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!