Then the day came, I took all my luggage to the Movcon building to have it shipped to Khartoum, vacated my living container (which is now fittingly in the hands of JP Levesque, a Canadian UNMO (UN Military Observer) posted to Juba, (fittingly, as I received most of my dishes, kitchenware, a hot plate, kettle, lots of food etc. another Canadian UNMO, Dawn Boudreau when she was finishing her mission in June, 2008, and I was happy to pass it on to another Canadian peacekeeper) and said goodbye to my co-workers and friends. That was sad too, I really enjoyed my time in Juba, made lots of good friends, had a lot of laughs and good times. Nothing stays the same, and my friends would have all gone home eventually at the end of their missions, but its depressing when good times come to an end.
I had received word the previous week that my mom was diagnosed with leukemia and was hospitalised in Ottawa. Even though the new contingent had not arrived yet, they had trouble getting entry visas for Sudan as we had, I wanted to go home right away obviously to see her.
As it was the new contingent didn’t arrive in Khartoum until March 14th. My best wishes to them, I hope they get as much out of the experience as we did (and I wouldn’t mind seeing a blog or two from them either!) I enjoyed blogging, if I hadn’t had so much trouble with the Internet I would have done it more often. There seemed to be something to talk about every day that I was in the mission.
As I said to my friend Steve today, working in poor and developing countries can be very frustrating but also very fulfilling. I sometimes wondered if I was accomplishing anything significant but I think you have to take a smaller scale view of this, we each help a few people, change their lives in meaningful ways, show them that the rest of humanity cares about them, etc. Not a lot on a small scale perhaps but cumulatively over a prolonged period of time, the quality of life and standard of living improves for a lot of people.
I want to thank everyone for their emails and comments on my blog and best wishes and in general the interest you showed in my life over there. I rarely felt like I was alone as a lot of people kept in touch with me, and a lot of people wished me well and encouraged me and reinforced my decision to take nine months out of my life and get out of my comfort zone, and for that I am truly grateful. Also many thanks to my mom and my sister Sandra and Betty and Alix for sending me food and snacks and things I needed (forgive me if I’ve forgotten anyone), and to everyone else who offered to, I just had limited storage space and a tiny fridge so I had to limit the amount of food I kept on hand.
I had such a good time in Africa, I'd consider moving there. The climate, although really hot, was good for my health, no problems with allergies, all my aches and joint pains etc. didn’t bother me there. I liked the laid back lifestyle, Africans don't hurry, never pass up an opportunity to visit and talk, I loved the music, loved dancing to the music, loved dancing underneath the stars, eating on the banks of the mighty Nile River, shaking hands for about five minutes at a time, laughing a lot, joking, just having lots of fun.
Yes it was dangerous there, not as bad as other places, but everybody has a gun there and there is no law and order as we know it, there were no consequences for misuse of firearms or being violent or anything like that. It didn't happen to me but other UN police officers were held up at gunpoint, assaulted, etc. We had to be careful, no doubt about it. Death or serious injury were ever present possibilities.
Yes it was a life altering experience. What people consider problems here are insignificant as far as I'm concerned. The people in Sudan just worry about getting enough food to eat in a day, and not being killed, robbed, raped etc. It is not a compassionate society right now toward orphans or disabled or infirm. People are still losing limbs or their lives to land mines. Death sometimes doesn’t get more than a passing notice. But the people have hope for the future, a hope that the
UN has in part created in them.
I also loved being a UN peacekeeper. Sometimes, when things were tough and I was having a bad day, I was say to myself "You are a UN peacekeeper. You wear the shoulder flash and the beret that you’ve always wanted to wear, and that so many other people of so many different nationalities, even Sudanese people, want to wear". I’ll always be proud of having been a UN peacekeeper.
1 comment:
Thanks for the memories. I too worked in Juba for 6 months, living in a tent in the AFEX Camp, and another 6 months in Sudan in 2005/2006. I have great memories and friends from my Juba days. And as Wayne says, some days were frustrating and some days were fulfilling. I was fortunate to return to Juba in 2008 and witness the changes to the city, some for good and some not so. Friends and acquaintances have moved on, but I often catch up with them in other towns in other countries. I wrote about my Juba experiences in the novel, The Sudan Curse.
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