Photos of the New Norwegian House

I've been a little slow updating my blog the last few days - but then again, I've been very busy being on leave!

As I was transferring files from my camera to the network storage on our home network, I came across the photos I snapped of the new Norwegian House in Juba. As mentioned, the term "house" is now a misnomer; it is actually a nice little compound. It contains a guard hut, a utility building, two accommodation buildings and the main building with offices, living room and kitchen.

 Bedrooms will now be one occupant only - unless you drag in collapsible field beds. Next to the bed, just out of the shot, is a small fridge and a wardrobe.

 Each room also features a proper desk and office chair, and as far as I understood a TV hooked up to the basic cable for those late night shows - also known as "can't get to sleep nights".

 In addition each room has it's own attached bath - no more queuing up in line first thing in the morning.

 A view from the middle of the compound. From the left: Guard hut. laundry room, two storage rooms, sheets drying, the car of the cable installer and the end of one of the accommodation buildings.

 The front of the main building. Living room windows on the left.

 From the left: Accommodation building, the back gate, the second accommodation building and the main building. The plastic chair under the tree is where the guard sits when it's too warm in his little hut.

 A better view of the accommodations. The opposite side is identical, giving a total of 14 rooms on the compound. One is set aside for exercise machinery and a second is the room where the cleaning crew can relax as well as store linens. So a total of 12 Norwegians can stay in the compound at any given time, which should be plenty of space.

 The living room. A little sparse so far, but considering the compound is barely finished that's to be expected.

 Another view of the living room. The kitchen can be seen through the opening in the wall - allowing whoever is doing the cooking to watch TV at the same time.

 The kitchen. Like the rest of the compound not quite finished when I visited. I'm quite curious to see what changes there are when I swing by on my return to Yei.

The stove was put in just hours before I snapped this photo... maybe when I come back it'll be plugged in so it works?

Panoramas

The nice thing about being on leave is that I can use my desktop, which is a fair bit better than my laptop at making panoramas. I had to reduce these in size quite a bit to upload, but they are still plenty big enough to see though - click to make big:

 Inside the helicopter, going on Air Patrol to Kajo Keji.

 The view from halfway up Kendi Hill

 Halfway random forest in South Sudan.

Taking a break along the road to Lainya.

 Our TOB in Lainya - the narrow view.

 The not so narrow view of our TOB in Lainya.

The view from outside the County Commissioners Office in Lainya.

National Staff Separation Celebration Party

A good thing cannot be celebrated enough - so while the Welfare Committee arranged a party on Saturday, the National Staff Association arranged for a second party on Sunday... with food, music, speeches and the works. And off course they hadn't bought enough drinks, so we had to open the bar halfway through the party... by the time we closed the bar again (at one in the morning) we were sold out of everything except the hard liquor.

 The MC for the evening was one of our language assistants.

 Many people wanted to tell us how happy they are to live in their own country.

Our BanBat doctor, relating how he vividly remembers when his country achieved independence.

Dancing with joy.

 More dancing.

 Still dancing.

Yes, still at it - their drum was an upside down garbage bin.

Another video of the dancing.

 And so on.

 They kept going - even if dancers came and went, the dance kept going.

 Apparently the broken off branches symbolise something or other... but no one could tall me what.

 Last of the dancers.

 Parties is for everyone, even if we're fast asleep on Mummys back.

 Lots of people.

 We had to move the foosball table outdoors, but people played at it anyhow.

 Just some shots of the crowds

 It was a nice evening with no rain for once.

 Lots of people indoors too.

 The DJ - African music all night, turned up so high that the speaker sounded like crap.

Didn't stop people from dancing though.

Separation celebration

As the Team Site Leader and local VIP from UNMIS, I had to go down to Freedom Square and take part in the official program to celebrate the creation of the 54th independent country in Africa. They managed to only run 30 minutes late on their four hour program - partly by cutting out every single break... so it was four and a half hour of standing / sitting and watching. Very interesting though, and I wouldn't missed it for the world.

A movie will be uploaded later; after I made it.

Tonight we will have a party on the team site for the UN and invited NGOs.