Steve & Lindsay - Medair

By Lindsay The pattern of work with Medair (as with a number of organisations working in developing countries) is 9 weeks on, 1 week off. These breaks are known as R&R (rest and recuperation), and we tacked on a week of annual leave so that we could have a longer time away. Normally, people start their R&R in Nairobi where Medair has a Team House which is free to staff, and a good gateway to fly to other places. But due to elections in August, we were advised to look elsewhere, so Steve came up with a mega-road-trip in South Africa, all in Suzy our (rental) Suzuki! In a nutshell: We flew to Johannesburg and drove to and through Kruger National Park, down to Graskop en route to Eswatini, then to the coast from St Lucia to Durban, clocking up about 2,300km. We saw some beautiful places, some amazing wildlife (we counted about 40 different animals from hyena to elephant to crocodile), and ate tons of steak.  Visiting Kruger was a really good experience - there are so many elephant

By Steve One of the perks of being in a regional advisory role is that I get to travel to field locations (as we call them) and visit currently ongoing projects, but then get to come back to the relative comfort of Juba.  Since starting in South Sudan 2 months ago I have been able to visit all of our “static” locations in South Sudan – Leer, Pibor and Renk. Travel to the field in South Sudan looks like this most of the time: First thing in the morning (say 6.00 am) we get driven to the airport which can be seen from the roof of our house, but still takes a little while due to the state of the roads which are more pot hole than road in most places.  The airport is usually a seething mass of people, even at this hour, and we join a queue of people waiting to outside the terminal building, many with multiple bags, boxes and rolled-up mattresses to make field life a little more comfortable.  Once inside, we can check in and then wait for our flight with the United Nations Humanitarian