Tuesday 10 May 2011

Abandoning a sinking (fading?) ship

  HIV/AIDS projects will officially be handed over by end of the year in Bulawayo to the Ministry of Health. That means for the 64 Zimbabweans that work on our project, they need to find a new job by then. Though it would be great to have them all stick around until the very end- we're encouraging our colleagues to take jobs as they find one. This means a lot of farewell parties.
 



 The leader of our data collection and statistics team moved on to greener pastures with Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Harare. In the group photo above taken 1 month ago, alread 3 have moved on to positions elsewhere. Two of them with MSF at other sites. Besides the larger group photo, there's one of just her team.


All of these colleagues will be missed and it means we're that much closer to the remaining crew having to all say goodbye to each other in a few months.

Thursday 5 May 2011

Living in the MSF Hostel

  Over the course of these 3 weeks, our home will have 14 different visitors stay for as short as a night to as long as 10 days. Being in the 2nd largest city in Zim and the largest one with a project in it- Bulawayo and our home in particular, is a hot destination point. It makes our home feel more like a hostel.

  The three of us (soon to be just two) that live here get to meet these other MSF volunteers- from Italy, Colombia, Greece, Scotland, Spain- and get a glimpse of their life/motivations as they pass through. We have team dinners, play UNO or scrabble and lounge after our long days at the clinic/office.



  Most of the guests are from other projects in Zimbabwe, stopping by for a grocery trip in the "big city." Others are on their way to/from the capital- Harare. A few are "flying consultants" from MSF headquarters, such as Stella, a mental health consultant, who comes to each of the country's projects to identify needs and improve the quality of our work. She's off to the Congo (DRC) next. She got us these great hats from a local mental health institution as part of a fundraiser.



 The advantage of having visitors- like back in San Francisco- is they all want to see the region's sights. Stella got us to see Khami Ruins, the remains of the Zulu civilization from a few hundred years ago. Along with some of our drivers, we got to scale up the fortress walls built on a sloped hill.