Holland in August

Finally, I've left home for the year! After the prolongation of the departure, I couldn't take it anymore! Stressed for packing, slept about 3 hours that night for many reasons, packed fully completely 24 hours before going to the airplane (that's very unusual for me!), and tired of goodbyes because of the constant emotional tug. Thanks to all of you who had to endure my weirdo moods and my anxiety and moaning and displaced obsessing...

The PPD (Preparation for Primary Departure course) is a well-structured week with lectures and group simulations intended for MSF workers who will leave on first mission. Half the group is from Germany, we are three Canadians and one American, and there are scattered other Europeans. I hit it off very quickly with L, an emerg nurse from Vancouver, and an ex-Montrealer. We are similar in our bluntness and sharpness, peacekeeping abilities, Canadian niceness and constant irreverent jokes; and we also do well in the no-bullshit bottom-line common-sense department, both coming from the emerg. She is New Wave Punk (not Gothic! Sorry!), has nice big tattoos, is totally off the beaten track, wears only black, and we get along great. She was maybe offered a mission in Papua New Guinea having to do with a village that boasts 80% domestic/sexual/child abuse, oh joy! and is wondering if she could work with constant simmering anger all the time. I hope to convince her to come work with me in DRC Katanga instead: Liz, come work with me in Shamwana in two months, when the other nurse leaves!!! The other Canadian is also a very nice guy. He used to be a Harley-Davidson sales manager and has sold everything to eventually go on permanent retirement on the beaches of Viet Nam on the basis that one day in the next decade, all hell will break loose in the developed world. Definitely an interesting life experience. The other medics on PPD are a few older surgeons with prior NGO experience and a few medical interns from the UK and Germany. The group is quite varied. I am also incredibly lucky to have met other people who will be flying down to DRC Katanga with me. There is A, my homolog for Dubie the next village project over, an extremely nice Ivoirian girl my age whose husband is the doctor in Kilwa, the third project of the mission. And there is M, an American midwife who will be working in Dubie as well. I am just incredibly happy to have found two people who will be briefed with me in Amsterdam next week and will travel down to Lubumbashi with me. It's so nice not to feel so terribly alone jumping into this!

The knowledge that we acquire here is various. Security protocols, MSF spirit and mandate, group work and country simulations, cross culture work (within the team) and the orienteering game, an exercise in frustration designed to test our team spirit. There was a strange surgeon from Ukraine with a clear personality disorder who was kicked out of the course today. As we had had him on our team on the orienteering night and managed his rogueness quite well, I suppose now that my teamworking abilities are doing just fine. We learn all the MSF jargon: PC logco finco sitrep security fieldlog MoH nationalstaff HOM capital etc etc... It's another language altogether, and I haven't learned the radio language yet.

Socially, unlike what I'd heard from Rags and SF (ex-MSFer friends from home), it ain't much of a romance scene out here. After all, the chances are slim that we all see each other again afterwards. The female bonding happened so naturally that one of the facilitators came to us and said half-jokingly that the XY part of the PPD were sorry that we weren't mingling more with them :). It doesn't help that the German sense of humor seems to be beyond me (...). There is quite a bit of Heineken flowing about, we take bike rides to the beach (being in Holland after all!), we share our building performance anxiety, and we are happy about the people who hear about their mission being confirmed during the course. The minority of us were matched to a mission already before coming, a few are hearing confirmation while here, and the majority are going home and waiting for the e-mail or phone call dispatching them overseas. I am glad that all is going on plan for me, that I am leaving directly from here to the jungle of DRC Katanga, and that the busy-ness before the departure kept me not thinking too much. I am realizing that I do not deal very well with the unknown after all :)

Pictures of people at the PPD here.