Little reflections, from Lindsay

Hello! This is a spin-off, self induglent blog alongside the more polished, diplomatic, proper blog that Steve and I are writing together during our time in South Sudan (and later Syria) working with Medair. We currently live in a compound in Juba, where our offices are based alongside our residence which has 24 bedrooms housing around 20 colleagues. (Our second compound over the road has offices and about 10 colleagues living there.) We live and work together, and during the week are joined by 50+ local staff.  Medair is a Humanitarian organisation working largely from Juba, supporting outreach to people in more rural settings. There are tons of NGOs and Humanitarian organisations in South Sudan! Medair has been here 30 years in 2022, and many other organisations have a long service history in this country. Unfortunately, the NGO network is still necessary here, but we hope to be able to hand over as development presses on.  Anyway, Steve and I arrived in June 2022 and plan ...

* Warning: Prepare for ramblings! These 3 months working with Medair in South Sudan have given unprecedented time to explore my relationship with work. This is because I have stumbled across an unexpectedly 'quiet' job. The nature of the humanitarian sector is normally associated with over-exhaustion and burnout, and yet my experience so far has been via a run-of-the-mill job where I am not yet particularly busy. I came into Medair anticipating a heart-pumping job where my passion for people would be fully exploited, my emotions would run the gauntlet, I would be over-worked and challenged, and full of conviction that what we are doing is the best thing ever. While I do hold that Medair is doing a very good job within a lot of constraints, the other experiences have not yet come to pass.  This non-busy job has launched me into a bit of a sense of failure: my imaginary idea of a  successful person with a strong work ethic would find things to do. They would make themselves ind...

Food is a very big deal here in South Sudan! And it can be a cause of great joy, or great disappointment.  Think about it -  what are the values YOU hold which relate to food?  Maybe you value having vegetables on your plate, or meat, or no meat.  A meal just ain't a meal if it doesn't finish with a dessert... Maybe you want to use a knife, fork and spoon and without these things you would be uncomfortable.  You may have thoughts around the 'right' way of cooking a healthy meal, e.g. levels of salt, sugar, oil, fats... Or maybe you believe that if you haven't eaten maize in your meal, then you haven't really eaten at all... When you are living in  a melting pot of 15+ nationalities as we are , and you don't know everybody's food values, then it is an easy point of disagreement!  A s a Brit, I thought I don't have many food values... I'm not that fussy... but I'm totally wrong! I have lots of ideas over...