Brussels?

It has been a couple of days since I have blogged.  The reason is that I am on a respite break from the ETU.  These are scheduled every 6 weeks or so and are standard among organizations the run ETUs.  Most of us take the break in Europe.  Two reasons, one is that you only have a limited amount of time and two, the European Union doesn't care about a person's Ebola exposure as long as they have had no known exposure and aren't having symptoms.  Some people, though, have gone to Tunisia which is desperate enough for tourist dollars that they don't mind potential Ebola exposure.  A few have stayed in Liberia where you can stay at a local resort and not lose the travel time at either end of the trip.  The important thing is that no matter where you go, you get away from the ETU and relax.

    I chose to go to Brussels.  One of the main reasons was that neither Jo nor I had had been to Brussels before.  A second was that all of our flights (all of two per week out of Monrovia) are routed through Brussels.  One of the nice things was that Jo was able to join me in Brussels.  It has been six weeks since we had seen each other and it was good to talk to her and to relax.  I must admit that I didn't travel over to Liberia with any thought of cold weather and I brought no cold weather clothes.  I have also lost a bit of weight while in Liberia and that didn't make the cold weather any easier to handle.  Jo was my angel and brought me my coat, hat, gloves and some long underwear so things have been manageable.  Since arriving, we have have relaxed and have done the usual tourist things and it has been a wonderful time.  I can't say that Brussels has totally taken me away from Liberia, I do have email.  But it has been quite relaxing.

     I will fly back to Liberia (and Jo to the U.S.) on Friday.  It will have been a good break, but there is more to do back in Liberia.  Much of it involving what needs to be done in running an ETU and mundane.  But we have to be prepared because the number of cases of Ebola have increased in Liberia for the second week in a row.