Fraser's blog

A quick entry from Abidjan - just down for some much needed R&R. Two days sitting on the beach reading and listening to the iPod. Actually I most sat in the shade a few metres from the beach - got burnt last time and didn't feel that it was necessary to repeat the experience. Quite a bit of eating and sleeping was done too - itallian co-owner, so sea-food spagetti etc. Also chickens are not as tough in Grand-Bassam as in Danan?

Actually I'm not sitting in this luxury chair in my luxury office, for it is Sunday and for once I have been tying not to set foot in the hospital grounds. So I've spent the day at the house, having had a lie in this morning, finished a book, and apart from a few conversations on the HF and VHF, not much else. It has been a quiet day for another reason too - a power cut all day. You can tell the power it out mainly by the silence from the local Marquis - we are not called Disco base for nothing! Anyway, we've fired up the little generator now to recharge our backup batteries and laptops, so it's no longer so quiet! (The hospital has a 150kVA generator set, which we try not to use too often as we only draw 10kVA with every light switched on...) The other pleasure of a Sunday is that Roger, our cook, has the day off. So today we cooked some very nice pizza for lunch and we've just lit the BBQ for supper. The light is going, so I don't think I'll get a game of Badminton in today. I've asked Djiby, our chippy, to build me a couple of posts 1.55m high and if I get round to it might even borrow Moctar's long tape measure and a tin of paint and lay out some lines. Thanks for the dimensions Marcus/Google. Email via satellite is quite effective: Jamie was able to send me a pdf of form I needed to sign; Wendy's cut and pasted her (and a few others) blogs (Hi Mad, Hi Jon, Hi Little Red Boat!); the techies at Roke Manor have told me what component I need to replace the one blown in a 1970's incubator. So I don't feel completely in the wilderness. BBC World Service is pretty good (although having a radio with lots of presets is useful, since it jumps around the frequencies quite a bit - sometimes even in the middle of a program!). We end up getting the West African service, which is great for keeping abreast with what is going on in Mali, Ghana, etc, as well as the world... but oddly enough, very little about the UK. Maybe there is no news that can compete with SA hosting the 2012 World Cup, MODEL commanders shipping their arms (back) to the IC (thanks guys!) or the continuing nightmare that is Darfur. Situation here is Alpha One: that's stable. Last Sunday's experiment with disarmament payments for some of the rebels ending up with a couple of deaths, so we are waiting to find out if next month's goes more smoothly. The town's been a little jumpy this last week, but when I hear how it was only 6 months ago it is really very peaceful. The hospital continues to grow - I've sent a couple of CD's out with returning ex-pats (one to BCN, one to Pefe) so maybe some of the pictures and movies will eventually work their way to Marcus and onto this server. Pass this on to everyone who knows me - and do write (email address available on request) - it is very nice to hear what is going on out in the "real" world!

Not only do we work all Saturday, but we usually manage to get a fair amount done on Sundays too. At 11am a truck arrived from Abidjan. We unloaded it in record time so that by mid-day we could pile the consignment for Bin Houy?nd deliver it... before lunch. Actually it was a leaving party for Klaus and Bernat (doctor and log respectively) and it does not take much of a excuse to travel the hour and quarter south (over the Zone de Confiance). An excellent party with good food, long speeches, loud music and dancing. (Truth be told, Saturday was not all work either - the fact that it was the 1st of May holiday meant it was particularly quiet, with the only work thing being a meeting with the whole of the security team. In the afternoon a couple of football matches were played - first between MSF and the commer?ts, followed by the main event - Force Nouvelle vs Force Licorne. Mix that in with some Ivorian music (current popular song by the garagists is "On est Fatigu? which takes its lyrics from a speech made by the president last year) and bare in mind that most of the rebels are just kids - it was something quite memorable!)