A Breakdown in Communication

A highly efficient gentleman I used to know worked for the World Health Organization and was posted to Khartoum during the difficulties in the mid eighties. Craig was highly strung yet dedicated, fiercely determined to achieve some improvement in conditions for the people under his care and ruthlessly resourceful when trying to replenish his meager stores of supplies.

Craig had tolerated a breakdown in communications with his departmental supervisors for weeks over the subject of his request for vaccine, certain other medicines and most of all, a serviceable truck, as his allocated department issued truck had been stolen four weeks previously whilst delivering aid to one of the camps.

I passed by his window one morning and he beckoned me to come in and sit for a few minutes in the chaos of his sand-floored office. He thrust a dog eared yellow paper under my nose and said There you are clever clogs, see what you can make of that.

The document was a telex, blotched with coffee and well handled, obviously Craig and his nutty secretary whom he called Blossom for some reason had spent some time trying to figure out the meaning of the message it contained.

Bloody things in code I reckon! He shouted above the noise of the traffic outside.

The first paragraph said, Drugs ok. The second said Seek local help.

Where is your requesting telex Craig? I asked. Blossom scurried around to the other desk and finally found her written request under a banana which she was using as a paperweight.

The t and the r on Blossoms telex machine had welded together and formed an f. Craig had requested a serviceable fk.

Jan Gamm writes reflections on life with an emphasis on world travel. She has lived in many countries and traveled extensively in the Far East, the Middle East, America, South America and throughout the South Pacific. She writes for fun and for money whenever she can manage it.

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