Things getting back to normal here, Graduation Day for the South Sudan Police Service

Things are getting back to normal here, the UN people who were out of Sudan on leave are being allowed to return, the police who were relocated here from Khartoum are going back and we are being allowed to go on leave again. It was tense for a while but it seems okay for now. It forced us to do some much-needed emergency planning at least.

These pictures are from the graduation of over 2400 South Sudan Police Service officers here in Juba last week. They had completed six months of training (it was scheduled to be four months) and are being posted to various points in South Sudan. In RCMP terms, we did basic training in troops of 32 or 24, and when I trained the maximum amount of members in training in Depot was 600. This was the equivalent of four times all of Depot graduating at the same time.

The UN provided funding, accomodation, supplies, instructors etc. for the SSPS. Quite a task, my hat's off to our people who did it.

The first picture is some of us UN folks watching the Parade (yes, I'm in there somewhere), the second and third are the graduates parading obviously, the fourth is my boss, the Deputy Police Commissioner with me in the background and the fifth is the SSPS officers and family and friends celebrating afterwards.

Nothing new to report...

...other than my anti-malaria medication is getting to me (it's supposed to cause strange dreams or nightmares). Last night I dreamt I was looking at the top of my head and there were a whole bunch of bald spots there and I realized in my dream that I don't have as much hair on my head as I think I do (some of you probably think that as well).

Enyways, the reports I'm getting from Khartoum is peaceful protests, no violence.

I'm going to post my last set of pictures from Taitti. This is from my last day there, Mohammad arranged with a friend to take us for a boat ride on the Nile and then visit a farm on the other side of the river. Saw a mother camel nursing her baby (I don't know what a baby camel is called), a donkey, some more goats (God those things are curious!), a couple of local men cutting hay for the animals by hand. It was a nice evening. I rode on (actually sat on, it didn't move) a donkey. That is the way you ride them according to Mohammad, at least, that is the way he rode it. He said it had been 25 years since he last rode a donkey.

For those of you wondering about the hat I'm wearing (I don't usually wear a hat, don't like them), the last picture should clear up the confusion. It was perfect for covering my face when I wanted to take an impromptu nap.

I had a great time there obviously. Mohammad emphasized that they've never had any violence in their region, they resolve there disputes peacefully, Arabs, blacks, everyone lives there harmoniously. They've been waiting forever for electricty to be installed and they quietly but persistently press the local govt. for it. I like to think of Taitti as the real Sudan.

Saturday morning, my vacation was over and I took the bus back to Khartoum and then flew back to Juba on Sunday. It was a six hour bus ride, but on an air conditioned bus on a paved road, it wasn't a bad trip at all, except for the non-stop music in Arabic. I was asked to produce my passport photocopy at one stop (yes, the only one on the bus asked to produce it and coincidentally I was probably the only non-Sudanese person on the bus. I wonder how they knew.).

The situation in Sudan

As you've probably heard, it is expected that this week the International Criminal Court, which is part of the UN, will announce an indictment against Sudanese President Al Bashir and some other high ranking Sudanese Govt. officials for Crimes Against Humanity over the events in Darfur over the last three years. It s expected that there will be a reaction to this announcement, possibly directed against UN personnel. We've spent the last few days discussing and preparing for the worst. Contingency plans are in place. There are also rumors of troop movement and buildups in other parts of the country. In the event of a resumption of hostilities, a decision will be made on evacuating UN personnel.

Jas, Rory and I have been declared essential and will be remaining in Juba and Yambio respectively in event of a general evacuation of UN personnel from the south of Sudan. However, I must emphasize that we're believed to be safe in the south for the time being. Nonetheless, Canadian peacekeepers including RCMP and other Canadian police hung in there in East Timor and the Balkans and other trouble spots around the world when things got rough, we will simply be trying to maintain that tradition.

I've heard second hand that the situation is very tense in Darfur and the Mission members there are expecting to be attacked if the indictment of the President is announced. They and the people in Khartoum are probably at the greatest risk right now.

As much as I'm thinking of us, the UN peacekeepers at a time like this, and I'm certainly keeping all of our safety and security in mind in every decision, I'm thinking more of the people of Sudan: friendly, cheerful, helpful people despite decades of debillitating civil war. They need peace and order here more than we do.

More on Taitti

On the third day of my visit we went to Dongola for Heba to interview some govt. types (an exhilarating 7:30 AM ride on the back of the pickup on patchy pavement at 100 kms. an hour because we were late for an appointment. Don’t you do that girls. Or Adam! Enyways…) We were stopped in a Sudanese army checkpoint and I had to produce the photocopy of my passport (the actual passport being in Khartoum with my application for my multiple entry/exit visa. Without that ME/E visa, I would not have been allowed to return to Sudan when I left on my first holiday). Enyways, that was a tense couple of minutes. Heba, as she so smugly remarked, didn’t have to produce her passport. I didn’t care, in fact I wanted to show them my passport photocopy.

Enyways, we drove around the town of Dongola (population 30,000) a bit, had a good lunch of something brown in a bowl that we all ate out of (as Mohammad says, sometimes its best not to know what you’re eating, if it tastes good just eat it. My sentiments exactly. I know what you’re all thinking and you’re all wrong, I never got sick once up there, no upset stomach (other than from eating too much), no gastro-intestinal distress (I love that term), nothing. It was like being back on my parents’ farm again, eating well (and often, too often in fact), slept well, felt well rested, relaxed frame of mind, everything in good working order. Enyways....

After the lunch we met up with some govt. officials and they took us with them on the ferry to the other side of the Nile, then we drove an hour and a half on unpaved, rough roads to see the ancient fortress/town site/burial site of Kerma. Check it out: http://archaeology.about.com/od/kterms/qt/kerma.htm

These pictures are from the trip up there, touring the site and the last one of me is on the ferry ride back; also on the ferry there were three army pickup trucks with 50 caliber machine guns mounted on the back and the boxes was full of AK47s. You can see one of them behind me in the picture. The soldiers were telling Heba that the high school students, after their graduation, have to undergo six weeks of military training including weapons instruction. Nothing personal Melanie, but I just can’t see putting assault rifles into the hands of you and your friends…

Then back to Dongola, Heba and I (belatedly) registered as tourists, (it took so long I thought we were applying for citizenship), then another not-so-exhilarating ride back to Taitti. We were out in the sun most of the day and quite dehydrated and tired that night. I could barely stay awake till 10:00 o’clock to eat.

A short video of Heba the celebrity

I forgot to add this video to my previous post. Heba was a big hit at the school and in the village in general. Mohammad told her and I that her prescence in Taitti was having a significant effect on the community. It couldn't be any other way. Good for her.

Wayne
(she's still a shit for videotaping me signing along to my mp3 player!)

My visit to Taitti cont.

For those of you asking, me and my fellow intrepid peacekeepers are safe in the south of Sudan. I don’t have anything to add on the situation in Sudan yet, I will in a couple of days. In the meantime, I have a few more pictures and stories from my visit to Taitti I’d like to relate.

In the top photo, Mohammad is taking the cover traditionally used to put over the food before it was served to keep the flies off of it. Its very colourful, I wish I could have bought one but I never saw it offered for sale anywhere. The second picture is his family's pigeon coop. Yes, I ate pigeon one night, it reminded me of the Cornish Game Hen's we used to get in the cafeteria in Depot during basic training. Not much meat on them but it was good.

As I mentioned, I was treated very well in Taitti, the people all wanted to meet me and shake hands with me and have me to their home for tea or a meal. Very kind, friendly people, I quite enjoyed them. They have a distinct way of shaking hands, first they clap each other on the left shoulder with their right hands, then they shake hands. It took me a day or two to catch on to this (I’m a slow learner). I met most of the women when we arrived at a house, they greeted me and most of them shook hands with me but they usually went to sit in another room with the other women. Heba was able to move back and forth between the groups of men and the groups of women; I wasn’t, I never got the opportunity to speak to any of them other than in greeting. That is the culture there. As Mohammad was explaining, they don’t “date” in the sense that we do in Canada but they don’t have arranged marriages either, they have arranged introductions instead in which family members will introduce them to each other and they discuss whether they would be interested in getting married. It (marriage) is voluntary on both parts however. I noticed a few younger people holding hands or walking together after dark but in general I didn’t see any displays of affection between the men and the women.

One day I was there, we went to the elementary school in Taitti, Heba wanted to interview some students and teachers. As you can see in the pictures, the buildings were in rough shape by our standards. Nonetheless the students were all very bright looking, very disciplined, they all stood up when we entered the room, they kept quiet while the teacher or someone was speaking etc. Something like our schools used to be. Segregated classes may make this possible. When we went into some of the classes in the school, all of the kids stared at me at first. When I smiled at them they all smiled back. They are very attractive, big brown eyes, beautiful smiles. They reminded me of my kids when they were that age (notice that everything seems to remind me of my kids, I’ve missed them more than I thought I would. My kids that is, not the kids of Taitti although they were very nice too. Nice teeth.).

I found myself wishing I could have taken my kids with me to Taitti so they can see what is important in life; not tvs and Internet and clothes, although I must admit I longed for some word of the outside world on some days. The only means of obtaining world news is newspapers, which are in Arabic.

I also never sweated so much in all my life. Even though Mohammad’s family washed my clothes once when I was there, when I came back to Juba my two pairs of cotton cargo pants were discoloured from the salt in my sweat. I only wore sandals when I was there because it would have been too hot for shoes, but the soles of my feet started to dry up and crack open. Fortunately I had taken some moisturizing lotion with me because I read in Heba’s blog that her feet were getting quite dry and calloused; usually when my feet are that dry little cuts appear in the soles and they are painful and hard to heal up. I only had one thank goodness.

Been back since Sunday...

I got back from Dongola on Sunday and I've been really busy since. I thought I'd spend a couple of blogs on my trip. I really enjoyed it. That's Mohammad on the right in the first photo, some friends of his with he and I in the second, me standing in the street (?!?!?) in Taitti in the third, the bed I slept on in the fourth and the goat pen in the fifth (if you look closely, you can see one of the goats sticking his face through a hole in the gate to watch us. They're very curious creatures. I didn't grow up with goats on my parents' farm so it was a learning experience for me with the goats!)

I really enjoyed myself there. I was visiting my friend Mohammad Said (who some of you may know, he’s on our advisory committee in Ottawa) in his home village of Taitti (pronounced Taytee), near Dongola in Northern Sudan. I went along with a friend, Heba Aly, whose mom is Tyseer, another good friend in Ottawa. Heba is an independent journalist, here doing stories on us in the UN and the life of the people of Sudan and a whole bunch of other stuff. Mohammad just lost his dad a month ago or so ago and was back to spend some time with his mom and family.

I took the bus with Heba from Khartoum, it left at 4:45 AM but Mohammad’s brother Ibrahim got us up at 2:30 to make sure we were at the bus stop on time. We were kind of tired on the five hour bus ride there; it was a modern bus and paved road for the most part but they played music and videos all the way up and I couldn’t sleep. If you check out Heba’s blog (http://hebasenegal.blogspot.com) I think she took a video on the bus ride of me with my headphones on, singing along to a song on my mp3 player to drown out a video of a child prodigy preaching in Arabic. She thought the whole thing was hilarious…she was very tired and getting giddy.

Mohammad and I slept outside under the stars (on our beds) at night. It is very hot during the day however, 40+, so we stayed inside and read or slept during the afternoon. We visited many of Mohammad's friends, who all seem to be cousins of his. We had to eat and drink something everywhere we stopped. Typical village. There are about 5,000 people there. They all live in homes made out of dried mud. Some of the rooms have dried mud or cement floors, some have packed earth floors. Some of the rooms have roofs, some are open. The toilet is a hole in the ground. The shower is a tank of water on the roof hooked up to a shower head. We had to shower in the morning or the evening because the water gets scalding hot during the day.

The food was very good (notice I always talk about food), Mohammad's mom is an excellent cook. Mohammad's mom is like my mom and most moms I suspect, always trying to get us to eat more. We had tea and biscuits when we got up in the morning, then coffee and biscuits an hour or so later, a full hot lunch that they call breakfast at noon, tea and biscuits at 5:00-6:00 o'clock and we ate supper at 10:00 o'clock at night, then went to bed. They don't have electricity but they have a generator that they turn on for a couple of hours at night. No tv, no phone, no fridge, no Internet. As is traditional, at every meal we ate from the same bowls as everyone else who was eating. There was always a meat dish, some vegetables, some delicious bread. One night I was particularly enjoying a meal at a cousin of Mohammad’s, I thought I was eating some kind of beans (again, I think everything is beans) and Heba said “Mohammad, did you try the intestines?” Gulp. Intestines??? I didn’t eat them with as much enthusiasm after that but they were still good. Sheep liver is very good; I’m not fussy about cow liver but sheep liver is excellent.

There are donkeys and goats and sheep and some cows and dogs, in Taitti and yes even a couple of cats (that was for my daughters Stephanie, Melanie and Natalie, they always want to know about the cats). We were about half a kilometer from the Nile River. It’s a very slow pace of life, much like what living back in my home village, Dacre (27 kilometers past Renfrew, way back in the bush of Renfrew County) was like when I was growing up. It reminds me a lot of Dacre actually, except it is in the desert and the people are Arab and speak Arabic obviously. I think I was the only white person in town. They are mostly Arab with some black people. Everyone gets along very well. They work very hard, especially the women, they seem to do most of the work there. Many of the men go away to work: Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Canada and the United States and just come home on their holidays, so they only see their families once a year. There is not much work in Taitti except for farming.

I'll write more tomorrow.