18 days

It's the afternoon before my first day off since I started my journey to the Philippines 18 days ago. The hours have been long, but that hasn't been a problem - it's amazing how fast 15 hours can fly by when you're busy for every minute of them. I'm now based in Cebu City, in the temporary office we have in a hotel conference room. My colleagues are truly something special - the national team here are very experienced in responding to typhoons (and other disasters) and have all been so welcoming and hard working, and always smiling. As for my international colleagues - there have been many reunions with old pals, and plenty of new friends as well. We've got a great bunch of people in Cebu, and in three field offices in areas affected by Typhoon Haiyan.

I haven't gotten out to any of our field locations yet, but they are doing fantastic things. I look forward every morning to calculating the new numbers of people we've reached and the figures are pretty impressive. From a few thousand in the first few days, to now close to 200,000 it is just amazing what my colleagues can do. I hope to get out and see for myself soon enough, but there's plenty of work to be getting on with in the meantime.

But what I'm really looking forward to is a big sleep in, and a day by a pool somewhere with a good book tomorrow. It's very much needed, and I think well deserved!

And I'm Back!

Well it's been about four and a half months at home. Not quite the six months I had originally planned, but considering I had no luck finding an apartment to buy because I don't quite have enough money, I figured it was probably a good idea to go back to work. I decided this last week and set tomorrow (Wednesday) as my return date, pretty sure there'd be no deployment for me to go to immediately so I'd still have time to finish my novel and my quilt.

Um. No.

I'm flying out to the Philippines for an indefinite period tonight. No doubt you've seen the devastating images; there's going to be a lot to do. I'm actually really excited about getting back to work, and catching up with colleagues there. I had a huge mound of stuff to pack this morning, and somehow it has all fit in my bag which zipped up without any problems....I haven't weighed it yet, but I'd put my money on 19kgs.

I have enjoyed my time off though. The novel is almost done...only about 4000 words until the first full draft is finished. The Doctor Who knitted quilt I've been working on is almost done. I just have to crochet it altogether. I've had a ball knitting up a storm, and teaching myself to crochet various bits and pieces. I'm all set for retirement really.

I've also had a couple of visits down to Melbourne for apartment hunting and general fun times, and a great road trip with my dad down to Canberra where we didn't manage to defend our championship at the National Capri and Small Ford Muster. But we did have gorgeous weather for navigating around the nation's capital, and indeed for the 1300km each way drive (though I didn't join Dad for the drive home).

I think everybody should take sabbatical's now and then to recharge their batteries, attempt new things (even if they are unsuccessful) and just generally enjoy themselves. I for one can highly recommend it. From here on in, I don't think there'll be much recharging of batteries for a while, and I've got to say, I can't wait!!

Hug a Humanitarian today

I know I said I wasn't going to be posting much, but today is a special day in aid worker land. It's World Humanitarian Day. Today marks 10 years since the attack on the UN offices in Baghdad which killed 22 people. Since then, August 19 has been a day to commemorate those colleagues we've lost in the course of their work, and recognise the work of aid workers around the world.

It seems crazy when you think about. No one should be worried about being killed at their workplace, unless they're an Alaskan deep sea fisherman, or Evil Kinevil or something. And yet every year, humanitarian workers are killed in their workplaces. For those who aren't in the sector you may think that it's people like me, foreigners, who are targeted but that isn't the case. The majority of aid workers who are killed in the field are national staff members, people who are working in their own communities.

I remain entirely lucky that none of my friends or colleagues have lost their lives. I know people who have been attacked and kidnapped but thankfully they all escaped with their limbs and lives. Today I not only think of those who have been killed, but of the thousands of aid workers who are out there right now, in Syria, in Afghanistan, in Somalia, in CAR, and all over the world who are doing amazing things.

If you happen to see a humanitarian today, give them a hug for all of the good work they do.

The quiet life

I'm not doing a lot at the moment. I'm on unpaid leave from my job, trying to buy an apartment in a different city to the one I live in. I've not had any success yet, but I'm sure it will happen eventually. In the meantime, I'm enjoying a quiet life, walks on the beach, a lot of knitting and some Zumba-ing. So there's not a lot to update on and therefore I won't be posting much for the foreseeable future. I will consider instagram (chasingcarly) to be my mini-blog for the next little while, so you can see what I'm up to there.

Holiday fun and games

I've been back in Australia for almost three weeks now, it feels both longer and sorter at the same time. I've been enjoying doing quite a bit of nothing, interspersed with fun things like talking to banks about mortgages, and going for drives with the top down...winter on the Gold Coast is awesome!

My weekends are spent hanging out with Jules and Vardy in Brisbane, being a spoiled guinea pig by Vardy  trying out weird and wonderful organic, healthy recipes. On one such weekend, a beautiful winter's day where the temperature was about 23 degrees and the sun was warm, Julie and I went for a little bushwalk at Mt Cootha which was lovely.

I came down to Melbourne last Friday on a bit of a scoping mission to figure out what suburbs I might want to buy a flat in. And lucky for a me, a colleague I worked with in Pakistan just happened to be in town, so we had a spontaneous adventure down to Brighton Beach (which only took 20 mins on the train) to find the very British beach huts that are so fabulously painted.

As the afternoon progressed the clouds started coming over, but there were still lots of people out and about enjoying the day. It was great to have a catch up and go on an adventure!

Emma kindly drove me around to a few open inspections on Saturday, one was lovely but too small, and the rest were dumps. Seriously, how do people not clean their houses before an inspection, or worse, before an auction!!

Sunday was a super exciting day, we went up to Mt Bulla to go skiing for the day. I'm not the best of skiers, but I did a lot better than I thought I would, even tackling a run that I wasn't entirely comfortable with, but made it down in one piece.

The conditions were terrible, I would lose sight of Emma quite easily ahead of me (because she's a good skier!) and the chairlifts rides were pretty miserable. But our spirits were high and a great day was had. 

Now I'm curled up on the day bed under a doona (now that I'm not surrounded by British people I can say doona instead of duvet!), contacting real estate agents to organise inspections and generally enjoying being on holidays. I've got a busy schedule of catch ups ahead, and Jules is coming down next week to do a little drive along the Great Ocean Road ahead of my birthday...note to self, organise some sort of birthday party....

Bye Bye Beirut

What can I say about leaving Beirut? It's been a very interesting five and a half months. At times it has felt like a LOT longer than that, and others it feels like I've only been here a few weeks. Either way, it's been wonderful to be back in Lebanon, living in my favourite suburb, and down the street from my favourite coffee shop. My colleagues have been an excellent bunch - it would be hard to find a more experienced, capable and friendly group.

I had a great farewell on Saturday night with my lovely colleagues and special visits from Nicole, Chadi, Jenan and her lovely new husband Karim who all came down from the North, and Oli and Sara with their cheeky little monkey Sam so it was fantastic to have a little UNRWA reunion as well. It doesn't feel like it was 3 years ago that I last said good-bye to all of them.

I leave with mixed feelings. The Syria crisis will continue on for the foreseeable future, and there is so much work for the team to do, with limited funding available to do so. I hope it turns around for them soon, and they manage to deliver the fantastic programme they aspire to do. On the other hand, I can't wait to get home. I'm taking a long period of time off, to hopefully buy my own little cave, and find some semblance of a 'normal' life...at least for a while!!

So Chasing Carly may not be that action packed in the near future. I expect to be spending a lot of time in the hammock (winter where I live is still pretty warm and sunny) resting, and then cracking on with my sci-fi young adult fiction novel. With you all as my witnesses, I WILL have it finished by 31st August. (Incidentally, if anyone knows any 'young adults' who might be interested in critiquing the 25,000 words I have so far, do get in touch!)

Now I just have to get through the 24 hours of travel ahead of me...oh the joys of living in Australia!!

Final field trip

I was thrilled to get out of the office on Wednesday to help the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) team document the 'before' situations of a couple of the informal tented settlements they'll be working in. It's very useful to catalogue what facilities the sites have and what the needs are, so that when the work is under way and completed they can refer back to the document and photos to see exactly what improvements have been made.

There are over 270 tented settlements scattered across Lebanon. As there are no formal refugee camps established (other than the Palestinian camps that have been here for 60+ years) and the rental prices continue to increase, many families are moving into improvised shelters, made with wooden frames or bits of scrap material covered in things like plastic sheetings, cement bags, blankets or strips of hessian. Some of the sites are on government owned land, in other cases, Lebanese land owners are allowing refugees to stay. Sometimes they pay rent, sometimes they provide labour in exchange, sometimes it's free.

Some shelters are larger than others, and house a lot of people:

This room for example sleeps 12 people. While it looks quite spacious during the daylight, you can imagine how stuffy and awkward this would be at night, particularly as the weather gets hotter. It's too hot inside the tent during the day, but luckily there is a big shady tree outside where the families can sit. 

There was a small patch of concrete inside the 'tent' which they had converted into a bathing room. The rest of the flooring where they sleep is gravel underneath the mats and they're having problems with rats. 

There were 5 families living in this settlement and they were really struggling. They had managed to construct a toilet for themselves, with a 'superstructure' made from an old water tank. While this was a big improvement on having to defecate in the shrubbery nearby, it still isn't completely private. The women have to go to the bathroom in pairs, so one woman can block the opening. Men will whistle or call out that they are in there. 

At the second site the shelters were generally smaller, and the facilities were also extremely poor. We were told that while there were a few toilets, the tanks were full so they were unusable. They have to defecate in the open, which is a real problem for the women, as they never have any privacy; "there are always men around."

One particular family had improvised with their roofing:

(It's a large promo poster for Star Trek.) This particular settlement has approximately 100 families living in it. My organisation will help provide them with better access to water, improved sanitation facilities, and also hygiene supplies and education on keeping clean with minimal supplies, all to reduce the potential for public health diseases, and of course, to improve the quality of life. We'll also provide an information and referral service, so that the people living in these settlements can find out what agencies can provide them with, their entitlements and rights. 

It's a pretty awful situation to be in, no matter what, but if we can help make it that bit more bearable and safe, then that's a good thing.