Another End of Mission party

It seems that every week another group heads home at the end of their mission.

Yesterday it was the Filipinos and one Indian officer, so we had a party to send them off, which naturally turned into a karaoke sing along. In the first photo I'm having a laugh with Femi from Nigeria about how foolish people look and sound when they sing karaoke. In the second photo Femi and I and one of the Filipinos are singing some song, I can't remember what it was. It didn't sound like it was supposed to sound, what ever it was. It might have been Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree. Maybe.

In the third photo, we're having a group sing-along, Elizabeth from Zimbabwe, the Filipino guy who's name I can't remember, Christine from Uganda, Betty from Kenya, Zanet from Bosnia, Hugo from El Salvador, Edwin from the Philipines, ours truly, Regis from Zimbabwe, Martin from Ghana, and Ashmiu from Nigeria (who always greets me with a shout of "God Bless Canada!" whenever I see him). No idea what we were singing that time either.

Christine, Betty, Regis and Lorena from the Philipines and I sang another song. Sorry, can't remember the title of it either. I can remember one song I sang, I had to sing one song by myself and I wanted it to be a Canadian song so the only Canadian song I could find in the karaoke songbook (except Celine Dion songs which I can't sing) was Anne Murray's Snowbird. It didn't sound like Snowbird but nobody else had ever heard it before anyway so it didn't matter.

Last picture was a couple of other Canadians here in Juba; Ryan and Greg, on Christmas Day. I didn't have room in my Christmas Day posting for that one but its a good photo.

Some photos from Christmas

The Internet hasn't been working here since Christmas Eve. This is how I spent my Christmas in the 40 degree Celsius heat during the day (but pleasantly in the 20s in the evenings).

Top picture is me celebrating having baked a chocolate cake for the Christmas Eve potluck party. My mom thought I wasn't paying attention all those times she baked cakes when I was young! The only shortcoming was the icing, I had to use real sugar and I didn't stir it enough, it was still kind of granular. My thanks to Dawn the UNMO who left me the cake mixes when I arrived in Juba and she was leaving, and my friend Betty for the Santa Clause hat.

Second photo is the Christmas Eve party. I was going to go t midnight mass afterward but of course I didn't make it there.

Third photo is Christmas morning, I was invited to the Filipino Christmas Mass as they are all Catholic. I baked another cake for the lunch afterward, got up at 7:00 o' clock to do it, but the cake hadn't cooled down when I put icing on it so the icing ran a bit in the back of the police vehicle....Thanks again Dawn for the cakes and the cocoa which I used to make the icing.

Enyways, in this photo I'm arriving at the convent where the mass was held with my cakes.

Fourth photo is me talking to someone right after mass; of course all the Filipinos broke out their cameras and started taking pictures. They are the only Christian nation in Asia which makes them unique but they are so typically Asian, taking millions of pictures at every event and eating rice with everything.

And the fifth photo is me doing the dishes for the Sisters so they wouldn't have to do them. It took about an hour. And after that? Karaoke of course! It was a Filipino Christmas Mass after all.

Christmas Eve - A fitting time to talk about my trip to the Church of the Nativity

After going to Jerusalem, I went to the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Hard to believe I was walking around the area where it all began!

I had to pass into the Palestinian territory for that, it was an experience, the huge wall, walking though a concrete and steel checkpoint with Israeli soldiers patrolling on catwalks up above, fingers on the trigger (my God, they're young, Israel has compulsory military service, these are 18 and 19 year olds). No pictures of that, sorry, not allowed to take any.

After a 1 kilometer walk into the town (the taxi drivers said it was six kilometers to the church so we pilgrims would hire them) you arrive at Nativity Square. The first picture is me standing in the square with the Church of the Nativity in the background. According to legend, this is where Jesus was born 2000-odd years ago. A small little square door you have to squeeze under to get into the church is visible at the bottom of the wall.

The second photo is me inside the church after squeezing under that small door with my backpack on my back. I was struck at the mixture of styles of the three Churches inside, Orthodox, Franciscan Catholic and I can't remember the other one.

And the representatives of so many different Christian sects, that's what also struck me in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, all the Orthodox and Protestant denominations and the Roman Catholics too of course, and Coptic Christians and I couldn't keep track of them all. All manner of dress, priests and monks and brothers and nuns of every size and description, all united by their belief in Jesus Christ.

After a couple of hours visiting the church, I walked back to the border checkpoint, pausing to buy some fresh flat bread from a bakery and to buy a souvenir for my mom. Palestine obviously looks poorer than Israel. But I didn't feel nervous when I was there, other than trying to get me to spend my money they left me alone.

Merry Christmas everybody from a land that is just experiencing peace after 40 years of war, off and on. Lets hope for peace next year too for Sudan and Palestine and Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo and .....

Odds and Ends

A few more pictures from November that I was unable to post at the time. # 1 is Rory Goncalves, Bill Kelly and I at Trivia Night at one of our favourite restaurants in Juba. Our team came second on this particular night. Rory was in Juba on his way from Yambio Team Site in the southwest corner of Sudan (via Maridi Team Site) to Torit Team Site in the southeast corner of Sudan, a move he requested himself to get a change of scenery. He was stuck here for a couple of days waiting for his flight, hence the look of chagrin on his face hanging around with us old guys who have to be in bed by 10:00 o'clock at night.

The second picture is me doing my dishes in my "kitchen" which is really one end of my container, the end where all the dirty dishes are. I have to walk about 100 meters to the real kitchen where the sinks and stoves are, where I wash my dishes, bake my bran muffens (thanks to Mom and sister Sandra and Betty for sending me some mix), etc. Courtesy of Dawn Boudreau, a Canadian UNMO who went home in June, I have a hot plate to cook on in my container but any baking I have to do in the camp kitchen. The oven is so dirty, that when I open the door to check on my muffins the smoke just pours out lol. It gives the muffins a nice, smoky taste!

Picture 3 is me trying to get my tv to work (it still doesn't). For some reason the camp management bought a bunch of cheap tvs for the residential containers but there are no tv signals to pick up here, no cable or satellite dishes for the residences and I can't hook my laptop up to it to watch movies because it only has the old audio-video input plugs and of course my newer laptop only has s-video and USB outputs. It looks real good on top of my barrack boxes though.

Last picture is me at the most popular pizza restaurant in town, the Oasis, an outdoor venue in which we sit in various tukuls (open-sided huts with thatched roofs). Yes Tony, that is another beer bottle in my hand. Tusker beer from Kenya, its my favorite brand of beer now (and it comes in 500 ml bottles!!). Notice the good-looking Ocean Pacific shirt I'm wearing, which I bought on my Family Reunion Trip to London in August.

Duty trip to Aweil (pronounced "Away-ell"

While in Wau (pronounced "Wow"), my boss Cyprian and I accompanied the Sector Commander, Jili Shi (pronounced Jilly-she) of China (pronounced "Chy-na") on a road trip to Aweil. This entailed a two hour drive on a dusty gravel road to get there. We were going to see how the UN Police there conduct the on-the-job or co-location training of the South Sudan Police there.

In the first picture, Cyprian, Jili and I are posing with the UN Police Team Site Leader in Aweil, a Zimbabwean whose name I can't remember unfortunately, in front of his office.

We then went to the Aweil Police Station and while we were there, the SSPS officers on duty heard I was Canadian and they all wanted their picture taken with me. I'm still scratching my head over that one, unless they all want to emigrate to Canada at some point and thought having their picture taken with me would help!

In the third photo, Cyprian and I are posing with the SSPS police station commander and the Aweil Team Site Leader again.

Jili Shi arranged for us to have a delicious lunch courtesy of the Chinese Army Engineering Company also based in Aweil. They were very hospitable and served us a mountain of food, including fried chicken, fried fish, beets, pumpkin, nuts, pears and rice of course. That and a couple of cokes made me contented, I tell you. I didn't mind the drive back that afternoon at all.

I forgot to mention yesterday that the SSPS Police Station Commander in Wau was a woman, which surprised me as Sudan is a very patriarchal country and the SSPS a very patriarchal police service. She was very bright and I was very impressed with her. I was telling her after our hour-long meeting that I was glad to see her in the role of Police Station Commander as this holds out some visible hope for the young women of South Sudan to break into the male dominated fields like policing. She thanked me and told me that she has a sister living in Calgary! Small world again.

Duty trip to Wau

I'm going to jump around in my posts a bit because I have some pictures with me at the office of my duty trip to Wau in Nov., before I went on my trip to Israel, Egypt and Jordan. I wasn't able to post the pictures at the time but I seem to be able to now for some reason. Gremlins!

Wau is a couple of hours flight northwest of Juba where I am. Charles Obeng from our contingent is posted there; Charles of course is from Ottawa too, assigned to the Prime Minister's Protection Detail before he was released for this mission. And Scott Burge, who went home to Alberta on Nov. 18th, just before we got there, spent his six months in Wau. And a couple of fun Canadian UNMOs (UN Military Observers), Donna Wendell and Catherine MacDonald, are posted there. My boss Cyprian Gatete of Rawanda and I went there to review the co-location activities (on-the-job training of South Sudan Police Officers by UN Police Officers) at the Sector Headquarters in Wau and the Team Sites in Wau, Warrab and Aweil.

Enyways, the first picture is of Wau City or town, I guess its a city but its laid out like a town. Notice the red earth. Its dry there and the dirt becomes really dusty and clothes get really red from walking around there, even for just three days, especially my boots. They're still red from the dust.

The second picture is the UN Employees Accommodation Camp in Wau. Notice how far apart the containers are from each other compared to Juba. Also notice that there is no vegetation in the Accommodation Camp. Lots of red dust though.

The third picture is the creek in Wau. Notice that people drive their vehicles into the creek to wash them. They're probably washing the red dust off them.

The fourth picture is Charles and I. Charles was a very good host while I was there. He prepared a dinner of spaghetti the first night I was there that was so good we ate the leftovers for dinner on the second night; and I would have eaten it again on the third night but there was none left by then. You taught him well, Victoria, he is a very good cook (of spaghetti sauce, anyway).

The fifth picture is my boss Cyprian and I outside the Wau Police Station. More red dust.

There is a very active social life for the UN staff in Wau; I can see why Scott and Charles liked it so much there and didn't want to move anywhere else. In fact, I arrived in time on the Sunday night for their weekly flag football game, and after scoring a touchdown and dropping another sure touchdown, I promptly tore or strained the hamstring in my right leg trying to catch up to a 30something year old for the other team. It hurt so bad I thought I was going to pass out! I limped for about two weeks after that and had a big bruise on the back of my leg. Sigh. Chalk me up as another 50something hurting himself trying to keep up with a 30something. What happened was I tried to kick it up into another gear when I was chasing her because she could run faster than me and I don't have another gear any more!

Tomorrow I'll talk about our two hour drive to Aweil team Site.

At last - photos of Jerusalem

I was able to post a few pictures of my recent trip to Jerusalem. The first two give you an idea of what its like in the Old City, its is walled all around and almost exclusively made of stone! There is no bare earth or wood, its all stone, and the passageways are all narrow. The third one is me beside the grave of Oscar Schindler of Schindler's List fame. You may remember at the end of the movie that some of the people he saved placed rocks on his grave, that's where I'm standing, beside his grave. And there are lots of rocks on it!

The fourth and fifth photos are from the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City. This is believed to be the site of Jesus' crucifixion on Cavalry, where his body was lain when it was taken down off the cross (in the fifth picture I'm kneeling beside it) and where the tomb was located in which his body was placed. These sites are all in the Church, which is really an amalgamation of a number of churches. Very moving place to be. There were Franciscan monks walking around singing and several processions which I never figured out what they were for and a lot of people.

The Old City contains this church, the Al Aqsa Mosque which is the third holiest place in Islam and the Western Wall which is sacred to the Jews. Although there were soldiers everywhere (and are they ever young! 18-19 years old) the security measures didn't feel that severe. Probably because it was relatively peaceful at the time. It felt good to be going there as a UN peacekeeper.

Wow, only one week till Christmas!

I just got back from a trip to Israel, Jordan and Egypt and I still can't post any ?!$%+#& pictures to my blog. I have some great pictures to post from my holiday but I can't. Oh well. Tomorrow is the completion of my seventh month here in Sudan. It has gone by so fast, its unbelievable.

But it doesn't feel like Christmas to me, the temperaure has been really hot here and I've only seen one set of Christmas lights in the camp in Juba. It was kind of disconcerting to see Santa Clauses and Christmas trees in Egypt and Jordan, I didn't expect to see those symbols in Muslim countries.

I'll post some pictures about my trip when I figure out what's preventing it.

At last, some pictures!!

A few pictures from the last few weeks. The first is my friend Scott Burge who is now back in Alberta wondering where the six months went, I'm sure. That's a classic picture of the South Sudan Police Service officer looking down the barrel of his gun. We didn't teach him that!!

The next picture is me trying to convince a Ugandan police woman, Christine Alalo, to dance the LA Walk ( a kind of line dance for pop music) with me at a transfer party (she wouldn't, I had to dance it by myself!)

The last three are from a SSPS computer class graduation ceremony, I urged them to continue their learning and accept all the help they can get from the UN Police (they are reluctant to accept our help sometimes) and I reminded them that we have Namibian and Rwandan and Bosnian police officers in our mission who not so long ago had their own UN missions rebuiliding their police services, so the SSPS turn will come someday to help rebuild other countries' police services (maybe Somolia??)

Burge out.

That may seem like an odd title for a blog posting but that is the way Scott Burge ended all his emails. Scott finished his mission last week and is back home in Alberta, he was the only one of us who didn't extend his mission to nine months from the original six at the request of the RCMP back in Feb.; he had a personal matter he had to be home for. While I understand that of course, I'm going to miss having him here, he had a great sense of humour and kept his perspective about what we're doing here. As when Chris Beamish left in Aug., its like one of the family (or the detachment) has moved on and left a gap behind.

I can't post pictures on my blog for some reason, I've got some good ones to show including a classic involving Scott but for some reason I don't have the option of uploading any into my blog. If any of you know how I can correct this can you let me know??

Wayne

An article by Heba (in which she quotes me, of course, why else would I mention it??)

My buddy Heba wrote a nice acticle for the Dept. of Foreign Affairs Intercultures Magazine. Here is the corrected intro from her with a link to the rest of the story. Good job Heba.

JUBA, SUDAN – In a crowded United Nations conference room in a southwestern Sudanese town called Wau, an exchange of sorts took place between two men of very different worlds who had more in common than they might have thought.

At the front of the room was Constable Charles Obeng, a Canadian originally from Ghana, on Africa's west coast. Seated among dozens of students was a young Sudanese man.

Obeng was a UN peacekeeper, deployed with five other members of the RCMP to help Sudan's southern police force build its capacity after more than two decades of civil war between the Muslim north and the mostly animist south.

The young Sudanese man was a local police officer who had lost several family members during the brutal war.

On this day, Obeng and fellow Canadian Scott Burge were training a group of some 50 Sudanese police officers on SWAT techniques. Obeng is black. Burge is white.

During a break, the young Sudanese police officer approached Obeng with a question: "Did you know Scott before you both became officers?"

http://www.dfait-maeci.gc.ca/cfsi-icse/cil-cai/magazine/magazine-en.asp?txt=1-3&lv=1

A new job...

Not long after I arrived back at work last Monday (about five minutes after, actually) I was given a new job, as the Acting Coordinator (boss) of the Strategic Advisory Team at Regional Headquarters here in Juba. The SAT advises the South Sudan Police Service on its practises, mentors it on applying the skills they've learned in our training courses etc. I was in Strategic Advisory Team for a couple of weeks in the middle of Sept. and enjoyed it.

I'm "acting" as a permanent Coordinator will be named in the next couple of weeks and I will be the second in charge of the unit.

So this is the sixth positon I've held here in the UN Mission in Sudan and I'm starting to feel I know a lot about the Mission. Enyways, things are good these days, my health is okay, I'm enjoying work again and it snowed in Ottawa last week, while I'm still walking around in shorts and sandals after work!

Back in Juba...

Well I'm back after two weeks holidays and it was just what the doctor ordered; lots of rest, lots of sleep and lots of lying around doing little or nothing. I fell asleep reading my book a lot. It was also nice to come back to the same job and not get redeployed to another one while I was gone. I'll try to post more often now that I have regular Internet access again and hopefully some interesting things to write about.

Sharm El Sheikh

Jas, Scott, Rory, Bill and I have travelled to the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El Sheikh for a little R&R. Rory and I started the day off right with a local Egyptian beer, Stella, at the Cairo Airport while waiting for our connecting flight to Sharm. Egyptian beer is good. Once we got to Sharm, we hung out in the lobby, checking out bikinis, went for breakfast, hung out at the beach checking out bikinis and went out for dinner with a Russian woman who thought we were funny. Russians have an odd sense of humour. Enyways, its great here, a combo beach holiday and Vegas-type atmosphere. And lots of bikinis.

Together again...our contingent meeting and medal parade

The six of us that started out from Ottawa in May gathered in Juba this weekend to have a contingent meeting and recieve our UN medals. First time we've all been in one room since we left Khartoum on June 12th (and the last time we will be together in Sudan as Scott heads home at the end of his mission on Nov. 18th. We all agreed its been a good experience, much different than what we were expecting after predeployment training in Ottawa. So enyways we ate dinner by the banks of the Nile again, swore we're not going to drink so much again, promised that we'll keep in touch when we get back to Canada again etc. Actually Scott has invited us to his wedding in Calgary next June, maybe we'll get together there. But that is for the return to Canada, more important things to think about now, like holidays in Egypt; Rory, Scott, Jas, Bill Kelly and I are heading there today for a little R&R.

Co-locating with the South Sudan Police

My new job involves co-locating with the South Sudan Police Service, in other words going to one of their police stations, checking up the people under detention, asking about the recent serious cases reported to them, going on patrol with them etc. We are accompanied by a language assistant (interpreter in other words) who in this case is wearing an Ottawa Lynx golf shirt that he says he bought in the market here in Juba. What a small world, huh?

The cells are primitive so on hot days like this one, the female prisoners are let out to sit in the shade and cool down. It isn't unusual to have nursing mothers and mothers with young children in the cells; there are no social service agencies here to take custody of the children. This young lady is the daughter of one of the female detainees, she came wandering over to have a better look at my partner, Mohammad, a Jordanian police officer and myself, and took a real liking to my id card. Isn't she cute? My god, I could bring a planeload of them home with me.

Ode to a cat.

Those of you who know me know how much I like cats. Enyways, I'm going to sing the praises of a cat today, Nala the pet cat of my youngest darling daughter Natalie died last week, probably over the trauma of not seeing me for nearly five months. Nala was an annoying little soul, I was always the first one up in the morning and she'd greet me when I came out of my bedroom by mewoing and meowing and meowing, and I've give her food (even though her food dish was full) and water (ditto) and open the back door for her to go out (she never did) and turn on the gas fireplace for her to lie in front of (that worked sometimes) but in general she just meowed at me until someone else got up and she went and meowed at them.

So Nala, I never understood you and I never would have no matter how long either of us lived. But Natalie loved you and you were one of her last ties to our home in Kelowna so I put up with you all those years. I'm sure that if a cat ever showed appreciation for anything, you would have showed a little to me. If.

And a little praise for Natalie here, who was always patient and knd with Nala, no matter how annoying Nala got (and she got plenty annoying, beleive me). You can tell a lot about a person by how they treat animals (except in my case, don't get not ideas), anyways Natalie is as patient and kind-hearted as they come.

Not like Melanie, we have more pictures of Melanie when she was young tormenting cats than you can shake a stick at (my grandfather's expression, I love that one).

Another teaching gig...and I've changed jobs again

Beleive it or not, before I left my last job here in Juba as an advisor on Criminal Investigation and Intelligence to the South Sudan Police Service, I was asked to do another training lecture for them, on Ethics, Code of Conduct and Discipline (if you remember my disatorous first lecture to the SSPS, nobody in the class spoke English and my interpreter didn't show up).

Enyways, with the able assistance of an able Egyptian police officer, Mohammad Hamad who did simultaneous translation for me (and added a bit of editorical comment of his own), we stretched a 45 minute class out to an hour and a half and were asked to give them even more but we ran out of time. It was a great expereince, I liked the SSPS officers a lot (even the one that fell asleep), they liked my message, that I was not there to tell them how to run their police service but this how many of our countries in the UN run ours and this is how we deal with specific problems of misconduct, neglect of duty, poor performance etc. My thanks to Mohammad for making it a useful exercise for us all.

I've included a photo of happier times, back in August when I was Chief of Administration here in Juba (and before I went on my London holiday), and was facilitating a meeting of our Team Site Leaders and Sector Commanders. I'm having a good laugh at something or other here, and my good buddy Resistant is beside me. He's in a Khartoum Hospital right now with a leg infection (and PTSD as far as I'm concerned).

I've been moved again, to Juba Team Site and I'll be working shifts, co-locating with SSPS officers at their police stations. Its a long story, one I don't intend to detail in the blog here, I'll have to tell you about this one in person. Its been a tough two weeks, I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

A few more pictures from the Medal Ceremony weekend...

After our medal ceremony, we headed back to Chris' container to discus what went wrong with the order to come to attention, then Jas spotted a neighbour giving Mark Goode a haircut so he asked for one as well and Bill Kelly helped out by pointing out every single hair that she missed, we were there till 10:00 o'clock at night (okay, I'm exagerating about that), then we went for dinner and then we went to a going away party for the Australians. That was a theme party, come as your favourite rock star, some great costumes, unfortunately I wasn't wearing one of them.

And what's going on with me currently? Well I went to another karaoke party on Friday night. Sang "Stand By Your Man". Got another 00 score. I always get 00 scores. I don't think I can sing very well. Oh well, the food was really good.