About a week before they flew home to Canada, the rest of the Canadian Police contingent gathered in Juba, the regional headquarters for the south of Sudan, to begin the checkout process. This involved handing over any equipment, vehicles etc. that were in their name to someone else and making sure they had no inventory left in their name, checking out of their UN accommodation, packing up their luggage and having it shipped to Khartoum to be in turn shipped back to Canada etc.
In the midst of all this frantic activity, we found the time to have a going away party for ourselves and our friends in Juba. In addition to the usual group pictures, we did the obligatory group hug, posed with our friends the Swedes, and mugged it up for the camera. You'll notice that I'm holding a Sprite can in these photos which is all I drank that night as I was driving non-UN people home after the party. No good deed goes unpunished though, because I wouldn't go in the makeshift pool with them after the party and left to take the non-UN people home instead, my contingent mates showed up at my container at 4:00 AM trying to get me to have one more drink with them. What a bunch. But they are obviously happy about going home.
The end was drawing near, and I was having mixed feelings about that.
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