Well as you can probably tell from the photo (admittedly not taken at the height of the snow) I’m back home in Southampton now and it’s extremely cold. 1 degree C here at the time of writing although oddly it feels warmer than it has last week. To be honest I’ve been meaning to conclude this blog episode for a while but it’s been hard to focus with Christmas and all. It seems a life-time away. I’ll come back to that thought later...
So our last week, from what I can recall (the blazing sunshine and high 30s temperatures are hard to visualise at present) went very smoothly. We had arranged quite a lengthy to-do list which we got through, mostly revolving around saying our goodbyes, chasing folk and assembling all the relevant paperwork, wrapping up or handing over all our projects etc. You know, the slightly tedious necessities.
Other highlights included going round for dinner on one of the last days to Sister Anna’s house with Mike (the surgical registrar). This was a really great afternoon – some of our most precious memories (both from this trip and last) have come from spending good time building friendships with folk here, sharing their hospitality, homes and lives. I feel it’s important in these trips to make sure you’re not so busy chasing a schedule of things to do, you have no time left to just be with people. Actually African culture is far better at this than we are, and it’s been a lesson well learnt. Oddly enough, time spent in this way generally enables you to get a lot more stuff done anyway as time invested in getting to know local people, their systems agendas and problems, chatting through some ideas etc is extremely important and valuable. (And fun.) So everyone’s a winner.
Matt, Anna and I at her family home
We had a more formal farewell dinner on the Nile with all the St Mary’s Fistula team and officials from the Ministry of Health and some of the key hospital staff which was good too. Our journey home was very smooth with no delays, lost baggage or any other hiccups that make one stressed at airports.
So that was that. Back to the UK just in time for Christmas, over-indulging in cheese consumption. It feels good to be home again and with friends and family. Naturally I observe that Christmas, complete with its many great features simultaneously encompasses some of our society’s more ugly under-currents (consumer/materialism particularly) but that’s quite an obvious thing to say which doubtless has been said many times before and more eloquently than I could. So I’ll simply acknowledge that observation and move on.
Inside Anna's immaculate house...
I’ve been deliberately resisting qualitatively comparing Juba 2008 with Juba 2009, both publically and privately in my own mind and I shall continue to do so. I think to do so would diminish both. They were both very different with their own merits and weaknesses. One thing I do observe going back, is how normal Juba has seemed. I really felt like I was able to slot back into the hospital family and it was all quite normal. The first time you go to a place like that everything’s very “Wow – it’s so different!” but given some time living and working there, it normalises. What was interesting going back was that I didn’t really get the initial “Wow!” then normalising process, it was very much like I’d never really been away. I take this as a good thing, as personally I feel that you can get a lot more useful work done when you’re more integrated into the place. But it was a bit odd.
One of the main things I’ve come to realise about the world is how small it is. Basically anyone reading this (with the necessary paperwork and funding) could be in the exact places where I’ve been within a day or two. I find this thought especially helpful when watching on the news or reading about “far away” places in the world. In many ways it’s really not helpful to compartmentalise one’s view of the world as “home” and “far away”, “us” and “them” (although it’s convenient to do this when considering, for example, the implications of our western consumerism/trade justice/environmental impacts of our life-styles.) We’re all much more connected to the wider world than we may think. I’ve been recently been experiencing a quite bizarre blurring of the boundaries separating my own compartmentalising which is how I’ve come to notice it. One part of this was meeting our friend Sarah (Tearfund’s HIV advisor in Southern Sudan) in London the other week. It was great but I’ve only ever seen her in Juba before, so the context was British context different. Even more significant I think was seeing Louis in Southampton.
Dinner at Louis' house in Juba 2008...
Louis is a paediatric registrar in Juba Teaching Hospital and has been a good friend and looked after us very well throughout 2008 and 2009. He’s also been extremely key in getting the Link established and running well. So he’s currently doing a clinical placement in Poole hospital (Poole have a link with Wau, another hospital in Southern Sudan). So I went to visit him with Rachel and he stayed with my parents and I for the weekend and we hung out and went to church together and had Sunday lunch. It was great and all very natural, although slightly surreal to see him being very much a part of my “normal” (i.e. UK) life, as Dave and I had been part of his when we spent an afternoon at his family home in Juba a year ago. It actually had quite a nice cyclical feel to it. I’m struggling slightly to clearly articulate my thoughts on it all – it’s still in the processing phase. Maybe that story’s of some use to you, maybe not.
...Christmas with my parents, Rachel and Louis in Southampton 2009
So anyway, let’s sum up and put this thing to bed until the next adventure. Once again it’s been a remarkable experience and huge privilege to work and live with the Southern Sudanese people. In my thinking at least, I’m a million miles away from any condescending ideas about being some sort of aid worker or ‘white knight’ thinking. I’ve come here done my best to work hard, learnt heaps, helped where I can, and above all made great friends, both Southern Sudanese and ex-pats. I’m sure I’ll be back soon. I hope Matt approves of my thoughts here – had I been more organised then I’d have sent this draft to him for editing, but I’m not. So maybe he’ll leave a comment or write a post-script, we’ll see.... :o) We’ve had a great time together too.
Hope you’ve enjoyed reading. Comments/emails very welcome.
James
PS: For your interest, I’m based back in Southampton for now and doing some formal study in post-graduate medical education, writing up our Juba papers and audtis, working on the Southern Sudan Medical Journal website (to be announced soon) and doing some locum work as well. This will be until I start full-time anaesthetic training in April. I’m also involved in some work for Wessex Deanery related to my time working overseas which is exciting.
Matt’s back in Wales applying for GP training and doing some further study and qualifications in tropical medicine.
My blog will probably be updated periodically but not regularly until the next time I undertake something worth reading about :o)
Bye for now...
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