The power of the human spirit

The Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, came to WFP this week. The UN has a real 'cult of the leader' about it: WFP's own chief needs only wonder about something out loud and courtiers (aka policy boffins) run about making everyone drop everything to look into it. So a visit from "the S-G" is only one step from the presence of Godliness, in local terms.

Part of the reason for the fuss is security. There are people who would love to blow the UN leaders to smithereens. So cars were cleared from the carpark, guards with even shorter hair and crisper shirt creases that our own very classy Italian security team flooded the building with US accents ("ma'am, can I ask you to ensure you display your staff pass please. Thank you ma'am"). The staff filed into the auditorium at 6pm and the thing duly started about 45 minutes later. UN deities run to their own schedule, it seems.

The service, to honour our colleagues in Pakistan, was sombre, gently political with solidarity and politely applauded... There was a video of staff and relatives of the five who died, talking about the departed. Then the head of the Pakistan finance team rose to his feet and talked of his team of 8 staff. As he spoke of the four who died that day (plus one from ICT), the two survivors who are still in hospital (one forever maimed, having lost sight in one eye), many of us were in tears. As he spoke of the 2 staff left, who have valiantly picked up and kept going in temporary offices, we rose as one and applauded. For about 5 minutes. These people didn't ask to be heroes. They would tell you they were just office people, accounts clerks, and IT guy.

But sometimes extraordinary things happen to ordinary people.

Before I joined WFP, I too, managed a team of 8. I look at the people who populate that team, and I cannot imagine the death of one of them, let alone half of them, let alone in one day. To visit colleagues in hospital, to tell them that they will overcome... to hear these stories left me humbled, utterly, by their incredible strength of spirit.

I think perhaps I was not the only one thinking 'I wonder, if it were me there, would I have the courage to be so brave'. I pray I never have to find out. But I hope that if I had to, I would.