Ben Tshin

I’ve made it to Kenya. My first time in Africa, and it hasn’t been the shock I expected. Partly it’s the familiar faces and new friendly faces, and the sight of street reminiscent of Thailand and Indonesia. I’m fortunate that the Medair team house in Nairobi is in a nice neighbourhood. It’ll be great for R&R when I finally get it!

As the support, finance and logistics hub for Medair’s South Sudan project, all internationally recruited staff (IRS) arrive first in Nairobi. It’s almost endless briefings for admin, HR, logistics, finance, security, etc. The office here is busy, with lots of activity and lots of staff doing their different jobs. But the staff are still so gracious, generous and kind. I’m glad Nairobi will eventually become my home away from home since all my R&R time is spent here.

At Medair HQ in Switzerland, I started to get a slightly clearer picture of what work I would be doing. But now that I’m here, I now know what I’m actually doing in Sudan. My title is ERT [Emergency Response Team] WatSan Field Technician. I am joining a team of 8 other staff (mixed IRS and KRS) focused on responding to emergencies by providing water and sanitation. Together, we will fly to areas of immediate crisis and implement the emergency projects, which may be joined with Health/Medical. The implementations range from 2 to 8 weeks in length.

I’m really excited to jump in. I barely have 48 hours in Nairobi before flying north to Lokichoggio near the Sudan-Kenya border. I’ll fly from there on small charter planes to the ER sites. Good thing it’s a short time here since I might get a bit too comfortable in Nairobi where you can find almost everything: Italian pizza, broadband Wi-Fi internet, fresh fruit, etc. I’ll miss all that starting this afternoon in Lokichoggio.

I’ve arrived in Lausanne. Tired and exhausted. I didn’t expect to be so tired, but there was barely enough time to sleep on my flights. The flight from Toronto to London (YYZ-LHR) took only 6 hours. There was only 3-4 hours of napping after meal times and watching my obligatory movie.

Since departing from Canada I haven’t had much time to process the emotional, mental and spiritual weight. While I was waiting at the Toronto Airport about 15 friends and my family were on hand to send me off. There weren’t any tears, just good-bye hugs and last words of good safety, good luck and God’s blessings. It wasn’t until I stepped through security that the reality of the next year struck me. I won’t see any of those friends or family for a whole year. I didn’t realize how much my community meant to me, and how much I’ll miss them.

My entire journey to Switzerland was quite lonely. I was lugging all my bags including everything I need for the next year up and down the Geneva airport and through the railway stations. But it’s a relief to finally see familiar faces from my last visit when I attended Medair’s ROC. They aren’t my close friends or my family, but there are three who will be going to South Sudan with me. They will be my new community for the next year.

I hope to get more time to reflect on my own. This week will be super packed learning about what I’ll be doing in Sudan, and meeting all the HQ staff.