(The photos: # 1, every father's worst nightmare, Mark Goode with my daughters (they liked him a lot, #2 all of us out for dinner with Mark, he was stopping over in London on the way to visit his grandparents (he told me he loved me again, when he was drinking of course), # 3 having lunch in a nice restaurant in Paris, # 4 beneath the Eiffel Tower, # 5 on top of the Eiffel Tower doing the obligatory silly face picture, just after I called my mom on my cell phone to wish her a happy birthday (I got the answering machine!)Well the vacation is over, we got to Disneyland Paris so we’re three-fifths of the way to our goal of going to every Disneyland on the planet; we saw two very good plays (the second one was Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat, Sandra and I saw it in Vancouver years ago and really liked it, we’ve wanted to take our girls to see it ever since but it never came to Canada or anywhere near in the US again; when we got to London I noticed it was playing there so we got tickets and as we suspected the girls all liked it a lot too. A great night out).
I know I said I’d have lots of time to update my blog on holidays, well it didn’t turn out that way, I got up at 6:00 or 7:00, way ahead of everyone else but I was reluctant to use the laptop and the wireless Internet in our room (we stayed in a Hostel-one room-bunk beds) in case I woke everyone else up, so I went and got a coffee and read my novel or listened to my mp3 player in the park outside our hostel, a couple of mornings I did some laundry at a nearby Laundromat, a treat for me as I didn’t have to wash my underwear and socks by hand for a change. And hang them all over the place to dry.
I enjoyed seeing and being with and talking to the girls a lot; I didn’t realize I missed them as much as I did until I saw them. I think I held it together with them except for one conversation we had, just the four of us, at breakfast one morning when I was telling them what I want to do with the rest of my life. I got kind of emotional in that, couldn’t finish what I was saying. And on the day I left to fly back to Sudan, I was walking around Harrod’s Dept. Store looking for them but couldn’t find them and I got quite teary eyed about leaving them again and not seeing them for another four months (our next family Reunion trip is in Jan., to Egypt.). I can tell you all this in the blog because they told me on this trip that they don’t read my blog, the rats! Enyways, it was a good trip, I loved being able to go to a nearby bakery in the morning to get coffee and a pastry while they all slept until 10 or 11; getting a good haircut for a change from an actual hair stylist (no offence Jas, but your buzz cuts just aren’t very flattering on me); being able to get around easily on public transportation, public bathrooms with soap and towels; healthy food handling practices and conditions in restaurants that mean not getting sick after you eat; good coffee instead of the instant coffee they serve everywhere here; chocolate desserts; things I really took for granted before the mission.
I have to give credit to Sandra here, I was so fed up with dealing with our (RCMP) administration trying to organize our Family Reunion trip that I gave up, I was prepared to not go on one, it was just an exercise in frustration for me. I get enough frustration in my life here, thank you very much. But Sandra took the initiative and got the trip approved and got the airfares for all of us, so I owe her a lot of thanks, the trip would not have happened if it wasn’t for her. I’m glad now obviously that we did go, it was a lot of fun, like when we traveled with the kids when they were little, we’d get one motel room and there would kids sleeping all over the floor, not an inch of free space anywhere. Good times, great memories. Mind you I was exhausted by 11 PM and fell into bed and slept, Sandra tells me the girls stayed up till 2 or more talking and laughing, waking her up repeatedly. I never woke up at all. Too tired.
Alas I found out while on my holiday that I’ve been transferred to a new job here in Juba, one that I don’t want and have let be known several times that I don’t want, so I suspect my enjoyment of the mission and Juba is about to change significantly; in fact if it turns out the way I think it will I’ll be requesting a move to Khartoum in the near future to help orient new Canadian police coming to the mission. I don’t want to go to Khartoum, I like Juba a lot but it’s the lesser of two evils as far as I’m concerned. Such is life, don’t enjoy it too much, it will change on you if you do (that’s my one and only superstition, actually, I try to never get too happy or too contented in anything because that guarantees its gonna change and not for the better. I forgot about that unfortunately).
I know I said I’d have lots of time to update my blog on holidays, well it didn’t turn out that way, I got up at 6:00 or 7:00, way ahead of everyone else but I was reluctant to use the laptop and the wireless Internet in our room (we stayed in a Hostel-one room-bunk beds) in case I woke everyone else up, so I went and got a coffee and read my novel or listened to my mp3 player in the park outside our hostel, a couple of mornings I did some laundry at a nearby Laundromat, a treat for me as I didn’t have to wash my underwear and socks by hand for a change. And hang them all over the place to dry.
I enjoyed seeing and being with and talking to the girls a lot; I didn’t realize I missed them as much as I did until I saw them. I think I held it together with them except for one conversation we had, just the four of us, at breakfast one morning when I was telling them what I want to do with the rest of my life. I got kind of emotional in that, couldn’t finish what I was saying. And on the day I left to fly back to Sudan, I was walking around Harrod’s Dept. Store looking for them but couldn’t find them and I got quite teary eyed about leaving them again and not seeing them for another four months (our next family Reunion trip is in Jan., to Egypt.). I can tell you all this in the blog because they told me on this trip that they don’t read my blog, the rats! Enyways, it was a good trip, I loved being able to go to a nearby bakery in the morning to get coffee and a pastry while they all slept until 10 or 11; getting a good haircut for a change from an actual hair stylist (no offence Jas, but your buzz cuts just aren’t very flattering on me); being able to get around easily on public transportation, public bathrooms with soap and towels; healthy food handling practices and conditions in restaurants that mean not getting sick after you eat; good coffee instead of the instant coffee they serve everywhere here; chocolate desserts; things I really took for granted before the mission.
I have to give credit to Sandra here, I was so fed up with dealing with our (RCMP) administration trying to organize our Family Reunion trip that I gave up, I was prepared to not go on one, it was just an exercise in frustration for me. I get enough frustration in my life here, thank you very much. But Sandra took the initiative and got the trip approved and got the airfares for all of us, so I owe her a lot of thanks, the trip would not have happened if it wasn’t for her. I’m glad now obviously that we did go, it was a lot of fun, like when we traveled with the kids when they were little, we’d get one motel room and there would kids sleeping all over the floor, not an inch of free space anywhere. Good times, great memories. Mind you I was exhausted by 11 PM and fell into bed and slept, Sandra tells me the girls stayed up till 2 or more talking and laughing, waking her up repeatedly. I never woke up at all. Too tired.
Alas I found out while on my holiday that I’ve been transferred to a new job here in Juba, one that I don’t want and have let be known several times that I don’t want, so I suspect my enjoyment of the mission and Juba is about to change significantly; in fact if it turns out the way I think it will I’ll be requesting a move to Khartoum in the near future to help orient new Canadian police coming to the mission. I don’t want to go to Khartoum, I like Juba a lot but it’s the lesser of two evils as far as I’m concerned. Such is life, don’t enjoy it too much, it will change on you if you do (that’s my one and only superstition, actually, I try to never get too happy or too contented in anything because that guarantees its gonna change and not for the better. I forgot about that unfortunately).
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