by Cristina Carlos

17 September 2008

Dili, Timor-Leste: I am Cristina Carlos, a nurse. I was born in Angola and raised in Portugal. And most of all I am proud to say I am a UN volunteer!

From the 37 elements of the medical team at the United Nations Integrated Mission in Timor-Leste, (UNMIT), 21 are UNV volunteers. Doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and radiographer, we are all here as volunteers.

This morning Mariana, our Portuguese UNV volunteer Pharmacist, was listing greetings from people’s countries, so she could say good morning to each and every one of the clinic staff in their own language.  That is a very positive attitude!

Sahron, the UNV volunteer Paramedic from Singapore, cannot take two steps in Obrigado or anywhere in Dili, for that matter, without greeting someone by their name. He will always remember you.

Besides being a UNV volunteer Nurse, Kirikiri from Japan organizes the Hard Rock Cafe to provide some good times in peaceful, sometimes too peaceful, Oecussi District.

Dra Balaga from Congo is our female UNV volunteer Doctor who will welcome you with an open smile, and will put you at ease, when you have one of those problems that you would not feel very comfortable discussing with a male doctor.

Even though she is now in Baucau as a UNV volunteer Nurse from the Philippines.  She is the one I call between patients to discuss how hard life really is!

Life has been quiet for medical. At the time of writing, we are in the holiday season and people don’t feel as sick, so in the morning the coffee club meets in the Emergency Department. David our lab technician will go through his vast Tetum vocabulary (tetum is one of the two official languages of Timor-Leste. "Bom dia! Toba diak? Han diak?" To what we will all respond: "Sempre diak!" Joaquina, our Timorese Nurse, will correct us if we are wrong.

We will carry on with our private jokes and talk about silly things until Rosa calls to let us know that we have a patient. So Chandra, our UNV volunteer Nurse from Nepal, has to go and check the vital signs before the doctors start to see them; David has to be there in case they need blood tests; Melanie, our second UNV volunteer Pharmacist from Switzerland, goes back to the pharmacy for the prescriptions; and Sijitha, a UNV volunteer Nurse from India, goes to prepare the vaccination room for another new UNPOL contingent. In the Emergency Department, Toni, the UNV Nurse from the Philippines, and I will wait for any one that is sick or injured to come and visit us.

In an ordinary day we have a few dressings, electro-cardiograms, injections and one patient under observation. But on other days, or during dengue fever season, we can have our five beds taken and several patients under treatment.

I worked in busy emergency departments in Lisbon and in London, so one of my best days here in Timor-Leste was actually a night shift with Dr. Rahma, when we had four emergency patients in less than one hour! It was great to get the adrenalin going again!

The other was a simple day; Sunday morning with lots of what we call 'weekend patients'. After closing time we decided to stay, have lunch at the PX military store and continue with preparations for the following day. As we order the food I receive a call from the duty doctor! Eroll, a UNV volunteer Nurse from Kosovo, takes one look at me and decides to go to the clinic instead of me. So I finished my lunch, took a deep breath and went to the clinic to replace him.

I was in a better mood, so I thanked him for it and took care of the patient until she was discharged. Later that week, we got an email from the Chief of Medical Operations thanking us for the good work, because we got an appreciation letter from that patient.

I love the Medical section because we are here for you, if you need us, but we are always here for each other as well. This is my fourth volunteer experience, and by far the best one. And even though I am offering my time, work and expertise, I always feel that I get a lot more than I give.
 
In Mozambique my work involved training local nurses, yet I learned to improvise when you run out of stock. I learned the meaning of true dedication to your profession, when nurses continue to go to work when they are not paid for several months; and I learned to be humble because anyone can be your teacher in a particular subject.

In Iraq, I simply changed my mindset. I was amazed with the size of my ignorance concerning that part of the world, and with the amount of stereotypes and clichés that haunted my mind. So I learned to see people and not nationalities, dress codes and religions. When the 12-year-old driving a jeep went to visit me for the third time, offering me the best tea I have ever had, and inquiring if I would be interested in being his first wife I still said "no".

I was impressed with the women's strength. I tell everybody about the lady that we saw at the clinic with the black eye. I think she felt our disapproving Western eyes on her and she was quick to let us know that her husband had done it, but that she was now divorced. How many cases do you know of woman in our open and free societies that endure domestic violence in silence?

I was impressed with women's hospitality. They took me in and treated me as a sister. And as the only woman in our team I would be left with them with no translator (the only one we had was a man), to talk in English, French, sign language and most of all good will. They loved when I told them that the male doctor had cooked for me when it was his day to cook! The tabib (doctor) cooking for the momarrada (nurse)!

There comes a time in your life that, for personal or professional reasons, you need your work to count more than the number of drunk drivers, or chest pains seen in one hour. Or the amount of money in your bank account. Maybe you will miss the adrenalin, and the fancy shopping, but you will remember that when you hug that crying lady that misses her children you are nursing her. You will remember that child with the bad burn, whose dressing you made.

When you are on a personal and professional path that includes volunteer work, that path is never complete without the UN: for what the UN represents, for its values and goals. So I volunteered with UNV simply because it made sense.