Fraser's blog

The MSF medical and logistics catalogues are written in french and translated into english. The original french appears on the right hand side of each page, so it is possible to work out the occasional interesting literal translation. In the vehicles section, I can see that our landcruisers come with these wonderful features:

• Ring of front towing
• Put back front head
• 3 gates
• Filter with dry air & snorkel & witness of filling
• Handle passenger before 2 pts

and even an avoid breeze laminated clearly. Fortunately the medical catalogues appears to have benefited from a human proofreader!

Just cooked a birthday cake for my part-time admin assistant's seven year old son. Last year he missed his birthday because they were refugees in Guinea. This year Cyprienne has only planned pop-corn, as she can't afford to make him a cake. I don't even know his name. (Of course, as you all know, I actually enjoy making cakes, so maybe this is just an excuse!)

Actually I'm back in Abidjan... but I was in Ghana this week and very nice it was too. Almost no tourists, which surprised me a bit. Highlights included wandering around Cape Coast, reading the whole of "Long Walk to Freedom" in 4 days, staying with Daneet and Allan - friends of Grace in Accra - and seeing Harry Potter III with them. More, with pictures, later... Got to get off to the beach now.