Some random musings this evening, I'm tired and want to go to bed soon. I woke up at 4:30 this morning for some unknown reason (probably because I had to go to the bathroom!) and I thought "Oh well, I can go on the Intenet for a while" but when I came downstairs there were already two people on the Internet. "Arggghhh" as Charlie Brown would say.
Today I went to meet the Charge D'Affairs at the Canadian Embassy and had a pleasant chat with him and two of his staff. He commented favourably on the fact I brought a book with me, he said its a good habit to get into as we do a lot of waiting here. Sure enough, I have to wait for two hours for my ride back to UN headquarters after our meeting, I read about 4 chapters plus a Maclean's magazine they had at the Embassy.
We didn't have our driver tests yesterday, we had some practise driving the four wheel drives and preparing for our driver's tests tomorrow. That's one more hurdle to overcome before we can move down to Juba. I'm not sure what I'll be doing yet, hopefully supervising a bunch of UN police who are mentoring a bunch of South Sudanese police, accompanying them on their patrols, watching how they do police work and making suggestions on how it could be improved. Its going to be a slow process. We've been in Kosovo for 10 years, this is going to take at least as long...
A few of you have commented on the danger in being here. There is a risk to being here, no doubt, there are lots of people running around the countryside with guns, none of which are us, we are unarmed, and every so often we hear of UN people being robbed or much less frequently, killed. The only UN soldiers with guns are what are called the Force Protection units; in Khartom they are from Rawanda of all places and they guard the UN facilities and can shoot back if they are attacked. We just have to be docile and not resist robberies, ambushes etc. Yeah I know, that's not very reassuring. Yeah, I did volunteer for this. I minimize the danger but it is there.
My spare time here has been filled with laundry, working out to get back into shape, shopping and cooking, and trying to stay cool, the heat is unrelenting here. I don't go out much, we stand out because we are white and the danger here is mainly after dark from common criminaliy, during the day I don't feel insecure. Besides, once I'm in an air conditioned place I don't want to leave it. It doesn't cool down much in the evenings this time of year.
There's not much greenery around here although occasionally I see people watering lawns and gardens. Come to think of it, that is only at the UN compound I see that happening, and usually mid morning when the water evaporates right away!
The way my schedule works is that I work continually with no days off for a month and then get six days off, which I will probably spend in Cairo or Amman, Jordan or somewhere like that, somewhere where they have good food and cold beer and soft beds. For one set of days off I may go to the Egyptian resort of Sharm-el-Shaik (sp?) as well, yes to overeat and overdrink and oversleep. Nothing against my roommate but it would be nice not to wake up to a freezing cold room from the airconditioning or snoring!
I'm going to head off to bed. Hopefully I'll have more ambition tomorrow and I'll download some pictures off my camera to post on my blog.
Wayne
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
Good to hear that you're doing well Wayne (I thought you were in shape already!). I was about to call on Raj for your coordinates.
Now, as for your monthly leave, Sharm al Shaikh is exquisite. But for food, drink and shopping, Damascus is unbeatable. You'll probably bump into a few members of the CF that are deployed to the Syrian occupied Golan who drive to Damascus for their leave. Once you are ther e, Beirut would be a stone's throw away.
Here's a tip for Damascus and Beirut: take an afternoon nap while there, in order to be able to keep up with the locals who socialize until late hours.
Post a Comment