22 April 2007 El Fasher

Hi all,

How have you been?  I hope that you’re doing O.K.  Please say “Hi” to all MSF-HK for me.  I’m writing this letter from El Fasher, North Sudan to tell you that I’m doing fine here and all is well.  Tomorrow it will officially be one month that I’ve been here and things are working out very well.  I am learning a lot from this mission.  I feel that I’m growing as a person, I am learning new skills and in only one month I’ve already experienced so much. As a log supply based in El Fasher, it’s basically office work. We don’t have dispensaries or hospitals here. I really want to go into the field and see with my own eyes the patients, the beneficiaries, the malnutrition affecting children and how the MSF doctors work.  El Fasher is the transit city between the capital and the project. I’ve talked about this with the Head of Mission. He totally understands how I feel and he decided that at least once a week I can go into the field to give them support in supply or IT. As I have an IT background, all the people here come to me for their computer problems, even though they are usually just small Excel problems. I have found that the national staff’s skills in IT is very limited. I am planning to conduct some simple Microsoft Office training for them, but I still haven’t had enough time to prepare the training materials. The national staff ask me almost everyday about the training because they say that they don’t want to miss a chance to improve their skills in IT.  That’s a good spirit, so I’d better start making some plans.