Hand over to Emergency Rotation2

Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Sat 16 May 2015 01:56


Hope you enjoyed the pictures, hopefully we will upload more personal soon, the internet is like syrup here, far from the fast connection in Fiji.So we will see...

As we arrived everybody was on our back for reports and handovers.
Jonathan arranged a meeting for the fleet that was sitting here waiting for a handover and future assignements.
As the meeting was announced we suddenly had guests from the goverment that wanted to know what we have done and how we did it.
Mr Michel Kalworai?, Secretary General for Shefa Province.
Mr Louis Kora District Administrator Officer (DAO) for Epi and
Mr Morsen Makau DAO for Tongoa and Shepherds islands.
We also had WHO:s representative in place, the goverment disaster coordinator and a few other NGO:s.
So the meeting became more than a hand over. We had to prepare ourselves to make efficient presentations and save the more detailed ones for later.
Jonathan held most of the meeting with a bird eye view, I was asked to talk about the anthropology part of aid work as we found that to be a problem. NGO:s do not respect and take the time to understand the local culture.Of course I was careful with the criticism but used the handover as a series of advices.
If you are interested I can post the skippers note for the next round, that includes tha antrhopology part.
Now, believe it or not but the cultural part set the coordinator off, she told me later in the evening that they should probably look into that, it has not been done before...no comment.
The medical reporting done by Shannon was more aimed at the goverment officials as the next round does not have any doctors.

The next fleet from SeaMercy will have some good company out there now, Dragonfly, the superyacht is back again to do more aid work.
That boat is such a muscle machine that can for instance provide 20.000 litres of water per hour with their water maker.
We met the crew that is very quite about who the owner is, but they told us it is not the first time they have been asked to use the ship for aid work. But normally they never publish anything, their film on Youtube was the first time the owner admitted to let them go public. The good thing about that is that other super yacht owners have now contacted them and asked how they can do the same. I guess it must be very rewarding and motivating to be able to do good instead of just polishing the yach in between VIP:s flying in to enjoy the remote archipellago...
The other boat that will come in to help is Greenpeace ship Rainbow Warrior! She will be able to load a lot and maybe the smaller SM fleet can go from the big ship and distribute to the smaller places. At least thingss seem to be moving now.

One thought that might be useful. When I work with organisations there is a huge gap between the fireworkers and the fire engineers, if you allow this metaphor. There are people that like to chase and fight fires and there are those that like to think and work out a plan how to avoid future fires.
Both are equally important. I think that the AID organisations have a lot of good thinkers but they remain here in Port Vila and seem to appreciate life from "above". Shannon was at a cluster meeting and as you would expect, all groups were keen on showing off successes instead of questioning if they were doing enough or the right thing. One thing that is obvious for a successful business is that you are NEVER SATISFIED-YOU CAN ALWAY DO BETTER OR DIFFERENT. Whatvere you try to pull out of Steve Jobs brain, or any of the other super entrepreneurs for that matter, is that they would never settle and be happy with what they had or have, money was/is not the driving force, it was a need to make a dent in the universe...
Now a small fleet like ours can act as fire fighters and together with Samarithan Purse (who I learned is the least poplular NGO here in Port Vila), we could work in an adhoc organisation. Adhoc is typical for a firefighter, you know your task, you have your tools, dive in and work, nobody on the outside can help you while you are in, the leader might be able to warn you that the ceiling is coming down soon, but he cannot direct your movements as it is only you who can see whats going on in there.
I think someone should try to understand and use these differences in a productive way- then aid work can be even more successful.


Salsa is moving on towards New Caledonia, and if the weather permits we will leave on wednesday, it is a short jump that should only take a couple of days.