Cholera Outbreak

Before I even got back to Awassa after my holiday and three days in the country office, I got wind of an outbreak of cholera in Moyale (oops, it’s “Acute Watery Diarrhoea”, cholera is a dirty word with the government, on the border with Kenya. By the time I got back, an email was waiting for me, informing me that I was responsible for our distribution of our emergency items to the cholera treatment centres and gathering information to direct our intervention. A serious responsibility for someone whose on their first mission, and a dream come true for me as this is my foot in the door to disaster relief: where the real work is.

Anyway, the distribution came off without a hitch and the preliminary information was generally good. I visited the CTCs where people lie lethargically and dehydrated on their beds and showed the staff how to chlorinate their water. I dealt with government officials and provided them with the means and know-how for chlorinating their municipal water supply and coordinated with NGO field coordinators. It all went well… or at least I thought it did. I had a nice 3 hour chat with the FC for MSF, and we agreed that there would be problems due to MSF not accepting USAID logos on our items because of political implications, but we’d let people above us fight it out. I fully understand their position, it means they can intervene in dangerous areas to those who most need it with less fear of being targetted and I completely respect that (in fact I’d really like to work with them later on). So imagine my surprise when my FC forwarded an email from the MSF Country Director to the IRC Emergency Rapid Response Manager, Coordinator and the Country Director quoting me as saying that IRC were intervening in Moyale “for political and visibility reasons”. I was fucking livid. Everybody avoided me that day because my face obviously displayed that I’d never been shat on from such a height.

Anyway, everybody in IRC seemingly trusted me so it passed without too much trouble, and I was sent on a second assignment to get firmer, more reliable data, which is not unreasonable since the water office staff told me that the Moyale reservoir was somewhere between 3 and 300m3. So I promised myself to remain civil if I saw the MSF FC for the sake of the intervention and I succeeded. Good to know I can keep my temper when it really counts. I have therefore returned with two colleagues, including the ERR manager, and while they provide training to government health staff on managing AWD I’m getting better data. The more people I interview, the more samples I take, the more equipment I observe the better idea I have of the intervention we need. I just wish I had the language skills to become the IRC Moyale Resident EH Officer, but it overlaps with my departure dates anyway so there’s no spilled milk to cry over. Needless to say I’m pretty confident that most of the plan I draw up will be followed. This fascinating assignment has really given me a warm feeling inside.