The Sphere Effect

Well I’m soon coming to the end of my second trimester of my MBA. Thank goodness! I feel a bit like I haven’t had time to do much else but study for the last 8 months and I will be very thankful for a couple of months break! I will finish the degree at the end of July next year so there is still some time to go, but it’s getting closer and closer. I can’t wait until it’s all over and I can get back into some ‘real’ work.

Kellie and I sold our house in Atwell in July and we have now purchased a much smaller townhouse in South Perth. We moved in just over a week ago, and it’s a bit of an adjustment to make. Hopefully we will finish unpacking soon and it will begin to feel like a home instead of just a house.

I will finish Uni in about four weeks time, and then I’m off to Thailand for a few weeks in December. I’m planning on going to look at some projects that my church supports and will be spending time in Bangkok, Khaon Khen and Mai Sai. Then I’ll spend a couple of days with Kath in Chiang Mai, and visit with the orphans I sponsor there, and then both Kath and I are off to Bali for Christmas with mum, dad and Kels. Then we are back to Thailand for New Year. Haven’t 100% decided what we are going to do yet, but Koh Samui and/or the full moon party are on the list of possibilities.

My work on the Woodside Pluto project is coming to an end, and I will finish my contract at the end of November, before I leave for Thailand. I don’t yet have anything else lined up, so I’m hoping to find something before I leave otherwise I just may stay in Thailand until I find some work. It’s much cheaper to live in Thailand than in Australia (although with the state of the Aussie dollar that may be debatable). Plus it will be much more fun!!

A week/weekend in Sydney is also becoming a possibility in January, depending on what happens with work. I haven’t been back for over a year now, so I’m quite keen to catch up with all you Sydneyites!! I’ll keep you posted….

I feel a bit like I’ve come full circle… I’ve just been accepted back into Murdoch University to study in the Master of Business Administration program. The thought of all that studying is very wearying, and I had thought I’d put it all behind me many years ago. Still it will be helpful in the future when I’m applying to the National NGOs and to the UN for all those low paying jobs, and also when applying to get one of those high paying jobs back in Australia.

Fortunately my organisation has agreed to let me reduce my working hours to 20 hours a week, but even so I think I’m about to be out of control busy - I do hope no-one actually expects to see me in the next year until I finish this degree!!!

I’m still living with Kel in my shoe box bedroom, but we’re about to put our other house on the market and to try to buy a place together a little closer to the city. If anyone is looking for a 3 bed, 2 bath house in Atwell, do let me know…

Anyway - I don’t have much else to say when I’m not living the life of an intrepid traveller so you’ll probably not hear from me again until next year when I’m done with my life as a student, and I’m ready to head off into the big wide world again.

Just a quick note to say that I’m having a fantastic time ski-ing in france, although I did a ripper faceplant today!! New Year was good fun and I hope that everyone else had a great time too. I’m really enjoying spending time with Kels, although I miss my other ski buddies, Granz and Kath

Will be back in the UK on the 6th Jan, and hope to catch up with people over that week (leave for Oz on the 11th).

So ciao for now!
xx

I have to admit that nothing very exciting has been happening for me over the latter part of this year. I am very keen to get back overseas, and I’m determined to move back into the Humanitarian Sector, but I’m not 100% sure just what that looks like yet. I will be travelling to the UK and to France over the New Year, and then back to Perth, and then I need to make some firm decisions for the next year. I am going to apply to get into an MBA program in Perth - however I never did finish my bachelor’s degree so there’s a good chance they’ll knock me back without a thought - that being the case I think I’ll choof off with MSF again.

One thing I am very interested in (just had a good convo with dad about it) is microfinance, and I think I might base any studies I do along that line. I’m not sure how many people actually know about microfinance, but the concept is about making small loans to the poverty-stricken in developing nations. The loans are so small that the banks are not interested - but they can mean the difference between life and death to the workers - and give them the opportunity to make a life for themselves and their families.

I often hear that people are not willing to give to some of the big aid organisations as they are not sure where their money is going. Why not consider lending US$25 to a small entrepreneur in a developing country?

So now I’m going to give a plug for an organisation called Kiva.

You can go to Kiva’s website and lend to someone in the developing world who needs a loan for their business - like raising goats, selling vegetables at market or making bricks. Each loan has a picture of the entrepreneur, a description of their business and how they plan to use the loan so you know exactly how your money is being spent - and you get updates letting you know how the business is going. The best part is, when the entrepreneur pays back their loan you get your money back - and Kiva’s loans are managed by microfinance institutions on the ground who have a lot of experience doing this, so you can trust that your money is being handled responsibly.

It’s finally easy to actually do something about poverty - using Kiva you will know exactly who your money is loaned to and what they’re using it for. And most of all, you know that you’re helping them build a sustainable business that will provide income to feed, clothe, house and educate their family long after your loan is paid back.

You can help to change the world - one loan at a time.

Hi everyone

Just thought I’d let you know that I went to see my kidney specialist again this morning for the very last time. He tells me that he doesn’t need to see me again, that all of my blood stats are 100% in normal limits, and that he does not foresee a recurrence in the future. He says that I have the same risk of an episode of HUS that I had before I got sick. This is a very good thing

I discovered that I still have a multi-trip travel insurance policy, taken out in March this year, which doesn’t expire until March next year, so I need to take advantage of it. (No issues with pre-existing condition, as I already had the policy before I got sick). I am thinking very seriously about a short trip away over New Year - I will probably go and join up with Kel in the UK and go ski-ing in France. So for all my pommy mates - please don’t go away over Christmas and New Year….

It’s been a long time since I updated anyone as to what’s happening with me.

I’ve been out of hospital now for just over two months, and progress has been excellent. I was certified fit to work by my GP a couple of weeks ago, and I have started working on a contract basis with WorleyParsons Engineering. I am working on the new Pluto Project, which is a new LNG Gas plant that is being constructed in North-West Australia. I am still based in Perth however, so I don’t get to have much fun playing somewhere else in Australia (dammit!)

With regard to my plans in the future, I have resolved not to make any plans until next January, as everyone seems to think it best that I recuperate for at least six months before making plans. I bow down to the combined greater wisdom of my family, friends and medical practitioners, although I find being planless incredibly frustrating.

It does look as though I will have some issues getting travel insurance at any time in the near future, so it seems that my hopes for getting back overseas have been well and truly dashed. At least in the short-term – I am hoping that as I stay well, I will have more chance of convincing some travel insurance agency that I am a good risk.

My sister Kellie will be travelling overseas for a few months later this year, leaving in about 4 weeks time, so I will be looking after her house, her car, and her cat while she is gone (I do hope the cat survives… and the car too I guess. And actually now I come to think of it, the house may also be in danger of not getting cleaned quite as often as it does now )

So I will be living on my own, which will be interesting… If anyone fancies coming to Perth for a visit, please do let me know as I will probably be desperate for some company before long…..

I wonder if I will rue the day that I gave my family access to my blog? Goodness me, I think everyone in the world knew more about my condition than I ever did until very recently. I guess I am glad as without the prayers of all of my wonderful friends around the world I might not be here right now to write about it!!

Hello everyone! It’s me!! Really me writing this all by myself! I am home from hospital much earlier than any expectations, and I am finally managing to drag myself onto the computer to let everyone know how well I am doing.

I am told that I should still be in South Africa Hospital for the next 3 weeks before I will be stable enough to come home to Perth and then possibly another three months in hospital in Perth before coming home to Mum and Dad’s house so you can imagine my relief to find myself in my parent’s home only 3 and a half weeks after being diagnosed with HUS. Especially after also being told that I nearly died several times except for a series of miraculous interventions on behalf of God! I cannot say that I am feeling well, but much better than I was, and I hope for a full recovery in a very short period of time.

I have to apologise to all of my non-religious friends for the overwhelming amount of religiousness in all of the previous posts (and this one) but you see, I have special insight now and I know that an awful lot of you were shooting of prayers left, right and center when you knew what a terrible situation I was in. I have to say thank you, thank you, thank you, because God listened, and he answered, and I am here today because of it.

I know that many of you will have lots of questions about what happened, and probably about MSF too, but I don’t think I will have the energy for all of that just now. I will briefly explain about the illness and will spend some time on what happened in Itang a little later on. That is all a little painful at the moment as I need to spend some time working on just how I feel about being ripped out of my dream job and country and sent back home where I feel I don’t really belong just now.

I first got ill with diarrhea around the 19th May. I didn’t think anything of it as everyone gets these things when one visits a foreign country like Ethiopia. It didn’t effect my daily work and lasted about five days. After this it turned into bloody diarrhea with abdominal cramping and severe vomiting. I was working in a Health Centre and the doctors were trying very hard to work out what was wrong with me, but any samples showed no parasites or bacteria. I was getting sicker and sicker and they decided that they needed to send me to the capital Addis Ababa to a hospital for further attention. Unfortunately this isn’t so easy as there are only 3 flights a week, and the next flight was full.

Luckily for me, one of my close local friends was good friends with the ticketing officer of Ethiopia Airlines and managed to get me on a flight. If he hadn’t, I’m told I would have died.

When I left Itang, I thought I was leaving for about three days. I barely packed any of my things, and I didn’t really get the opportunity to say goodbye to all of my friends. I have never seen them or spoken to them again, something that is very painful for me to deal with.

I was picked up and taken straight to the best private hospital in Addis where I remained for a week. I didn’t realise that I was getting sicker and sicker but the MSF people in Addis did, and it was the Medical Director who made the call to have me Medi-Vacced to Johannesburg. If he hadn’t made the call when he did, I would have died within a day.

I have very little memory of the events after I arrived in Johannesburg. It is a maze of machines, and tubes, and blood transfusions, and oxygen and no-one told me how sick I was, or that there were several times I was within hours of death. It was also a time of being uplifted and knowing that I was being held in the hands of Christ. Every day emails were pouring in from all of the world telling me that people were praying for me, and that angels surrounded me. People I knew, people I didn’t know, churches I had never heard of. This was the one thing that sustained me through all of the pain and the sickness.

There were several times where I heard the quiet voice of Christ assuring me of healing, and usually it was the next morning when some miraculous breakthrough would have happened over night.

I don’t know why I was ripped out of Itang and sent back home. I don’t understand why God would let this happen to me when all I have ever wanted to do was serve him. But throughout this all, I remain convinced that he is sovereign, and that his plans will be served not mine. I will do my best to follow him no matter what the cost.

I am not yet at a place where I can consider the future, but I think it will come very soon, and I will let you know when I start walking down that road.

Thanks once again for your amazing support without which I wouldn’t be here.

God bless all.

Heidi
xxxxxxxxxx

Well it’s confirmed. I will commence a new six month contract with MSF in Gambela, Ethiopia, at the start of April 2007. Excitement plus eh?

Well, I feel I should be excited anyway, but the excitement doesn’t seem to have kicked in yet. I am returning to Perth on Tuesday next week to spend a couple more weeks with my beloved family and friends before leaving for Sydney, then Geneva, then Ethiopia.

I’ve had an interesting last couple of weeks here in London, working on a project that I thought I had finished with six months ago. No rest for the weary, or the wicked! I am starting to think that the AHRS project will hang over my head for the rest of my life!

I was sent a list of all of the vaccinations I have to have over the next three weeks, and I have a feeling I will spend the remainder of my time in Australia feeling like a pincushion! Not an exciting prospect for the future. As I said before, the excitement hasn’t kicked in yet, but guaranteed I’ll be writing another blog in a couple of weeks time, detailing the various stages of terror I go through before I leave. We shall seeee……

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….. .