With MSF finance/admin staff - Lillian, Ngozi and Hannah

Getting some spending money from Hannah

Visiting with Lillian and her family

Sokoto staff members

Good-bye Nigeria

This is my last day in Nigeria. I flew down from Sokoto to Abuja yesterday and will spend today in the office training our newly hired employee. My flight to Amsterdam leaves tonight, arriving at around 6:00 am Tuesday morning. I have a 12-hour lay-over, which will give me enough time to go into the city and visit the MSF office. I then have another long flight, although with the change in time zones when I arrive in Vancouver it will still be Tuesday evening.

The fact that I’m leaving Nigeria for good is finally starting to sink-in. You get so accustomed to packing-up your gear and going to another MSF location that it catches you surprise when it comes to an end and its time to come home.

I’ve had a nice time in Nigeria and it’s been great to work with MSF again. Every mission is different and I’ll certainly remember this as the “baby mission,” given MSF’s work here in pediatrics and child nutrition. The mission has felt a lot longer than a month. Not in a bad way, but probably because of all of the unique experiences that I have had during my stay.

In Nigeria the common greeting that you receive upon arriving somewhere is “You are Welcome.” From the people I have met during my time in Nigeria and from the staff that I have worked with this has certainly been the case.

Trip to the Nutrition Clinic in Kebbi State

With some time to spare before beginning my return journey to Canada I had the opportunity to join the MSF nutrition team working in Kebbi State for a two-day trip. We travelled to the southern part of the state, crossed the Niger River, and stayed a few kilometers from the border with the Republic of Benin. Otherwise, I have no idea where we were and I wondered how MSF found this place to begin with.

This region had been hit hard this past year by both a late harvest and a measles epidemic. These factors contributed to a high rate of malnutrition amongst younger children. MSF has been running a and feeding program, which will be handed-over next spring to the Ministry of Health and another NGO.

When we arrived at our first stop, the town of Giris, there was already a gathering of about 40 mothers, grandmothers, or older siblings with babies wrapped on their backs. People were relaxed and proceeded in an orderly fashion through the stations:

• First the baby was put in the scale to be weighed. You could always count on this creating a great cry and one had to watch for a potential escapee or a stream of pee.
• If they were visiting for the first time their height was measured so that it could be seen if their weight was sufficient for their given height. This was another unpopular step, from the baby’s perspective.
• The baby then had their temperature taken. If it was high they would then be tested for malaria. If they had malaria they would then be given medicine. I was told that of the sick children brought in that over 70% had malaria and about 50% were malnourished.
• The mothers would then sit with the doctor to review the tests, discuss the child’s recovery program, and prescribe what food and medicine would be needed.
• The mothers then would pick-up the supplies, wrap the baby in a blanket around her back, put the supplies on her head, and begin her trip home until the next week’s meeting.

The basis of the nutrition program is Plumpy'nut, which is a fortified peanut butter stuffed with milk and vitamins. It is great for this type of work because it requires no water preparation or refrigeration and has a 2 year shelf life.

The MSF team consisted of Beinfait, a doctor from the Congo, and a variety of medical staff from Nigeria. They quite enjoy the work because they see the results of their efforts so quickly. Usually within a month a child can be back in good health, which I’m sure makes up for travelling to where-ever it was that we were.

Women and babies waiting their turn at the nutrition clinic

Measuring the child's weight

Measuring a child's height

Mothers waiting their turn to confer with the Doctor

Mother feeding child Plumpy'nuts

Mothers with their child's weekly nutrition suupplies. The babies are wrapped on their backs.

Mothers with nutrition supplies

The Roads of Nigeria

We were early into our ten-hour trip from Abuja to Sokoto, when our driver Ben informed us that we would soon be passing one of Nigeria’s most famous landmarks. “I wonder if it’s somewhere behind that big rock,” I thought to myself. As it turned-out, the point of interest was the big rock.

The following is what Wikpedia has to say about Zuma Rock:

“Zuma Rock is a large monolith located in Niger State, Nigeria. It is just north of Nigeria's capital Abuja, along the main road from Abuja to Kaduna, and is sometimes referred to as "Gateway to Abuja." It is most recognized because of the face of a person on the monolith, and is depicted on the 100 naira bill. It has been called Nigeria's answer to Australia's Uluru (Ayers Rock). Although only one-third as wide as Uluru, Zuma Rock is more than twice as high from its base, rising 725 meters above its surroundings.”

Now that I reflect on the past month I would have to say that Zuma Rock was my highlight from the hours spent driving around Nigeria. There have been many things I have enjoyed about Nigeria, but the scenery isn’t one of them. Perhaps the southern half of the country is greener and I’m sure the coast is lovely, but I can understand why tourism isn’t a major industry here or possibly an industry at all.

During my last long trip I contemplated potential slogans to lure tourists to the region, but could only come-up with the following:

• Visit Nigeria – Our roads are better than Kenya’s and our camels are nicer than Egypt’s!
• Nigeria – Where the goats and the donkeys play!
• Nigeria – Home of Zuma Rock!

Not very inspiring, but at least I now understand why Zuma Rock is so famous in Nigeria.

Zuma Rock

The Interview

We needed a new Finance Admin assistant in Abuja. The job bulletin had been posted on our office gate in Abuja and Sokoto and a pile of resumes were received. My task was to review all of the applications and to develop a short-list of four candidates to be interviewed by my replacement Lene and myself.

A job application in Nigeria consists of many pages. In addition to the cover letter and CV, there are copies of transcripts from every academic institution ever attended and in a few cases even birth certificates. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know if their education has any substance. For instance, it’s not uncommon to find that someone reporting a computer science degree is incapable of even saving a Word document on the computer’s desktop.

The contents of a CV also have some notable variations from what one would see in the West. It is standard to disclose one’s gender, marital status, age, tribe, and even in one case that she had a light complexion. One candidate reported that she could speak some French, probably thinking that this would improve her chances with an organization named Medecins Sans Frontieres. During the interview I asked her “Parlez-vous Francais?,” and she looked at me blankly and smiled. I also enjoyed it when people listed their hobbies. When one applicant incorrectly spelled Scrablle I immediately discarded their resume. Although I didn’t select him to be interviewed, my favourite CV had hobbies listed as “watching football and making friends.”

We interviewed four candidates and as is typical they were far better dressed than those of us doing the interviewing. I actually quite enjoyed chatting with them and learning about the work they’ve previously done, which ranged from preparing loan documents at a microfinance bank to working in the stock market (before the crash). At times it felt more like a TV talk-show than an interview.

In addition to the interview I also asked the candidates to write a test in order to get an indication of their English skills and their abilities in using Microsoft Word and Excel. This was a bit of a shocker and it alone put one candidate out of the running. In preparing the exam I was worried that it was too simple. Based on the results my concern was unwarranted. You feel bad seeing people lacking such basis skills and realize that they just need to be given the opportunity to be trained and to learn. Unfortunately, in this case it won’t be with us.

The interviews have now been completed and the exam results reviewed (it didn’t take long). Lene and I are going to chat about it over dinner this evening. There was no ideal candidate, but I’m optimistic that we’ve found the right person.

The United Nations of MSF

The majority of MSF’s workforce are national staff who are hired in the country in which MSF operates. They are managed and supported by expat workers who come from a wide range of nations. The twenty expats who have worked for MSF-Holland during my two weeks in Nigeria represent 16 different countries. Their nationalities are Danish, Indian, Canadian (2), Democratic Republic of Congo (2), Burundi, Columbian, Sudanese, Sierra Leonese, Kenyan (3), British, American, Norwegian, Philippine, Australian, Ugandan and German. What has been interesting about this group is how many of them were once national staff in their country of origin.

David, our Logistics Coordinator, is a great guy to work with and one of funniest people I’ve met. Originally from the Democratic Republic of Congo he has worked with both MSF and the UN. He once talked about being evacuated from Chad due to rising violence and joked how great it was to be an expat because they got to fly out on a helicopter. “When I was a national staff in Congo the evacuation strategy was just to run into the forest and hide…ha, ha, ha!” At our New Years Eve party he was a constant source of entertainment. When a western pop song was played he did his version of white people dancing. “Hey Oscar, look…this is from the people who brought us electricity…ha, ha, ha!” He then stuck his finger into an imaginary electrical socket and wiggled his body as though he had been electrocuted. It was his way of showing that while the white man may have brought many advances to the world, they sure dance funny.

The African MSF expats often have worked with MSF for several years in many different countries. It’s fascinating to hear their stories. Sometimes you find that you’ve worked with people in common in different countries. Yousif, a nutritionist from Sudan, last worked in Ethiopia where his team-mates included Jonathan, an English Project Coordinator who I worked with in Sri Lanka, and Stephanie, a Canadian nurse, who I knew from Pakistan and our MSF orientation course in Germany. Yousif and I agreed that if we were both friends of Jonathan and Stephanie then we must be friends, too. So is often the case with expats from Africa.

Marisa, Sellah and Yousif

Medco Oscar and LogCo David to the right

New Years 2010

Sabine and Roy, two doctors from the Goronyo project. I had previously worked with Roy in Pakistan