The Sphere Effect

Flocculation! What an awesome word… it just sort of rolls off your tongue and drips with suggestion. Unfortunately, what it means is nothing like what it sounds. This is one of the many things I learned in the last couple of weeks in Switzerland. The art of flocculation is how you turn filthy contaminated water into clear water with no bits in it, ready to be chlorinated and purified for drinking. There is a feeling of rightness when you now know what the steps are to provide water for a Refugee camp of 75,000 people although I know that the actual process of doing this in 5 litres of water, is probably a little different to doing it to 5,000 litres of water. But still… I’m learning!

I have now finished my MSF training in Switzerland, and I’m in London! WOO HOO!! I met some awesome people from all sorts of different places. We had people from France, Switzerland, Norway, Brazil, Germany, French Canada and only one small aussie. In fact, I was the only person there who spoke english as a first language, and it was only in the last few days that I actually got up the courage to speak the few french words I know.

There are a few of us who have been given actual missions. My room mate Aurelie is off to Chad today for six months as an Administrator. Kristian from Norway is off to Somalia in about 3 weeks for six months - that’s a bit of a scary one but he seems to be taking it in his stride. Cecile from France is shortly off to Niger, and Bente from Norway is off to Kyrgistan within the next couple of weeks. Sylvia from Brazil is a Psychiatrist who looks like she will be going to Darfur which is the scariest of them all. My possible posting to Ethiopia looks like it will be a breeze in comparison.

I am still waiting for final confirmation about the Gambella, Ethiopia posting, but if I go it appears that the contract starts in Mid-April. So I’ve still got a while to wait.

I spent some time in my old Accenture office in London on Thursday, and they have offered me some contract work for a couple of weeks, which I am seriously considering. I have been on holiday now for six months which is a very long time - and I haven’t earned any money in that time either. I think I will probably put my plane ticket back at least a week and get a solid couple of weeks work in, in London.

It’s funny, I never really felt the energy of London when I was living here before, but now I feel it as I walk through the streets. It sounds a bit poetic, but I can actually feel the pulse of the city, now that I have been away and in quiet Perth for a while. I wouldn’t want it for a long time, but it’s quite energising at the moment.

I am staying with my friend Sarah, who lived with me when I first moved to Sydney in 2001. She is such a darling, and is letting me stay in her spare room. Unfortunately she is now going away for the next couple of weeks, and I will be all alone in her house - but it should be ok - I have so many people I want to catch up with that I’m sure I won’t be at home on my own too much.

So for all of you in London, expect to hear from me shortly.

Big kisses!!

It is around 5.30 in the morning and I have snuck downstairs so that I won’t wake up my room-mate at such an ungodly time of the morning. I am SO awake right now, which is very unfair as everyone who knows me, knows that I am not a morning person and that I would do anything to just be able to sleep in another five minutes, and then another five after that.

Jet lag is horrible. I find that I am very awake in the morning and at around 2 in the afternoon I start getting sleepy. Last night at about 6.30pm I thought I would have a half hour power nap before dinner. Well the last I knew of that was at 3am this mornng when I woke up bright as a button. Sigh….

Switzerland is very cold compared to Perth (which I believe is sweltering in yet another heat wave at the moment), but it’s not as cold as I thought it would be. Yesterday I was able to go outside in just a tee-shirt and a fleece, and I am very disappointed to find that there isn’t any snow except for a couple of dirty unmelted patches in a couple of places on the grass.

Dauntless, I dutifully gathered up a few piece of muddy, snowy ice yesterday to make a couple of snowballs to throw at my unsuspecting fellow MSF colleagues. The looks of shock and the subsequent snow fight was very gratifying to a snow deprived aussie. Europeans do NOT expect to have dirty snow thrown in their face or dumped down their backs. hehe

I am the only person here who speaks English as a first language. There are 13 students and various teachers, and most people speak french as a first language. Fortunately there are at least four of us who don’t really speak french, so we do get to have some good conversations.

I am very envious of people who seem to be able to flick between three and four languages without even thinking about it. My french is so basic that I can only understand one word in about five, and that only if the person is speaking slowly. On the first night I was sitting at the dinner table with three french girls who were talking around me, and one of them finally looked at me in concern and asked if they were speaking too quickly for me. I had to laugh and say ‘honey, I have no idea what any of you are saying at all’, at which point they flicked back to english, fortunately for me.

I think I am probably the hardest person for everyone to understand, although I have tempered my Aussie accent (I think) and I am trying to speak veeerrry sllooowlly. Apparently zey understand me best if I try to speak with a freench acczent. (which I don’t do very well at all).

I think you have to be a certain kind of a person to do this sort of work, and I find (as I have found before) that I really, really like every single person I have met who works for MSF. People are very friendly, very interested in you, and very concerned about humanitarian issues - which fits in well with me as it is what I want to talk about.

This will be the beginning of the second full day of the course, which is really a duplication of the welcome days that I have already done in Sydney, with an extra section which concentrates on Logistics. Therefore a lot of what we are being told, I already know, although it is told from the MSF-Switzerland perspective. It’s still very interesting to me though, and yesterday we watched a three hour video on the birth of Humanitarianism and how it has evolved over the last 100 years or so. I found it very, very interesting, and I really do feel that I am finally about to start in the career sector I should be in.

We also watched a movie/documentary on Rwanda on Sunday night, called ‘Sometimes in April’. I have never before had such a clear picture of what happened in Rwanda in 1994, and at the end of the movie no-one could even speak to each other but just quietly got up and went to bed without even saying goodnight to each other.

Anyway sorry for waffling on so much, but there is no-one else to talk to at this time of the morning, and I just thought I would write. Much more came out than I expected, oopss….. .