Elias Durry - Session 2



CRAWFORD: Today is Wednesday, February 21, 2018. This is Hana Crawford for the GPEI [Global Polio Eradication Initiative] History Project. I'm with Dr. Elias Durry in the broadcast studios of the U.S. [United States] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Todd [F.] Jordan is our studio engineer and videographer, and this is our second interview. Last time we spoke about Yemen and your early career, and what brought you into public health and work in Africa. This time, we are going to focus on Somalia and South Sudan, during the period between August of 1999--

DURRY: Nineteen-ninety-nine.

CRAWFORD: --and July of 2006 when you were coordinator in the Horn of Africa for EPI [Expanded Programme on Immunization] and Polio Eradication.

DURRY: That's correct.

CRAWFORD: Great. Thank you for coming back. I guess to open up, maybe it makes sense to sift through your memory of the transition from Yemen to--did you go directly Nairobi [Kenya]?

DURRY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: OK.

DURRY: Thank you very much for having me again. I hope I can give you whatever I remember.

When I was in Yemen, I was supposed to be there for four years. I left in three years and not because of anything, but we knew that the work in Yemen was done. We were ready for the next challenge. The next challenge was clearly these two countries, including other Horn of Africa countries like Djibouti, Somalia, and South Sudan, mainly. We wanted just to go ahead and start the work there in earnest, although there were some activities before me, but we knew that these two countries would be a big challenge. Rather than sitting and spending that extra one year without much excitement in Yemen, I decided--and my colleagues here also agreed--that I should move to Nairobi to coordinate the Horn of Africa activities for the Eastern Mediterranean region [EMRO], which is South Sudan, Sudan, and Somalia, and Djibouti.

These are very--two unique and important countries. First, because there have been a lot of outbreaks, especially in Somalia before, but Sudan was also going through major famine and other wars, and other things where really there was no government. I think the commonality of these two countries was that, in both places, there was no government. Both places were fully war-torn countries.

In Somalia, that was a civil strife where, by that time, I think that the country did not have any government for more than fifteen or twenty years. Even still today, Somalia doesn't have a central government. It was a country [where] every clan had its own issues, and there was such inter-clan fighting that there was no place that was safe or any place that any kind of system could be there, meaning there was no infrastructure. There was no ministry [of health]. The infrastructure was there, but there was no ministry. But everything was really run by the local clans and basically, no system.

One could say the same thing for South Sudan, also. If you remember, it has been fighting the northern Sudan government for years. It's a very remote area. What I mean by remote: it is a place where there was no development. The last decades of their life was all just fighting with the northern Sudanese. Again, there, there was no infrastructure. There was no central government. It was going through a bit of a tough time, including famine, and of course, the war and the bombardment from the north.

These are two unique places where we have to reach every child in places that there is no way of reaching every child at the same time across the board. It was really a very interesting challenge, which I was really excited about. I moved there in 1999. By then, the 2000 deadline for global polio eradication's goal could not be achieved, but we were determined to finish it by 2002. Just to summarize, in both places, by 2002, all indigenous virus was eradicated. We achieved that goal just together, probably better than other countries with peace and infrastructure and with a government structure.

They were, as I said, two unique countries, two different problems, but at the end of the day, there was no system. There was no minister of health. There was no government in both places. We had to first actually make sure we understood the dynamic of what are those specific problems and to come up with a system that really kind of counsels whatever is on the field and allow us to work, which we could do.

CRAWFORD: What did you know when you showed up in 1999?

DURRY: If we take Somalia, we know the country is in a major clan war. During my childhood, also--I'm not too far away from Somalia, but that's not the issue. The issue was that the country was really torn apart by clan fighting. Then, it's not only clan. It goes to sub-clan, sub-sub-clan, so really, to the extent that there is really no peace, in a sense of having a government as we know it. They were functioning, and there is always a fight, but they have their own way of dealing with their own issues and coming up with infrastructure solutions, including telephone companies. But everybody was because of war, everybody eventually had to go back to where they came from.

The problematic areas were where there were multiple clans who lived there for some time, like the capital city of Mogadishu where everybody claims that it is theirs. The bottom line is that Somalia is a clan-based society. Whether you look at it a thousand years ago or whether you're going to look at it a hundred from now, it's a clan-based society. Their issue is not one clan against the other clan. It's not that, "My clan is better than you." Their issue is, "My clan is not less than you."

The reason I'm telling you this is because what we've done is we knew that we would require human resources across the board from north to south and east to west. That human resource has to follow that clan structure. If we give any name for any position, and we say this clan--let's say a district polio officer. If one clan has a district polio officer, the other clan also has to have a district polio officer. I think before that, we knew [that was the case] for both countries, both South Sudan and Somalia.

Because there was no government, for the first time in GPEI history we had to put a structure that kind of--not replaced, but compensated [for] the lack of government because there is no ministry. We had to put [in] a structure. Like at the national level, we used to call them "hubs," different regions put together, and the regions and districts and so on, all the way down to the villages. Those structures have to be fully supported by us and managed by us. We did that. I think we had five regions, four or five hubs for Somalia, and nine hubs for South Sudan. These hubs have to be managed as if it is really the center of all of the activities.

Through these hubs, we were also able to bring--one thing I also want to tell you is because of the situation of the countries, [the situation that] both countries were in, most of the services--health services and other services--were given by the UN [United Nations] or NGOs [non-governmental organizations]. Again, because there is no government or anything. We also had to work very, very closely with these NGOs. Like in South Sudan, about forty-five NGOs, including major UN agencies, such as the UNFPA [United Nations Population Fund, formerly United Nations Fund for Population Activities], UNICEF [United Nations Children's Fund], and all.

What we used to use these hubs for is really to bring everybody together, to work together as one team, not as, "This is WHO [World Health Organization]. This is UNICEF," but as a polio team. In addition to that, because there was no staff from the ministry, we had to put people in the field across the board as our own people that we hired. In Somalia, for example, we started with about 230 people at one go that [would] cover all districts. These are not vaccinators. These are permanent polio workers who will manage the districts as if they're a ministry of health.

CRAWFORD: They were from the communities?

DURRY: They are from the communities.

CRAWFORD: Were they from the clans? Did each clan have--

DURRY: Yes. We had the same number in South Sudan. It took us like three months to hire everybody we needed in South Sudan, but it took us like nine months to hire everybody in Somalia because in Somalia we had to go and discuss what is our aim, what's our goal, what we're going to be doing, and what we need, whether human resource-wise or car rental, what we're going to be needing for the whole year. We would not move and do anything until and unless we had full agreement with the local community leaders. Not the warlords.

We really sat down with each community leader to come up with the basic things that we wanted, which we [knew] and we [could] explain to them. "OK, we want one district polio officer. We're going to be doing ten campaigns. For each campaign, we will probably need like six thousand vaccinators. We will need this many cars." We put it out in advance. We would say, "Look, you guys go back and figure it out among yourselves, if you have anything, but we want this thing to happen in this way."

We went ahead and did both in the staffing and activities. Only once we got the full support from the community because--I don't know if you remember that these clans were led by warlords, warlords that were really very vicious and the ones who just served themselves. We did not want to be intimidated by these warlords. What we did was we tried to--how do you say it? Pick a feather off a bird one by one, so that the bird cannot fly. We really worked very hard with the community. Even if the warlords wanted to come in and impose what they wanted, we could comfortably say, "No. We will not do it." They know they cannot do anything because the community is with [us]. The community is with us, and they never could blame us, also, that we are supporting the other clan because we're doing the same thing with the other clan, with the neighboring clan.

Really, that gave us a very, very strong acceptance by the community. For example, when we started, when I first went, Mogadishu was in the middle of an outbreak. With so many NGOs, with so many--relief, money, and stuff, people have their own ways of how they use--and we refused to work in Mogadishu until they accepted our way of work. Eventually, they had to because every other clan was working except them. We were able to really kind of accept the challenges but had a very good solution for them, so that we don't get entangled in the politics, and in the fighting.

I just came back last week from Nairobi because we have a circulating vaccine-derived polio virus [cVDPV]. It was so really fulfilling to see those guys are still there. They're holding the torch. Tomorrow, for tomorrow's ministry, if there is anything, they will be really the ones who will be at the top because it is the only system across the country. I'm not talking like having a strong system here and nothing there but having a cross-cutting infrastructure that goes all the way down to the community from east to west, every part of Somalia. It's really very fulfilling to go back and see that it's still working, and it's still very, very cohesive and doing well.

CRAWFORD: When you started working with the clans in Somalia, was there a strategy to deciding where you would start? Did you choose specific communities to begin that work in building that support?

DURRY: You can't even start there, piece by piece. If you do it, you put it on the table at the same time for everybody. It is the same discussion. It is the same behavior that you have to show wherever you go. By the time you come back to the other one, if you start them piece by piece, then you're already in a mess.

For example, let's say we rent a car. We really rented a lot of vehicles because again, there is no minister of health. There is nothing. People have to move around during the campaigns. We go to the community, and we say that this is the kind of vehicle that we want. "Four-wheel drive, this, this, this. We would like to have this many cars by the end of the year, and we will sign that contract with the community." If anybody in the middle really comes and has any problem from whom we rented--that's the problem, always because, "Why are you renting from this clan? Why not from my clan?"

The warlords, that's how they make money. The warlords, they rent airfields. They rent cars, but now that we're working so close to the community, if anybody comes, we're not running away like any other UN agencies. We go back where we got shot--not us, but the nationals--and we demand the community leaders who made a deal with us come back and discuss, bring the person who shot at us. When I mean "us," I'm talking about the vaccinators.

They will. Today, they apologize. At the end of day, we killed two goats, and then everything is fine and takes off, just to show that we were not siding with anybody, but once we make a deal, we make a deal. We knew that the problem with a lot of people is they think, oh, it has to be the same. You have to be very careful, even when you drive. When you drive from one clan area to another clan area, even if it is a short distance, you have to stop, get off that car of that clan, and jump into another car of that [other] clan. We understood all of these things, and that's how we never really had a very serious problem. We did the job.

CRAWFORD: How did you know?

DURRY: That we did the job?

CRAWFORD: No. How did you know how to go about doing everything? I'm kind of returning to this idea that emerged the last time when we talked about just being familiar with culture and with people.

DURRY: But I think also it's really--OK. We're trying to reach every child. How do we reach every child? It's not reaching every child one time. It's not only twice. We have to reach every child multiple times. How do I do that?

Then we have to better understand the dynamics, the political everything, to say--in some places, you may want to use different things. Let's say you are in the northern Pakistan area. There you cannot do it unless you work with the military because nobody listens to you.

Here, we knew that, for example, for Somalia, we knew that the fighting, when the fighting was there, the fighting is a clan-based fight. If you respect that, things will be fine. The problem is that the people are still fighting. A lot of developmental agencies just don't understand that this is a clan-based society. You say, "Why don't they have one flag?" OK, one flag, but these people have been nomads for years. All they know as part of the last protection is their clan. To them, government, and this is really not--it is their clan. The clan is what is--

Just like I told you in Yemen: what are the things that are really holding them back from doing things? How do you use the community? How do you use the clan-based system over there, too? Here, also, it's that. But that's only one part.

The second part is to make sure that you have all the enabling factors to do the job. Luckily, we had very excellent support, both from the regional office, from WHO headquarters, and here, from CDC to really give us, or give me, whatever we asked after we planned. Then when we planned, we planned not to fail. We planned to succeed. Really, I was insisting that whatever we said we need, we get it, and we don't have a discussion about it. But the plan, also, is not based on just to say small, small increments. If you want to do this in two years, let's do it in two years.

For example, the internationals. To go anywhere, you need security clearance from the UN, all right? When we come here, when we come in and ask for this major intervention across the country--so to send these international consultants, UN has to give us the go ahead and clear us, but our activity was so huge, they couldn't do that. They can't. Because they couldn't go and assess an area, they say, "Denied." Then I called Geneva, and I said, "Listen, I don't need nine surveillance officers if they cannot go. Take away the two of them, or you can give--but without security officer that will work with us, we can't go anywhere." Before that, there has never, ever been a security officer assigned to any WHO activity as a program.

Even if there was no precedent for it, but with appropriate justification, we'd get all of these things: the number of people that we need, we had it. We had a very strong autonomy to really run the program the way we see fit. If there're houses that need to be built, we will to build it. We will discuss about it later on. The incremental or kind or slowly, "Let me go. Let me see what will happen," it doesn't work. We put in both places all of our energy at one time, and it's worked.

CRAWFORD: How did you estimate time?

DURRY: Well, for us at that moment, we said, "We cannot do this for more than two years." Two years is a good time with good effort to eradicate polio in a country. The eradication part seems simple, but it really is to make sure that children are immunized quickly. That could be done in three to four or six months, but then you have to sustain your gains and whatever trickles out.

In some remote areas, in some nomadic populations, that took us three years, but in both places, in two years, we finished. That was our goal from the start.

CRAWFORD: You said that you received the support that you needed from WHO and CDC. If you were in conversation with another coordinator, and you were comparing and contrasting the needs in Somalia and South Sudan, would those needs be different from other places, and how would they be different?

DURRY: Anywhere I went, I asked what is required, and I always received it.

CRAWFORD: What was usually required for you?

DURRY: It is really the system. The system that you need in Somalia is different. For example, in South Sudan, the fact that we can hire as many air flights as we wanted to because there is no roads or anything like that. I was not saying, "OK, one plane here, one plane there." When we planned to do the activities, it is, "How do I reach there?" It's not, "How do I reach there?" but, "How do I reach all the places at the same time?"

My plan is really comprehensive to reach every place at the same time. When we do campaigns, it is like really a big deal across the country, as if the place is shaking because we move, mobilize everything at the same time. That's the only way you can eradicate because if you leave some places that are not immunized, it will come back and destroy what you have done.

For example, if we could not transport vaccine in South Sudan--because most of the airstrips are full of water during the Nile [River monsoon]--we say, "OK. We parachute the vaccine." They're parachuting food, so why not? Really, we did a couple of times that kind of move. When we had to reach these children, we made sure that all those children, whether it rains or shines, will be reached, and whatever we needed [to do] to achieve that, we did it. CRAWFORD: I had a chance to speak with Naveed Sadozai [MBBS] in Geneva, and he spoke about one vaccinator who walked something like fifty kilometers in one day, barefoot. He described three-inch thorns. Do you have vaccinator stories?

DURRY: The South Sudan vaccinators really--OK. South Sudan, as I say, probably at that moment when we were there and besides the fact that it was bombarded, when we went other places, you had to find a bunker because the bombardment from the north was very, very regular. Aside from the war, there was really no infrastructure and no roads. The road that they say that those were meant to have is like, I don't know, ten kilometers for the whole country or something like that.

The challenge for Sudan is really to go from point A to point B because really, it is just nothing. It's just beautiful land, but there was nothing. What we used to do was we used to go--we rented these huge planes to take all of our materials and drop the vaccines, everything we needed. It's called "having a scoop" [sic, as spoken]. Then there are small planes that we send from out of these big airports, but that is also very limited because you can't cover all places. Then the question is to take that vaccine from that little airfield all the way, deep into the villages. Sometimes it takes four vaccinators to work for five days, just to take it there.

I don't know if you have heard about the cold chain. It is there where we really using the vaccine vial monitor [VVM], for how long the vaccine can be effective.

We brought something that is called "fast-chain," because you can't use--there's no cold room. There is no refrigerator. These folks really used to carry the big boxes with the vaccine and ice packs for five days, and we have shown that yes, but you can't keep opening it. I don't say it is usual, normal for them, but it was really phenomenal, how that work was done--not by us, but by the people there.

Most of the time they have to walk through swamps. We have pictures where people are carrying big, big cold boxes on their head for five days. The same thing with the surveillance. Training every NGO and everybody to say, "OK, if you see any paralysis, let us know."

Also, we used to work with the Opposition army [Sudan People's Liberation Movement-in-Opposition] also, not overtly, but using the radios during the campaign. The radio rooms are really like cracking from morning to evening. Everything is just polio, polio, polio, polio, polio. You have this many children, that many children. Even if you're not doing anything, you can't just be in South Sudan and not know that there are no polio campaign, even in the middle of areas where there were famine.

CRAWFORD: I'm still interested in going back to systems, the systems that you set up. You just mentioned surveillance, and that's one of many systems. Could you talk about surveillance, setting up surveillance?

DURRY: Yes. These two places taught us--again, I want to repeat the fact that there was no minister of health. There was not a single staff that you may want to see in other countries, where there may be this unit, that unit, the surveillance. There was nothing. To do those kind of stuff, you can't reproduce ministries because it's not our role, but we really tried very hard to make sure that the fact that there is no minister of health would not impact us. We had to come up with buildings, transportation, human resources, management, leadership.

In both places, we did it with 230 or 250 national staff with about ten or fifteen international staff, each of us doing what we are best at, but relentlessly just following everything that you do based on the plan that you put [in place], and really making sure that everything we do is that.

I see sometimes, even with the ministers--probably the fact that there was no ministry, it probably was a little bit better for us because we could do this or that thing. That's why some people might say that was a "shadow ministry of health," because we were the ministry of health.

CRAWFORD: Shout out to Hamid [S.] Jafari?

DURRY: We were the ministry of health.

CRAWFORD: You said that your goal was not to reproduce a ministry of health. What parts of a ministry of health would have dropped away? What parts that might have existed in a ministry of health did not exist in your system?

DURRY: Ministry of health: I think it is essential in a lot of ways. The problem in doing a genuine job everywhere is governance. When you don't have governance, that's how we are behind in all of the countries. These ministry of health folks, sometimes, they may not see what you stand for. They may not see what is really important, but that's their livelihood. A lot of them would not let things happen, or would not do the right thing because of some of--I'm not painting everybody like this, but basically, we have this problem of governance in every country. Money cuts here. Money did not go there. That part of people's greed is the problem.

When we did it, we had such full control. It doesn't mean that nobody cheated us. Even our own guys can do the same. It was such a strict accountability, and there was no game that people could play to extract from you something. If a thing has to be done, it will be done. Like sometimes ministers will tell you, "Oh, no. This day, we cannot do this campaign. We have this big meeting coming up," just to drive things and have their own way for the way it fits them.

With us, all of the implementation of the plans and everything was according to what we thought is really superbly effective. In Somalia, we had a discussion with people like warlords. One part of Somalia also had a kind of young government, and it was difficult to do work there, compared to the places where there was completely no government. That governance, that interference, that comes based on--because of--governance is a problem. You wouldn't mind if a government or a ministry with a really comprehensive plan that is well thought of, and they can tell you, "OK, your priority may not be our priority, but let's work," but most of the time it's not that a country has a comprehensive plan. They just--this stuff. Especially in these war-torn countries, people are used to having a better life out of [the] miseries of others. I can't say everybody is like that, but the fact that we could do what needed to be done--not what we wanted to do, what needed to be done--without much interference from whatever institution you call it, whether ministry or government. That also forced us to work with the community because you don't have any other choice.

CRAWFORD: Who were the different stakeholders in the community? What different leaders did you work with? You mentioned warlords. You mentioned other leaders earlier within the clans.

DURRY: In Somalia, it is, again, this clan system. Every community has an elderly person. Every community, that has.

CRAWFORD: One?

DURRY: One. At least one, or they're in groups, but they are the ones which really maintain the system, that society system. I don't know if you know this, but for example, in Somalia, if you kill someone, you're not responsible. It is your clan that is responsible. The other clan also may not be just looking for you, but it may be looking for anybody in your clan. It is not an individual responsibility. It is a clan responsibility.

To maintain that kind of a system, if somebody does something bad, and someone would at least manage the crisis, you have to have really a very close and respected structure, which we were working with.

Those many years, we didn't have a lot of bad events, but one time, two of our staff were kidnapped. It was big news, but that was because we went into Mogadishu with a larger UN contingency. When they saw us then, we were not those guys who are just neutral and just do the job because there's a government that that international community wants to establish. There are the warlords who don't want to see this. The UNDP [United Nations Development Programme] and others are trying to help this infant government, and then the warlord gets mad. Just to show that this new government cannot sustain itself, what they did, they kidnapped all of UN staff when the head of the UNDP was visiting. That was the only time that happened. Otherwise, because of maintaining this community-based relation--our staff are coming from each and every clan.

CRAWFORD: Obvious question would be how did you deal with that situation?

DURRY: Which one?

CRAWFORD: Kidnapping.

DURRY: Yes. Our staff were the ones who helped us to release them. Our staff and their clan. There was no clan that we did not have a staff, that we didn't have a senior person in that clan.

CRAWFORD: Do you remember hearing details about how that was worked out?

DURRY: Yes. Yes, although sometimes I don't want to remember it, but yes. It had a lot of different pieces because the people who kidnapped them also sold them to another clan, and they were put into two different places, so two different points of contact. They were not the only ones. There were other people, but the ones which--and luckily, even the ones who have kidnapped them are guys who sometimes work for us as security. They knew who they were, and they said, "Don't worry. Nothing will happen to you." It's surreal, but luckily, our folks, being there and interacting with them, going and visiting them really--I'm not saying that was the only reason, but it helped. That was one of the really tough times that we had in Somalia. It's a few days, but I think it was a whole mistake. We should not have gone with that contingency.

CRAWFORD: It sounds like such smooth operations in some ways, the work that you're describing. I wonder about times when it hasn't been quite so smooth, when you've had to really get involved. You're known for working in tough places. You're known for ensuring safety, working on security issues. Could you talk about some of those experiences?

DURRY: You mean just looking for stuff--just imagine because I was able, we were able, to know trouble before it even comes anywhere. We were never caught in the middle of--if there is something that happens. Like one time, I sent a Voice of America journalist, and I arranged for her to meet all five warlords. She was really surprised how we could arrange a meeting for five warlords. Then in the middle, I told her, "Get out," because even before we knew that things would happen--our contacts were such vast contacts, and no one want us to be harmed. They let us know. We know when two clans are ready to fight or anything like that. We were really kind of saved. Our own people who, although they are from two different clans, they don't see us as trying to take advantage or harm them.

I can tell you Somalia was the easiest for me. Really. Because we knew everything, what was coming. We had enough knowledge of the place and enough interaction with our people. Sometimes things happen at the very lowest level. If a vaccinator is hired from another clan, either the clan would not take the vaccines, or sometimes in some refugee camps, there was one shooting of a vaccinator from another clan. It could have been managed, but we never had major fighting. I don't know how to say it, but Somalia was the easiest thing for me.

CRAWFORD: I'm trying to decide what makes sense in talking with you about Somalia and South Sudan, and whether to talk about them separately, concurrently because between 1999 and 2006, you also were working back in Yemen for a short period of time. You were working in Nigeria for a short period of time.

DURRY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: I believe there were two other places, as well.

DURRY: Yes. You see, the reason I wanted to do that is because we put a system [in place] that is so solid, and I was very lucky to have Athalia Christie [MAIA] with me in the four years. That maintains the technical integrity of the program. We put a system [in place] that was so solid that it did not require me there to be all the time. Putting aside the leadership, I don't know how to say it. Leadership is being able to make people to do the best in their work. That's basically it. Management is another issue, but leadership. We really had very, very, very good leadership that is interacting with the staff from top to bottom, but tougher so on work. Everybody was really feeling that they are part of a major, major work. You could not replace that.

I just met her [Athalia Christie] in Nairobi when I was there. One of my staff in South Sudan, she had acute appendicitis, and we medivacked her to Nairobi. Her children were there, and she was not saying anything with the children. All she was saying is the microplanning process. "This place, make sure this happens." She's being pulled into an operation room, but all she knows, was to talk about where her microplanning is, you know. You can't get that kind of enthusiasm, really.

The enthusiasm, also, is not just for the sake of nothing, but I think enthusiasm is with the fact that everybody knew where we were going and what was our goal. If you have an army of people like that, it is really something that you can't stop.

There were no problems with the vaccine acceptance. It's just making sure that, technically, everybody is well-trained, according to whatever they are, whether they are vaccinators, surveillance, or immunization. We have a very simple way of really following up [on] what we are doing. We were very supportive.

For example, I'm talking about leadership now. Let's say we rent a car from someone which we, from the very beginning, he knows that he's a private car rental. In the car, you have a national person, a national polio folk, and then we have an international polio staff. Let's say there is an accident. When there's an accident, what you can get from the UN pool is just to take the international one [person] out. Or even the national [person], but you have nothing to do with the driver. No. With us, we charter the plane, go, pick up the driver, also, who we have nothing with, and take him out to a neighboring country's hospital.

That kind of consideration that we give and work with really opens up more, gives us acceptance [in communities]. What we say is really not, you know.

We made sure that we're also not after numbers, just simple numbers, because let's say we have a plan that says one vaccinator has to vaccinate 230 children. Then whether [inaudible] because it was in the plan, you may see that everybody writes "230, 230, 230," or something like that. We said, "OK, guys. Just to show you that we don't need the numbers--" we need the actual numbers, we don't need [made-up] numbers, we said, "OK. For the next three rounds, there is no tally sheet. Just go out and do it." Then they understand it's not the numbers. It is the fact that at least they are going out and reaching the children.

The [institution] of having--again, I go back to the fact that we were allowed to put together a very strong program in another sense--whatever you need: a security officer, surveillance officer--and being [able] to lead it at a place that we know the culture very well, and we know the subject matter very well.

CRAWFORD: Success.

DURRY: Exactly.

CRAWFORD: What about other parts of the program that you had to develop? Were there parts that were especially innovative?

DURRY: I think the first one for Somalia was really to bring WHO and UNICEF together. Before I go, just to show who is doing what: the payment will happen in--this should happen in the UNICEF compound, WHO. Whatever. This WHO-UNICEF thing is always there. When I went, the relationship with the heads of the agencies, both heads of the agencies, what we did was we eliminated this WHO-UNICEF [divide between organizations] thing. Everybody is polio.

In one region, if the UNICEF office is stronger, then everything will be under UNICEF, even to the extent that if a WHO technical officer or epidemiologist is working there, he will have the right to sign on UNICEF's financial document. I mean, left alone to--it was really, really fantastic because there was no--and I could do that because I didn't come from WHO. I didn't come from UNICEF. I came from--that's number one.

The second one is really working with the NGOs, how to expand partnership. That also, as long as you don't do things for the sake of--to wave your flag, and you just be humble and just find ways of doing things, NGOs and other partners, they don't want to be called in just to help when the campaign is there. If you include them in the planning from the get-go, explain to them everything that you do, really there is no big deal. Everybody in Somalia, every NGO in South Sudan, we were working hand in hand.

CRAWFORD: When you share information up front--like transparency I think is coming up--

DURRY: Absolutely.

CRAWFORD: --in this interview, which I like--

DURRY: When I went to Somalia, the first thing I did was I pasted how much we pay for vaccinators on the wall, so no one can keep something for himself. Everybody knows. We said, "No. Put it on the wall. Put the name of the vaccinators on the wall, how much they get paid." Transparency is really the basics. We should never try to really make people falsely feel good or have an agenda. No, whatever it is, if we are doing good, tell us. If you're doing bad, we tell you, but if you are doing bad, also, we will tell you, too. We have no problem with being vocal and aggressive, too.

That was the beauty of, especially my management. Some people like to see me like a little rough in the daytime, but it's just tough love because we just want things to be right. A lot of my staff now, they became so used to that, just to say the truth, to do whatever you have to do, and move on. We used to have a lot of problems with some of the WHO representatives, also because it was just straightforward. We tell them what needs to be done, and if they don't do it, we shout.

CRAWFORD: Could you give an example of that?

DURRY: Always the representatives, they also have other issues that they need to deal with.

CRAWFORD: Polio's not the priority, necessarily.

DURRY: Maybe. I mean they have other issues.

For us, with the fact that we have a timeline that we need to--I used to say there is three ways to do polio, and among them I like the third one: the "right way," "the wrong way," and "polio" way. Whatever we need to do, whether it is right or wrong [is the polio way], and we used to push that a lot. We had big support from the regional director on that.

Sometimes the interest of polio may not match with the interests of--whether it is UNICEF or WHO program. When that fight gets hot, then usually, I was lucky that the system usually used to side with me, with polio. Whenever we had these kinds of conflict with the WRs [WHO representatives], the RD [regional director] interferes and says--because he knows, also, we're very open. Our plan is really top-notch. Our effort has no fault. He knows how we work, so he always sides with us and removes that bump or hump, or whatever you call it, from the system. That's good. That was very good.

CRAWFORD: Working in partnership that way, could you talk about some of the ways you worked in partnership with the other NGOs and how that was different from UNICEF and WHO?

DURRY: Yes. The UNICEF and WHO because we are the main implementing partners, but the other NGOs like MSF [Médecins Sans Frontières], Carter Center, and all these--we went there, and we are telling them now, while they were doing their own things, we are telling them now, "OK, here we are. Our program is [supremely] important. You need to accept it." Each of them may be doing different things, but we are telling them, from east to west and north to south, everywhere they are, wherever they are, "When the campaign comes, please drop everything and do this."

What we did was, first, we worked it out because all NGOs, their center was in Nairobi, both for South Sudan and Somalia. We present our case at the Nairobi level and when we get--not only individually, actually. We do it individually, and then we call in a big meeting with everybody. Then, from there, once that is cemented, then all of our staff in the field will start really seriously working with their local counterparts. It's not like either of the local counterparts agree, and the central doesn't agree, but sometimes we even go all the way to the headquarters in their capital cities. Of course, like in a place in South Sudan, everybody was in one big camp. It's called Lokichogio [Kenya]. We all were there. It was very simple to really bring people together and explain to them what we need.

The last case of South Sudan, we were sitting at night in Lokichogio with an NGO that their main role is, whenever there's a war, active war, to go and evacuate injured population. They don't have any place that they really sit because of wherever it is and then they don't have much time [to] land [the aircraft], take the person, the injured, and then take off. At night one night, we just said, "Look. You guys are going so many places, places that we may not even go. Can you help us in the surveillance?" They say, "What do we have to do?" I say, "Now, just when you land, while you are putting the patients in, just ask people is there any paralysis child in the area? If they say no, just get out and go back, no problem."

Then, the first time they did, somebody told them yes. We told them, "OK. If it is yes, just please take a stool sample." We never gave them with which they collect the stool sample. They collected it with a matchbox. They put it in, and then it was positive. If we had not worked with them, we would never have known that that case was there.

CRAWFORD: Did you have any objections to their collection method?

DURRY: No. Whatever they could do, you know, bring it. This is how we used to do it. There was a lot of interpersonal relationships, not only with me, but with all of our staff. Most of our staff, incoming staff, were coming from MSF because those are the ones who have worked in those areas before and have the stamina of working there. I never had anybody who--of course, all of them [were] from MSF.

CRAWFORD: I'm always curious about outliers. Did anyone ever arrive who was particularly green?

DURRY: They won't survive.

CRAWFORD: Not in the first place.

DURRY: They won't survive. They won't survive. We had a very tough system. Not tough as a system, but a tough team. On each side, no one would allow you to--it's not that no one would allow you, but you just can't survive it.

CRAWFORD: Could you tell some stories about the tough team?

DURRY: What I said about the polio way is one of them, but I think it's the really--I don't know. A lot of them may say it is not [tough], but I also don't think it is tough. Let's say if somebody has to move from place to place and per diem is not paid, or there's no--I go get money from my own bank and say, "OK. Now, here you go." Then I go to the financial administration guys, and I say, "OK. Give me my money now. I just sent a guy out." Those kind of things, you know?

CRAWFORD: I remember in the pre-interview, when we sat down in your office, we talked a little bit about making sure people were paid.

DURRY: Yes, yes, yes. That's very important. Very important.

CRAWFORD: Maybe you could talk about that a bit, how you made sure, what the processes were, where those processes sometimes deviated from standard processes of--

DURRY: The funny thing is--OK. Payment in these two places: the smoothest payment mechanism in the world for polio was for me within Somalia. They call it hawala [hewala, xawala], or I don't know. There's this banking system that they have. There is no bank. It's all clan-based. If you give them a name and a village, then in two days, they will bring you back the receipt that that person has already been paid. It was amazing. I think after 9/11, because it's not an open bank, and it's not--but it's called the hawala system.

We had no problem. We gave them two million dollars, and then in seven days, we had all of our receipts back. That's Somalia.

In South Sudan, it was very difficult because in South Sudan, most of the places they did not even know what money was. When we started the campaign, which Anne-Reneé [Heningburg, MPA] was part of it, we had to pay either in sugar, soap, something like this because nobody knew what--they did not know what to do with the [money] notes. The problem was how to ship all this for a dollar. Even for a dollar, when you think about it, what you have to pay for the plane, it becomes like five dollars because--so that was a challenge.

Then eventually, as time went by, after the liberation--we went out before the liberation, but carrying money like in sacks and from planes. But nothing bad had happened, knock on wood.

We really made sure that payment to these people, for vaccinators, is important. In Somalia, if you don't pay, you can't survive, anyway. They will kill you, anyway. [Laughs]

The other thing, the good thing, that happened was the Bob Keegan Polio Heroes Fund. It started in Somalia because we had a few vaccinators that were eaten by crocodiles--or not eaten, but injured. These are people who are going out to do polio, but if something happens to them, you cannot just leave them on their own. That's when we started the Polio Heroes Fund, which is still very active.

CRAWFORD: Medical expenses, education?

DURRY: No. We pay a certain amount of money, although it may not be something that would sustain for their life, but at least, you know. That also started there.

CRAWFORD: I'm going to take a look at the time. It is 2:33, which is great. We have some time left. We've covered surveillance. I'm looking at my topics list. I have a note here to ask you about Anne-Reneé Heningburg and Carl Tinstman [MPA, MBA], which really is a bigger question about who you worked with most closely, and if you wanted to give stories, tell stories, about anybody that you worked with in particular.

DURRY: Carl Tinstman. I think I told you the last time.

CRAWFORD: There is a Carl Tinstman story.

DURRY: He was the [UNICEF] representative in Yemen. I went to him, and he told me that I was crazy for thinking that we will do a campaign, cover under-fives [children under five] in thirty days, and almost kicked me out of his office. When he saw that we could do that, right after that, he was transferred to Nairobi to be the head of the whole UN consortium. There is Operation Lifeline Sudan [OLS]. When he left Yemen, he asked me, "What should I do?" I told him, "Start polio activities." I told him. He almost tried to slap me because the country was in the middle of famine.

Anyway, he went, and then he called Bob Keegan, and he says, "I'm Carl Tinstman. I'm the head of OLS." Bob was surprised. He said, "What can I do for you?" He says, "I want to start a polio eradication program." Bob almost fainted because no one would ever think that that would happen, especially the head of OLS to come and say--but he said, "But the only way I will do this, if you give me Elias." Then Bob said, "Well, I cannot give you Elias, but I can send you somebody who can be like Elias."

He sent Anne-Reneé for a few weeks, but she came out after nine months. Carl is, as a leader of a UN agency that has really started that program--since then, he has been just full-time working on polio. Now he is retired.

Anne-Reneé, she [stayed] there for nine months. Then I remember right before we had about three or four or five WHO consultants who were helping Anne-Reneé. They all came out, and they said, "You guys must be crazy if you want to do polio in South Sudan." I went down, and we called the regional office. We said, "OK, take them out of here. They're not helpful." [Laughs] Now, Carl has been really a serious eradicator after that.

CRAWFORD: I've talked some about partnership and also--yes, partnership, especially between WHO and UNICEF. I'm looking at your CV [curriculum vitae]. One of the functions that you mention as part of your job as a medical officer and the coordinator for polio eradication in EPI is, you say you "coordinated cross-border activities among different regions of WHO and UNICEF to harmonize polio eradication activities." Could you talk about what you did and what you mean in your CV by "harmonize?"

DURRY: Yes, because WHO has different regions, African region and Eastern Mediterranean region. In the Horn of Africa, Somalia, Djibouti, Sudan, [are] in EMRO, but Ethiopia, Kenya, all the rest is with AFRO. Then, when you look at both countries, whether it's the Sudan or Somalia, the population is almost the same. You cannot do one and leave the other one. Since these two countries are from--or all these countries are from two different regions, we had to come up with a very similar approach across the board. It doesn't matter which region you are in.

It was very interesting. Like in South Sudan, we used to bring northern and southern Sudanese, and then they sat and they mapped where--truly without considering any militaristic implications of what they're saying, but they're really working, sitting and saying, "OK. Here we cannot go. Here we can go," and mark them by hand. It was good. Still, like you look at the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, you cannot separate the two. The Horn of Africa, wherever the Somali population lives, you cannot separate it: Kenya, Ethiopia, Somalia. Unfortunately, they [these countries] are in two different regions, and we had to bring them together. There was regular discussion, not only at the technical level, but also at the ministerial level sometimes. Yes. That was very important.

CRAWFORD: Since we have a whole hour left, I wonder if it makes sense--is there anything else that needs to be included about Sudan and Somalia, in terms of setting up a ministry of health in a way?

DURRY: What we knew and what we know is that some of the things had to be changed, how WHO itself operates. Remember in Yemen, I was talking only about me being there as a technical advisor to the ministry. All WHO activities were always like that: technical advisor to the ministry.

Here, we were not technical advisors. Here, we started implementing programs. We were not sitting as a medical officer or an epidemiologist, but we had to be thinking about the finance and administration, the human resources--I mean as a program, which WHO has never done before. What we always did was [function] as a technical organization, so supporting ministries of health, but we shattered--we were the first ones that really started to do that because of this.

Then DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo] came after us. That is another thing, which is separate from how WHO used to work. I mentioned to you about how we used security officers. I think a lot of things, like for example, what happened in the Ebola response, almost everybody that they needed for management--human resource [HR], HR issues, financing issues--they were all from the polio program because we expanded the engagement of WHO from just being a technical agency to be an operational agency. UNICEF used to do that before, so it's not a big deal. That's another thing. For that, you're not just a medical officer, but you have to be a politician. You have to be everything.

CRAWFORD: I asked Hamid Jafari about what he would ask you, and he had said, "Well, I would ask him about the way he set this organizational structure up." He also said that he would joke with you, or maybe you were joking--if I'm remembering correctly--about different titles within this organizational structure that you had set up. Could you kind of share what that joke was about or some of the titles that you would make up? How did you think about that stuff? How did you figure it out?

DURRY: I don't remember, but I know that he used to joke with me. He used to call these places "Durryland." I don't know. I'm not really sure what titles. I don't know if he has given you a little hint. I may take it from there.

CRAWFORD: That's all that he said. He didn't mention Durryland. That's pretty good.

DURRY: Yes. He used to say, "Oh, these are Durrylands." No. I think it was the fact that he was, and regional office was also very helpful because--and this is what we are missing these days, as CDC, to be in very critical positions, managerial positions within WHO. We don't have that anymore because that really helps to shape and influence because we don't have any of these things, [divisions] of, "This is WHO. This is UNICEF." We just do things because it needs to be done.

That's another thing. It was really very, very helpful for me to be in Cairo, Bob and Steve [Stephen L. Cochi, MD, MPH], even [R.] Bruce Aylward [MD, MPH]. I was really very lucky. There was nothing that we proposed and was not accepted.

Again, because of the system that we put [in place], I was able to also go out to other places. Like I went to Nigeria for almost two years to lead the vaccination over there, too. Not to lead the program, but to bring back the program because the program had been through a very tough time of full rejection by the Muslim community in the north.

CRAWFORD: Could you talk about that, reinvigorating polio activities in Nigeria?

DURRY: Yes. It's one of the dark times of polio eradication where few people, not even religion, but a few people can really derail what has been achieved. The fact that the northern community--I think I kept saying this so many times. It's really the community. Everything has to be community-based. If you don't do it community-based, then others have a very good reason of blaming you of not the right thing. It started with a simple argument, but then it reached the level where not only the religious group, but the administrative structure, which is the governors, the cultural structure, which is the emir, three major [restrictions] when they came out and they said, "OK, we're not going to immunize." For sure, nobody would be immunized.

That had led to almost twenty-three countries being re-infected because they stopped immunization because of--well, it's a [inaudible], but I went there to put the program back once they were all in agreement in a big way, after convincing them to take them to [inaudible]. I was given the task of re-staffing the program. Again, that is also the same way I look at things: what are the main issues? How do we overcome those big problems?

For two or three years, the population was really given this very strong opinion by, as I said, by three major organizations, major community organizations. It was not easy to get the acceptance of vaccination very quickly.

But then again, also, like I was doing in other places, we really put a system [in place] across the board that would be able to manage issues at the lowest level, but supporting it all the way up, like what we'd done in Pakistan, in Somalia, and South Sudan. We really put a WHO structure [in place] that is based on the--we were selecting who we sent where, and according to what the culture is, the capacity and all, just to create that, again, close community relationship. It took a long, long time to bring it back, but there it was a little bit more rough and tough, also. We had a national program manager who was really, also, very tough.

CRAWFORD: Who was that?

DURRY: Dere Awosika. She was from a military family and military herself.

CRAWFORD: Could you give an example of her toughness?

DURRY: Oh, she couldn't care less about who you are. Governor, deputy governor. When she stands and she wants things to be done, she makes sure--and she had a very good understanding of the program. She also had a big ear by the president. Unfortunately, she was from the south, but that's what brought the whole problems.

There, also, I think the stamina that we brought in, the enthusiasm that we brought in was--and the system that we put [in place]. These infrastructures are really very important. We cannot manage a place as big as Nigeria with all the problems that come up with just having a few people here and there. You have to have a very structured system that you have control on, and you can guide it. You can advise it. You can follow it up, but you just have to have--polio is not like a Whac-A-Mole [game]. When you do it, you got to do it across the board. Unfortunately, Nigeria is still struggling. I didn't come out peacefully out of there.

CRAWFORD: What do you mean?

DURRY: [What?]

CRAWFORD: What do you mean?

DURRY: I had to stand up with the minister--against the minister. This lady, Dr. Awosika, I told you. She was not the most-liked person by international NGOs or by the minister himself because she was really tough. There was some accusation that they had on her. The president was asked to remove her, and after a long back and forth, one day he removed her.

I went and I told him [the president], "You're making a mistake." They brought her back because we were doing a measles campaign that could not be compromised, and nobody else could do it other than her. When the minister knew I was the one who brought her back--well, actually, I just didn't go back because Somalia also had a problem, but he [the Minister of Health] was really not happy that I interfered in a ministerial decision, going to the president with nobody's permission.

CRAWFORD: Did you just walk up there and go in?

DURRY: No. His wife died, and there was a church ceremony for her. I was just one of those who could get in, and we had two minutes to discuss. I told him, "You're making a mistake, and whatever they tell you, it's not right. At least leave her until the measles campaign is complete," because for the first time, we were planning to immunize fifty-six million children with measles vaccine. Usually, you do like one million, two million. No one could pull that [off] if it was not her. At that time, the measles outbreak was so, so brutal.

He left her. I was never told that I was not needed, but they told me. [Laughs] Yes. That was worthwhile because we could not have saved that many children without her.

That's what I'm telling you. When I was asked, and I said--even the WHO asked me, "How come you go to the president?" I said, "Look, all of you think that you're my bosses. You're not. The bosses are the kids. I'm just reporting to you, but whatever they need to be safe, I will do it."

CRAWFORD: How did people respond to that?

DURRY: Some thought I'm crazy. Some thought I'm [inaudible]. A lot of them, crazy.

This is not work that--I mean, I told you before, when we go out, we go out to serve. When we serve, we are not--what I mean by that is it is not to our advantage. If I work in immunization, and if I need to say that this is what I do for children, then the first people that I will be accountable for is those children, who I say that I serve. Everybody else is in the middle, I don't know where they come from, what they want, and what is their agenda, but [what] I want for is to--you can be anything you want in between. At the end, what I do has really to be really serving those communities or the people that you say you serve. I don't know where to buy life. You just tell it as it is, and do what you have to do, and then move on, but with that really strong will to serve the children.

For that, also, you have to know what you need to do. Sometimes you may be right. Sometimes you may be wrong. Most of the time, problems come back with this collateral damage that people who are doing something with you are bringing with them. That could be a president. That could be a minister, too.

CRAWFORD: Everyone makes mistakes.

DURRY: Or everyone has his own agenda. I don't mean you have to go out and really open the fights, but when necessary--

It's funny. This is a Pakistani issue, but we had a big meeting in Pakistan with the chief minister sitting--the chief minister is like the governor--with all the mayors sitting. We were here. This is like a debriefing of an activity.

After they finished, he asked one of my staff, "What do you think? What do you have to say?" Then my staff says, somebody who worked with me for twenty years, more than twenty years, my staff said, "Yes, Chief Minister, some people are not taking their job seriously--or they're not doing what they're supposed to do. For that reason, we run around, like up and down. We do so many things that we should not have done."

Then the chief minister says--he thought, now, how many he was going to give him, a name of one of the mayors. Say, "Who is this? Who is this?" Then my staff says, "It's you, sir." You know what I mean? We had that kind of ways of saying it, but without being rude. Then he explained to him, "This is the first time you called us for this meeting. If you had done this before, all of us that [have] been running all the districts to convince the mayors would not have been done." So again.

Then the chief minister said, "OK." He pulled out his phone and said, "Give me your number." He called the number, and he said, "Call me when you need me."

Then the staff says, "No, I don't want to call you. You, now, you from your own side, come up with a way of following up. It's not I call you, that--because it's then for me that we have to go all these thirty districts to take care. Please take your responsibility." That's what I wanted to say. We were asking for that kind of straightforward accountability.

CRAWFORD: Was that unlike the accountability that you--I'm assuming you required at other levels within the program?

DURRY: Yes. Sometimes we don't want to argue, or we say--we have no problem going to a governor. Some people have a problem even going to see an EPI manager. It's the attitude that you come in with. The only way that the EPI manager listens to you better is if he knows that you don't have to wait for--he doesn't put you on his waiting room and then tells you, "No, no."

I don't mean that you need to be above, but I think polio also is not a minister-of-health-only initiative. You require all ministries to go. It's really a huge program. It's not the minister of health by itself. You need the minister of Religious Affairs, Ministry of Information, Ministry of--so to get all of those ministries to really be part of it, you can't just be with one ministry. You have to go above. That's why we go to governors and so on. We actually raised that--how can I say it?--[level of] who you work with. Usually, we just work with the minister of health at the lowest level. That doesn't work. Just to make sure that everything happens, you need to go to the appropriate level to make that happen. How do you bring all governors together? You need to go to the president.

It is much easier once they are convinced, once they say they will take it on. In Nigeria, we had governors in a meeting almost every month that is called by the president. Every month or every three months. I don't remember. The governor has to do the same thing. Although it was still in the middle of suspicion of whether they were still convinced to immunize or not, but that's how we started. Now, actually, it's even better.

CRAWFORD: When you left Nigeria, what happened after you had said, "Don't remove this person?"

DURRY: But then, immediately, I had to come back to Somalia, also because there was importation of cases. That was the end of 2015.

CRAWFORD: OK. End of 2015.

DURRY: Somalia was in the middle of importation outbreak.

CRAWFORD: You left the Horn of Africa and returned to Atlanta in July of 2006?

DURRY: Two thousand and five, I'm sorry.

CRAWFORD: OK. Got it. Got it. Got it. Yes, I thought my chronology is off there. What led to you returning here?

DURRY: I'd been there for, across all rules and regulations on how much somebody would be able to stay, but for ten years. Couldn't have stayed more. I needed to come back, too.

CRAWFORD: Is that because of the five-year limits?

DURRY: I was ten years out.

CRAWFORD: Right, but--OK.

DURRY: But I think also it was a good--not--there is no break, but just to come out of carrying on the shoulder this big program. I wanted to take a little bit of a break, two years. Then I went back out to South Sudan for a year. Then I went into this big Pakistan adventure. But no more.

CRAWFORD: You're here now.

Anne-Reneé Heningburg, we were brainstorming, looking at the list of interviewees for this project, and she had a great idea. She said, "I wonder if we should include children who had been out in-country with their parents who were working?" I wanted to see if you have any stories about your children being in-country with you.

DURRY: Well, they grew up with polio, so they know polio in and out like nothing. They didn't like it. It's not that they didn't like it. They're proud of what we do and everything. They were part of it because every time I go, wherever I go, my home becomes the office. They are friends with everybody, so everybody, they know. At the end of the day, whether it is on a daily basis or weekend, everybody comes home, so they have now a big family of my colleagues, who we were working together all the time. They keep in contact with them.

I think the one thing I remember is back when I was in Yemen--I don't know which year. They were small at that time, so I told him, "OK." For the first time, I wanted to take them to Ethiopia. Then, Sarah [Durry], I don't know how old she was. Eight, nine, or something like that. She says, "Daddy, is there polio in Ethiopia?" I told her, "I don't know. Probably is. Of course, there is." Then she says, "No, no, no." She does not want to go anywhere for a vacation where there is polio. [Laughs] She thinks that if I go there, I will be also busy with working in polio. I don't know what they feel, but I think they were OK with a lot of things that were happening around them, although it was so much for them.

Of course, it gives them opportunity to be in different places, but with us, specifically with me because of that closeness with all of the other staff that I had that we were close [with]. They also had a big family that they know. It opened their eyes in a lot of ways. Then Sarah can tell you a lot, how even now she's doing a master's in development here at Emory [University]. Sometimes, she gives examples of what she saw, what development means. Development is not just a science and a management. Development is really to understand exactly who you are working for, who you are serving, and how you are doing it, all of these things. She really has now a very, very healthy thinking of what it means, working in development. That comes from seeing what we were doing.

CRAWFORD: And how you were doing it.

DURRY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: What are we missing? We can never get it all in two hours.

DURRY: I think it's OK. What's the next one? Do you have anything more coming?

CRAWFORD: We have one more scheduled for a week from today, actually, same time. That would be about Pakistan.

DURRY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: Yes. Yes. Does this make sense as a stopping point you think?

DURRY: Yes.

CRAWFORD: OK. Thank you.

DURRY: You're welcome. You're welcome.

CRAWFORD: See you next week.

DURRY: See you next week.