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.

Chris' medal parade

This is a posting I meant to do in Aug. after we had a medal parade here in Juba for Chris Beamish, the RCMP from Edmonton that was in Khartoum when we arrived and helped us through the first few rough weeks. He reached his end of mission on the 28th of Aug. and since he hadn't recieved his UNMIS (Sudan mission) medal yet (being the only one here in Feb.) we held it for him. These pictures are from the ceremony itself. The first picture is the four of us present at the ceremony, Jas, Scott, Chris and myself, at ease (or parade rest as everyone else calls it). This was after a rather pathetic attempt by me to bring every one to attention, naturally enough by calling "Attention!" expecting to hear the crack of four left boots hitting the floor simultaneously. Try imagining what it was like instead to hear three boots shuffle into positon beside their right counterparts instead. Disappointing only begins to describe it. I must confess I couldn't maintain my composure, I turned and looked at them and said "What was that?". Oh to have had a drill instructor with me at that moment.

At any rate, we proceeded with the ceremony, I read a brief history of the UN Peacekeeping medal and a short bio of Chris, Deputy Commissioner Yemi (after four months I still can't spell or pronounce his last name) presented Chris with his medal and certificate, and we posed for a picture, the ever-present Australian Mark Goode along with us.

Congratulations Chris. A job well done.