Resisting Cholera with MSF in Zimbabwe

The dull ebb and flow of the overhead lights in the confinement tent brightened and dimmed to the corresponding surges of the droning petrol generator. In here the only thing more nauseating than the acute smell of faecal waste was the sight of prostrate human bodies upon crude rope beds, covered with only a linen sheet, tubes attached to them replacing lost body fluids with life saving rehydration fluids of Ringer’s Lactate, nurses replacing fresh buckets for spoiled ones full of cholera contaminated diarrhoea. This was an emergency Cholera Treatment Centre (CTU) in remote east Zimbabwe.

The rainy season came at the perfect time in November to complicate the efforts of NGO’s who had responded to the outbreak of cholera in Zimbabwe in September 2008. Without adequate medical resources in the country’s government clinics and hospitals, even before the emergency, it was an effort by the international community through NGO’s such as the UN and MSF that supplied, financed and coordinated the efforts and resources to deal with and bring control over the Zimbabwean Cholera crisis. Expanding their efforts further afield as the bacterium spread, a demand for more manpower and local resources increased accordingly.

Having recently returned from Zambia teaching the first Village Medic course for Overland Missions I was oblivious to these surreptitious efforts of NGOs (as most Zimbabweans were because until that time there was still an official State denial of the existence of cholera in the country). However, compelled by the Holy Spirit I approached MSF (Doctors Without Borders) to explore the possibility of teaching our SOLO Village Medic Courses through the MSF network. Sadly this idea would not fit in with their policy. They were however recruiting staff for the emergency – drivers, nurses, doctors, and logisticians.

I queried if further, hoping to get some use of the EMT training I carry, but unless I was a nurse or a doctor I was not suitable – but what about logistics – could I set up and run a camp? Well of course I could. I hadn’t been there 20 minutes and I was being asked to start the following morning – with suitcase in hand!

Suitably packed and equipped I duly arrived the next morning ready to run a bush-based CTU for the next three months… but plans had changed. The departure was delayed as we needed some essential supplies – how well did I know the city of Harare, I was asked. Knowing it pretty well from previous years of living here I found myself rapidly denied the isolated task of managing a remote emergency Cholera Camp to be given a desk, access to a driver and vehicle, and a shopping list.

So it was that from mid November 2008 till mid February 2009 I served as a volunteer logistician and purchaser for MSF in Harare, Zimbabwe until the cholera was on a decline and we began closing and withdrawing our volunteers and CTUs from the remote regions of the eastern part of the country.

I left MSF on a good note, glad for God’s provision of a place to live and my living expenses taken care of for the past three months. I had gained some new experience, grown in confidence, made some great contacts and friends. Now I focussed on the deeper burning task of my heart – a mission trip to East Africa to teach SOLO Wilderness Emergency Medicine to Mountain Guides of Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, Parks Service and Safari personnel in the Masai Mara, Kenya, and to a leadership training and ministry team out of Nairobi, Kenya.

(What I did not know for certain was that on my return to Zimbabwe MSF would be looking for me again.)