“You’re a humanitarian worker? Oh you must be a wonderful person, saving all those lives.”

That’s my mental cue to either a) look for the nearest hole to dive into in embarrassment, and/or b) start mentally checking out of the conversation.

Eight years after doing my first emergency and three years into doing this full time outside of the Philippines, I have learned and unlearned more things in the humanitarian field than I can remember. I’ve halfway given up remembering catch phrases, terms and jargon, because a couple of years into getting used to a word, it’s going to be changed into the latest buzzword to add to an arsenal of words that mean the same damn thing. I’ve started feeling jaded about the many hoops and steps we must take to be absolutely positively sure that we are doing and reporting everything in the most accurate, least double counted, zero fraudulent way. I can feel the cynicism just ooze out when trying to make a project based on needs from the ground, because, let’s face it, a lot of the projects we do are defined by donors from up high who have preconceived notions of what will solve the latest or most prolonged world crisis. But if there’s one thing that continues to stay sunny and bright and perky, it’s my feelings about the people in every single country I’ve worked in. ​

Rather than waiting for my free 100 hours of French lessons in a school of questionable quality, I signed up for 40 hours of French in Alliance Française Strasbourg over a 2 week period in the middle of a couple of deployments. Disclaimer: universally, I am known to be terrible at languages, including my native tongue of Filipino. In university, I scorned French because I thought it was incredibly mainstream (in hindsight, this hipster decision of mine was a karmic bitch slap to the face) and took Italian instead… because I really loved Italian food. This is not the best basis for a decision like this. Sage advice, you can point at a menu without having to say a word but it’s embarrassing to have to mime using a toilet because you can’t speak the language. To this day, all I remember is “io sono Gabriela”, which doesn’t really take you anywhere. ​

I thought that in coming to Sierra Leone and working in an Ebola response, I would have a lot of thought as fodder to blog about. I couldn’t have been more wrong. It’s five months after and a massive case of writer’s block as I struggle with understanding enough of the complexities of this response to write something coherent about it.

In all the emergencies I’ve worked in, even the smaller ones, there was always something that stood out to me that made it important or urgent. For example, Haiyan meant understanding that the scale of typhoons had increased enormously, and preparation and response needed to scale up if we ever wanted to catch up to these changes. The Bohol earthquake helped me understand what an earthquake response needed to be, particularly if a big one hit Manila. Typhoon Ketsana was a wake-up call for how unprepared the Philippines was for a disaster and the importance, not just of preparedness, but of disaster risk reduction. 

But this Ebola response will probably be one of the most significant responses I’ll ever work on, even if I get to respond to another one in the future. The last few months have been a trial and error of what worked and what didn’t work, keeping in mind the scale of the emergency, but also safety of the people involved. Remembering this will pave the way for a better and faster humanitarian response for a disease that still mystifies and terrifies most of the world. More importantly, this response is important to me, not just because the scale of the spread and number of casualties has been so large in comparison to previous outbreaks, but because of how important the humanitarian side of it is, in spite of this being thought of as predominantly medical. 

After a few months off from the world of emergencies, I'm back in it as a Programme Manager for Oxfam's Ebola Response in Sierra Leone! I'm thrilled to be working in this programme, not just because it's a chance to be directly involved in an emergency I've been following since it started in early 2014, but also because it's a huge opportunity to grow more in this field. As much as the Philippines has been an excellent training ground with the numerous typhoons, floods, monsoon rains and other assorted natural disasters we're affected by yearly, working in Africa introduces a whole different world for living and working. 

Why did I decide to work in this response? Though the decision was easy for me, it wasn't without weighing the risks carefully. A wealth of documents and information from the news, humanitarian organizations and Oxfam helped tilt the balance towards working here. 

One, I knew as a non-medical professional, that my chances of catching the disease would be significantly lower. Contact with Ebola victims would be very low to non-existent. My interactions would mainly be my colleagues, partners, other agencies working here, and communities that weren't in red zones.