Tamil Time

I travelled north by train to Vavuniya, arriving late Wednesday evening. My visit would allow me to spend time at the MSF-Holland project and also provide coverage for the project coordinator (pc), who was going to spend a few days at the other project in Kilinochchi.

On Thursday morning prior to his departure, Jonathon gave me a thorough security briefing. The general theme was that the line-of-control is just 17 kilometers north so basically bad things could happen just about anywhere. While reading one of the reports I amused myself with a bit of mental wordplay by altering it to sound like a weather update…”Light shelling with a slight chance of aerial bombardment.” Jonathon showed me a map pinned with coloured tacks indicating where claymore mines had been detonated in the region. Some were near to town and others were along outlying roads. There were a lot of tacks.

We were at the house having lunch when we heard the explosion. It sounded kind of like a car backfiring, but had enough oomph to it that I went outside to check with the staff. They knew immediately that it was a claymore mine, it’s sound being all too familiar, and they also knew that it had exploded nearby. I had the pc’s cell phone and over the next several minutes received a number of text messages from the local UN Security service:

• “Explosion took place at Kurumankadu junction. Avoid”
• “Kurumankadu junction can be used for movements but the shops closed; military and police are on the street at the location
• “3 EPDP members and small boy killed; 7 civilians injured by the Kurumankadu incident”
  

The junction was only about one kilometre away from our house, much closer than those indicated by the tacks on the map. I had passed through there on a tuk-tuk just 30-minutes earlier. For our staff it was disconcerting because this happened close to where many of them live and shop.

The rest of the day proved to be uneventful. Those of us at the house stayed put and it wasn’t until later in the day that we felt comfortable to transport our national staff to their homes. Steve, an American surgeon, was our only expat at the hospital at the time and he was fully engaged that afternoon. “Days like this,” he would later say, “are why I joined MSF.” It may have just been a coincidence, but the next morning our staff would comment that the past night’s not-so-distant shelling had been heavier than normal.

That same night I heard the news from Pakistan that Benazir Bhutto had been assassinated. I knew that people back home would think that I’m fortunate not to have returned to Islamabad and instead to have gone somewhere safer. Not being so sure I contemplate this theory, knowing that another tack would be added to Jonathon’s map.

The Galle Face Hotel in Colombo

Views of traditional and modern Colombo

Sunday afternoon in Colombo

My first week in Sri Lanka

When working with MSF, even if you are the financial coordinator, you will undoubtedly be around sick people. Given that I get queasy watching episodes of ER this fact does not enthrall me, but with surgical teams working in hospitals in Kilinochchi and Vavuniya I have braced myself for the inevitable. However, what I hadn’t expected was that my first medical exposure in Sri Lanka would be in Colombo and would involve MSF expats.

Two days after my arrival Ard, our Dutch Head of Mission, checked into the Apollo hospital in Colombo with Dengue fever. The symptoms of this mosquito-borne disease’s include high fever, severe headaches, and body ache. Two days later an Indian nurse working in Vavuniya, Kamalkant, was also checked-in with something slightly less serious. If anyone else falls ill I will consider declaring the Apollo a MSF project location and assign it a budget. Moses, our Kenyan medical coordinator, has been closely monitoring the progress of our colleagues and I’ve also been a regular hospital visitor, partly to get Ard to sign documents, but also to smile at the nurses (and they smile back, too). Kamalkant will be discharged today and although Ard has improved significantly, his Christmas dinner will be served on a tray.

While it has been almost a year since I last worked with MSF, I’ve found that getting back into the swing of things is kind of like riding a bicycle. I have quickly settled into to my new work situation and found it to be in pretty good shape. Given my own experience in obtaining a Sri Lankan entry visa it’s not surprising that one of the biggest challenges of my job relates to the bureaucracy involved with entry/residency visas and working permits. Fortunately, my assistant Rukshia is quite good. I haven’t totally figured-out all that will be required for my year-end financial close, but don’t expect this to be a big deal.

One side benefit of humanitarian work is that it has perked-up my social life. Last Thursday Rijk, a departing Dutch surgeon, and I went for drinks on the veranda bar of the Galle Face Hotel, which having been built in 1864 still maintains much of its colonial era charm. On Saturday night I went to watch English soccer on big screen TVs at Cheers Pub in the basement of the Cinnamon Grand Hotel with Jean Marc, a French logistics coordinator working with MSF Spain. Its funny to think that I don’t even go to places this nice back in Canada.

I went for a long walk on Sunday to explore the city, but otherwise haven’t exercised since leaving Canada. However, I have heard of a few options for fitness clubs and hope to have something arranged shortly. All in all, given that I arrived in Sri Lanka just over five days ago I think that my acclimatization process is going quite well. This is true just by the fact that so far I’ve avoided the fate of my colleagues and that my only hospital trips have been as a visitor.

On The Road Again

My 35-hour odyssey from Canada to Sri Lanka involved two long flights and a lot of waiting around at airports. I left Vancouver on Sunday evening and reached my destination in Colombo in time for the Tuesday evening traffic. The trip was a bit of a blur, but I’ve managed a few recollections:

- I now have a theory that airlines intentionally select movies that induce sleep or at least enable passengers to nod-off and not feel like they missed much when they awake;
- Terminal 4 at Heathrow is really just a shopping mall. However, regardless of how much time I have to kill my capacity to shop expires after about three-minutes;
- Standing in a line behind a group of Africans travelling home to Kenya for Christmas I was able to surprise them by speaking a few sentences in Kiswahili;
- At the Starbucks in Terminal 4 (£1.90 for a venti coffee) I chatted with a university student I recognized from my Vancouver flight. Anna has lived in Slovakia and Russia and is now studying political science at UBC. She thought that my poli-sci professor friend Barb was an excellent instructor even though political theory was not her favourite subject. She hopes to study for her masters next year in the UK and plans to earn a law degree and a doctorate in political science before eventually working in international law. I didn’t disclose that my biggest aspiration is to win my hockey pool;
- The stewardesses on SriLankan Airlines wore beautiful traditionally-styled dresses. I smiled to myself with the thought that I was definitely not on a flight to Pakistan.

Things were quite civilized upon my arrival at the airport in Colombo. My visa was inspected by the immigration officer with little fanfare, which seemed anti-climatic given the drama involved with obtaining it. Then before picking-up my luggage and clearing customs I had the opportunity for some duty-free shopping, which I was able to complete within my three-minute window. I got a taxi and we found my new home with only minor difficulty. My journey was finally over and although I had just travelled more than half-way around the globe, I knew that my adventure was only beginning.

The Blog is Back!

The Blog is back! By semi-popular demand (i.e more than 1 person) I have resurrected my on-line travel diary. I had forgotten the password for my blog site and had to learn a new procedure for adding photos, but now I'm back and blogging.

I'll be leaving shortly for Sri Lanka to work for six weeks with the Holland section of Medecins Sans Frontieres as the Financial & HR Coordinator. Based in Colombo, I'll be part of the country management team supporting two medical programs in the northern Tamil region towns of Kilinochi and Vavuniya. Obtaining my working visa has been a bureaucratic quagmire and we still aren't quite sure when the final hurdle will be passed. Hopefully, I will be on a plane this weekend. As I'm going to a country that is primarily Buddhist I am accepting that this has all been pre-determined by my karma.

My immunizations are done, I've updated my IPOD and packed my 30-block sunscreen. I'm ready for Sri Lanka.

Bound for Sri Lanka