

2/6/12: Goodman-Bogue wedding. A friend posted photos here.

4/6/12: Monday. Confirmed for South Sudan. I am needed in NYC two days later.

5/6/12: Train to NYC. I immediately take a taxi to the Joyce Theater to see a performance by Monica Bill Barnes and Company.

6/6/12: After several quick briefings at MSF-USA and eight vaccinations at a travel clinic, I catch a plane to Geneva via London, where I unwittingly leave my camera sitting in a chair.

7/6/12: Thursday (one week since the email). Arrive in Geneva and catch a train and a tram to the MSF-Swiss offices. Afternoon briefings. Tram and bus to hotel, where I realize I’ve lost my camera. Begin daily malaria meds.

8/6/12: More briefings at MSF office. Back to hotel.

9/6/12: Morning flight to Entebbe, Uganda, via Brussels and Kigali, Rwanda. Arrive at MSF guesthouse in Kampala around 11PM.

10/6/12: I sleep until 1:30PM. I meet my mentor for the week, Dominique Tournier, and discuss the workshop and what a Workshop Manager does.

11/6/12: The first of four days at the workshop shadowing Dominique.

12/6/12: My first Land Cruiser job. Check front and rear brakes and wheel bearings. Re-pack rear bearings.

15/6/12: Afternoon flight from Entebbe to Juba, South Sudan. Arrive at MSF guest house around 6:30PM. Dinner with new friends, followed by drinks at a nearby bar.

So that was my random month. What have I been doing for the first two weeks in Juba? My weekdays and part of Saturdays are spent at the workshop. Sundays are for relaxing.

During week one there were fifteen or so mechanics undergoing training at the workshop, so I didn't get much "handover" time with my predecessor. Saturday was the end of training and there was a party afterwards. Week two involved real handover time for the first three days and then my first two days managing the shop on my own! I have a small team of mechanics that I manage, though they don't generally need much managing. Most of my time is spent liaising with the different MSF operating sections (all five) in town, arranging for spare parts for their vehicles and generators to be collected and, if we don't have them in stock, purchased. We also have some small contractor jobs ongoing at the workshop, because it is only two years old and we are still finishing it out. Much of my job is paperwork, though I make a point of getting out of the office and into the real workings of the shop whenever possible. I generally work from a bit before 8am until around 6:30pm, with a one-hour break for lunch.

Breakfast foods are available at the guest house. Lunch is prepared for us Monday to Saturday, as is dinner Monday to Friday. For Saturday dinner and all day Sunday we are on our own. We are free to walk or to have an MSF driver take us to almost anywhere in town during the day. At night we have to use the drivers unless our destination is very close and we move in pairs or larger groups. There are enclosed markets and open-air markets. There are several good restaurants and bars a short walk or a short drive from the guest house. I've been on a couple of runs with other expats, and I've gotten one workout in this past week. I've not yet settled into a routine that involves regular exercise, but I'm working on it.

It's hot and humid here, and periodically rains in brief but intense spurts. The people I have met, both expat and local, are really friendly and generally hard-working. I'm sleeping under a mosquito net for the first time away from summer camp. Malaria is common here, and knowing how much mosquitoes love me I expect to get it at some point. The prophylaxis only reduces the odds of getting it, and if it fails it at least lessens the severity of the symptoms. If I go out at night I usually wear long pants and sometimes long sleeves if it's not too warm. Application of repellent is becoming a ritual. It has DEET in it, but smells considerably less poisonous than the stuff we use in The States.

I get the feeling that some of my family and friends think I'm simply off on another fun adventure, but this is not a vacation by any stretch of the imagination. MSF specializes in providing emergency humanitarian medical care where and when it's needed, and that rarely involves lots of beach time and walks in the woods. I'm working hard and relaxing when I can. It's an amazing experience, but it's difficult at times. This is exactly what I want to be doing right now (maybe not the paperwork part, but definitely the supporting-the-greater-good part), and I know I will experience and learn a lot in the coming months. It's a different kind of adventure than those of my previous 18 months, and one that I am immensely glad to be on.

How I ended up in Africa

Back in October, shortly after returning to Dallas to lay low for a bit to relax from all my travels (tough life, I know), I applied for a job with Doctors Without Borders (known worldwide as Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF). Yes, I am aware that I'm not a doctor, but they didn't know that.

Okay, actually they did. They hire lots of non-medical types to do all the stuff that supports their medical work in the field. This includes engineers, who are often hired to work as logisticians or coordinators. Travel for work? Use my engineering background for the good of mankind? Seems like a good deal to me!

I was invited for an interview at the U.S. headquarters in New York City in December (first cut in the recruitment process). It went pretty well, I thought, though I was a bit skeptical of how I'd performed during the technical test I had to take so they could see if I had any idea of what I was doing.

Turns out I did know what I was doing, at least enough to make that cut (the second). After they dug a bit deeper into my background, I was invited (third cut) to their "Info Days" in March, which is a three-day meet-and-greet, get-to-know-each-other-better, informational workshop with a bunch of other candidates, both medical and otherwise.

About a week later, I got the email welcoming me into their "active pool of candidates"
(fourth cut!). Basically, since their needs in the field are always changing, they maintain a pool of personnel they can draw from as needed. Then it becomes a waiting game for your first assignment. The wait can be very short if they immediately have a need that you match with better than anyone else, or it can be quite long if they have a lot of people with similar qualifications. Speaking French is a great qualification, because a lot of the countries they work in are French-speaking. I, for better or worse, do not speak French. Thus, I settle in for a long wait.

Skip ahead a couple of months. After my trip to Alaska (see previous post), I drove back to Dallas to spend some brief family time before driving up to Connecticut for an early June wedding and then down to North Carolina to stay with extended family for the summer. On day two of the drive, Thursday May 31st, I check my email to find that MSF may have a brief (three months as opposed to the typical nine to twelve months) assignment for me in Juba, South Sudan. The catch? They need someone who can leave very, very soon. We talk on the phone and I say something along the lines of "you couldn't have possibly called a more suitable candidate." I can barely contain my excitement, but I have to remind myself that it may not work out. They still need to confirm the match with the office in Geneva.

So I spend the weekend hanging with long lost friends in Connecticut, getting tipsy and telling everybody who asks "what's new?" all about it.

It takes until Monday the 4th to get final confirmation, and on Tuesday the 5th I pick my buddy Kevin Hawk up from work. We drive to the train station, and he takes my car back to his place for storage during my absence. Several meetings at the New York office, eight vaccinations (and three follow-up doses in a tiny cooler), and only 6.5 days after learning of such a possibility, I find myself on a flight to Geneva, Switzerland for more briefings.

Geneva is nice, but expensive as hell and I'm busy in meetings and more exhausted than I can ever remember being without running 26.2 and it's raining off and on. I spend my little down time resting and getting my affairs in order. Part of my time is also spent lamenting the loss of my camera, which I left in a chair at Heathrow Airport the previous day and only realized the mistake once at my hotel in Geneva. But not all is lost! Heathrow has an online lost and found database, and tonight (the 10th) I found a camera matching the description of mine that was reportedly lost two days after I was there. I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one, but in the meantime (meaning until I return to the States), my phone will have to fill in unless I find a replacement locally.

6:30am Saturday June 9th, I leave my hotel for the airport. A short stop in Brussels and I'm on my way to Africa! It only took twelve freaking years!

I was supposed to go to Zimbabwe in the summer of 2000 to work on a school project, but the trip was cancelled due to a swelling in political unrest. We had been preparing for weeks, had already gotten vaccinations and had even written the first drafts of our initial project reports. "Utterly devastated beyond my ability to comprehend" would not be an overstatement of my feelings at the time, nor those of the twenty or so others who were also scheduled to go. A consolation trip to Namibia the next year was cancelled due to some less tumultuous inconvenience. "Bummer." A South Africa trip for World Cup 2010 was cancelled because my friends, who I had been telling for 3+ years to save up money so we could all go, and who more or less assured me it wouldn't be an issue, said they couldn't afford it. "Strike three!"

It's currently 10:35pm on Sunday June 10th, and I am in the MSF guesthouse in Kampala, Uganda. Tomorrow morning I meet up with my "mentor" to start a week of training before I fly to my three-month assignment in Juba. Once there, I will have a few days with my predecessor before I am left to serve solo as manager of an MSF automotive workshop. It will be immensely challenging, often frustrating, sometimes frightening, and 100% amazing.