Although the town of Gedaref is unlikely to be a booming tourist hotspot anytime soon, I am nonetheless looking forward towards the 3 days I am going to spend there from tomorrow. In MSF acronyms abound and “R and R” is one of them. Rest and relaxation. Admittedly, I will still be in a shared room in a dusty town in a not particularity buzzing corner of Sudan. But I will not be on-call for the first time in 6 weeks and it will be my first full day off in this time The fast and stable Wi-Fi connection is the only luxury I need to make these 3 days relaxing and restful.
I desire this even more so as I have finally succumbed to a mild case of gastroenteritis; which seems an occupational hazard out here. I think almost everyone who has been here longer than one month has suffered to a varying degree. I am lucky in that so far I am fairly mildly afflicted, several of my colleagues were completely bed -bound for up to a week before I arrived.
But, like everything else here we make do, I tried to take some hours off and rest. But it is difficult, we have two children with malnutrition who make me nervous, I trust my team with most things, but they are delicate and we have only just started therapeutic feeding here. Today a patient’s with an infected joint needs his knee aspirated, an ask around and none of my colleagues on today know how to do it, so who else will? We make-do.
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