Look up "intense" in the dictionary and it will probably say to take with a grain of salt anything that has the word "intense" in it!

I was lying in my bed at 4:30 this morning trying to get back to sleep (had to go to the bathroom, only good thing about Khartoum was that because I sweated so much there I rarely had to go to the bathroom during the night) and I started thinking about what I should put in my blog. I’m going to try to follow my stream of thought of 4:30 this morning because it was profound, believe me.

I started thinking about an intense feeling of loneliness I felt right after supper; I had cooked for Jas and I and after he left to go to work (he works shifts in Regional Headquarters Operations), I was just sitting at my table, thinking how good it felt to not be rushing off somewhere when this intense loneliness rolled over me like a wave, it was like I didn’t have a friend in the world. In addition to depressing me, it confused me since I’ve been going almost non-stop since Heba got here on Thursday. I was getting up at 3:30 and 4:30 in the morning trying to get an Admin project ready for Saturday in addition to doing Charita, my Personnel Officer’s duties, staying up late every night talking and drinking, Scott was in town from Wau (pronounced “Wow” for a training seminar so I was trying to see him as much as possible for lunch and dinner and our evening beers, we’d gone out for dinner every night (including a great restaurant on the banks of the Nile, Da Vinci’s, the nicest one I’ve yet been to in Sudan), that was another beautiful evening, Bill Kelly, the ex-RCMP from Nova Scotia who is in charge of UN Security here was hilarious as usual, there was live music, Mark Goode, a good Australian bloke was along as well and his usual charming, witty self, the food was very good etc. Friday night Scott and Jas and I just wandered around the camp here inviting ourselves in where ever we found people sitting around and talking to them, we finally ended up speaking with the Germans and the Austrians (at least I think that was German we were speaking), Mark offered to go pick up Heba who was doing an interview in Juba somewhere so he left, then I got really tired around 11, went to sleep for a while, then got up at 1 and went for a couple of dances at Plan B, the gathering spot on the UN base here where there is usually music and dancing on Friday nights. To go back a bit, Mark didn’t come back to the Germans’ containers before I went to sleep so I was wondering where he’d dragged Heba off to and lo and behold, I run into Mark at Plan B and he tells me that on the Airport Road the way to pick up Heba he got held up by three men with AK47 assault rifles who demanded money. Mark had a Sudanese National employee here at the base who he was giving a ride home to and this person talked the three men out of whatever they were going to do and Mark got the hell out of there. This has happened before, as a matter of fact one of the Canadian Military Observers (UNMOs) who had been posted to Juba too, Chakar, had had the same thing happen to him earlier this year. (Melanie, if you are reading this, this is why you can’t come to visit me in Sudan. Not yet. Someday I’ll bring you back here, but not yet) Enyways, Mark was telling me this and I’m flash-thinking “Holy God, when he left the Germans’ container that could have been the last time I saw him alive!”, you know the fragility of life and finality of events and all that. That got us talking about being shot and having guns pointed at us and policing stuff like that. That set off a round of me telling him how glad I was that he was okay and “I love you man” and all the usual shit men tell each other when they’ve had too much to drink (and women think they have it tough!). And Mark had to go ruin the moment by trying to kiss me the stupid &%#^@$&$^. (He was just joking, trying to lighten up the moment, don’t you all go thinking we’re discovering unexplored aspects of our sexuality or anything, women still aren’t safe around us. Well. Well, okay, women still aren’t safe around Mark, with me they’re more likely to be puzzled to death.

So all to say, its been an intense couple of days. I’m glad Charita is back. I can go back to sleep during the day now.