Ba ra mo (How are you doing?)

Ba ra mo ,that´s in Sango- the local language in Central African Republic (CAR), means Hi How are you doing?, I´m writing this letter from Kabo, where I spend almost 5 months a mission with MSF as a Logistician/Administrator/Financial Controller. I will leave this mission in less than 2 weeks time. Kabo is situated in North-East of  CAR, 60 km from the border of Chad. MSF support an hospital here with service of maternity, paediatrics, surgical intervention and tuberculosis (TB) treatment.　We also support three health centres on a routine mobile clinic almost every day in the week. In mid-October 2007 just before I arrived, Kabo became a camp for displaced people, almost 3500 internally displaced persons (IDPs) came to Kabo. And until now the number grows because of the war between the rebel group with the government which made the local population insecure, the bandits that burned their village, and so on. And MSF is the only NGO here that works for the health care of the population. In the end of February, there was about 14 000 Central African refugees in Chad who returned from Chad to CAR, and right now they are in the border of Chad and CAR, 60 km from Kabo. I´m proudly say that it was MSF in Kabo who made the first intervention there with our mobile clinic team and logistic team, working hand-on-hand in such emergency situation to verify and give a basic health care of the refugees. As for me personally, I appreciate and value a lot what MSF has done and still doing here, direct assistance to the victim and to the population in danger. As much as I love this mission, but it was a very tiring, energy-consuming one from the beginning. Living in isolated area surrounded with armed rebels, armed bandits and armed forces. When I arrived here, after 2 days by road from the capital, my first task was to search and build a runway for the airplane in case of evacuation or any security incident.  The runway was finished in early January and right now we can do the movement by plane to the capital or to other project. Fortunately, we have not yet used the plane for any evacuation . As a Logistician/Administrator/Financial Controller, I have a broadest view of the project itself,  in regard of financial budget, construction and rehabilitation work for medical needs and also human resources needs. We planned a lot of construction work in 2008 which need to be align with the budget. And because of the increment of the IDPs and refugees, we planned to expand our hospital, our base, our warehouse and also our human resources. And I´m a Log/Admin/Fin without any Admin/Fin assistant, so I did most of the administrative and financial matters by myself, and it became crazy when it came to salary payment, recruitment and contract management. So that´s it my story from here, like I said before, I love the mission here, as a frontline and having such a rewarding experience. But it´s a very tiring one, I lost about 6 kg here, but don´t worry once I return to Indonesia with a lot of KFC and McDonald, I will get back to my normal weight. Singuila Mingui (Thank you very Much) See ya Bagus Emir Ikhwanto

Bagus Emir IKHWANTO who comes from Indonesia joined MSF in 2007. In October, he left for his second  mission to Kabo, north east of Central African Republic to provide logistic support for MSF's health care programme.