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.