Lessons learned - last post for now

It's been a while since I returned home, and I have had some time to think about a few of the things I learned while in southern Sudan and South Sudan, in no particular order:

• First off, those of us living in modern nations with a working infrastructure simply don't get how well off we actually are. This applies for such things as roads, sanitation, healthcare, schools, security (police and military) and so on and so forth.
• Speaking of roads; I will never say that Norwegians roads are bad ever again - there is something about getting stuck in bottomless mud on the "highway" in the middle of the biggest town in the area that drives home that fact. I will point out that Norwegians roads could certainly be better - we could afford that with all the money we are pumping out of the sea.
• The Norwegian Military takes - overall - very good care of us while we're abroad, and the gear we have with us will cover pretty much any eventuality. Much of the gear I brought with me came home unused, some never made it down to Sudan. Compared to my friends from other nations, we're EXTREMELY well equipped - everything from socks and underwear to Class IV vests* and satellite phones.
• Being away from home for so long is harder on the ones left at home - if you're out on duty you're busy, while they have plenty of time to think (and twice the workload to deal with at home too).
• Arabic is very difficult to pick up if all your previous experiences are various Germanic languages.At the same time, stating that you're fluent in two (Norwegian and English), can understand and read two more (Danish and Swedish) as well as making heads and tails of one more if it's written down and I have time (German) looks pretty impressive on the UN CV...
• Getting used to being home again takes longer than it took getting used to being away. Strange, but true.
• Some people are on UN missions because of the pay check, some are not. Properly motivated and guided both can do excellent work.
• The major challenge is the cultural difference - not between yourself and the locals, but between yourself and other UN personnel. In all fairness they told us this before we deployed, but it has to be experienced to drive the lesson home.

In retrospect, was it worth it? Yes... and how. It's been a long year, but a good one. Difficult at times, but rewarding. Lonely, but with many new friends. Slow at times, but passed quickly.

The Norwegian Defence Medal for International Operations

The UNMIS medal

And with that I'll close this blog for now - if I do go on a new mission I will revive it. If anyone have any questions, comments or remarks, leave a comment and I'll do my best to reply.

Thank you for reading!

*) To put our vests into perspective; the other officers opted to use the UN provided vests, which in theory is Class III. However, materials degrade over time, and personally I would not trust my life to the UN vests if there is a Norwegian vest areound. If the option is to do with no vest, then I would use the UN vest.

Home at last

It was a very long trip home...

We travelled as a group of six Norwegians, which was nice since I had someone to talk to along the way. Getting to Juba Airport around 1400 local time (1300 Norwegian time), we got through the check-in and security check with no hassle - travelling in uniform does have it's benefits. Then we had to hang around in the departure hall until well past five in the afternoon, being warm and sweaty. For some reason that was beyond the grasp of any of us, our little group was split up on two different flights leaving with fifteen minutes between us. We found it strange, and even more so when we realised that both flights had enough free seats to fit the whole group twice over.

Our first jump brought us to Addis Ababa, where we had some food before going through yet another security check. Our next flight was to take off at 2300 local time (2200 Norwegian time), and once aboard we realised just how little the UN must have paid for our tickets - if we had been further back in the cabin we would been riding in the galley... and as I'm sure most know; being in the back means more noise, more traffic in the aisle and less rest. Between take off and landing I got less than half an hour of napping, but I did get to watch a couple of movies and read a fair bit.

Landing in Frankfurt, we had time for a cup of coffee and a bite before boarding the last flight - again I was in the back, with my back against the galley wall. The nice thing was that I got a row all to myself, so I could relax and read some more while listening to music. It ended up being the most relaxing part of the jorney home to be honest...

We touched down at Oslo Airport about a quarter to ten in the morning, but our epic travels were far from done... we were picked up at the airport and taken to a nearby military base for our medical debrief and the handing out of medals. Since I've been extremely lucky (and also quite careful while in Sudan) I got a clean bill of health - at least until the results of the blood work comes in. They fed us too; slices of wholegrain bread with stuff on them, just the thing I've been missing the last year (the only bread I could find in Sudan was white bread).

After pinning a medal on us they drove us back to the airport; some of us had a flight to catch to get all the way home, some of us had made other arrangements. I finally walked through my door around 1800 on Thursday, home at last...

Last working day of the mission

Yes, I did in fact get my package today - one "under armour" shirt (a cool-max t-shirt torso with uniform jacket sleeves) and one envelope with a birthday letter and a small present from my parents! Only took it about three months to get to me... way to go, MovCon. Fair is fair though, a lot of the delay was due to a severe lack of forward planning from UN.

Most of the morning was spent sipping coffee in the cafeteria down in Camp, waiting for our tickets and travel authorizations to come through - which they haven't so far. So me and some of the others decided to give up and return on Monday, walking back to the Norwegian House and have a simple lunch. Even though Sunday is technically our last day in the mission, getting into camp should be no trouble at all.

Tomorrow we're going to have a farewell party for the six of us that are going home, so this afternoon we'll have to go shopping.

Started to check out

Most of today was spend chasing signatures and proving that the stuff I had singed over was in fact signed over - or in one cause, actually handed over to me in the first place. Got quite a bit of it done though, so I'll probably be finished checking out well before the end of the week. Won't get me home any sooner though...

Later we went for dinner at a local place owned by a Norwegian of all people, and had some pretty damn good pizza. I think it's the best pizza I've had in Sudan so far, North or South.

Farewell dinner

Over the months I've been here I've taken part in my fair share of farewell dinners - and today I was the guest of honor at the one held for my Norwegian colleague and myself. Lots of people showing up, from all the pillars in the Team Site (MLO, UNPOL, BanBat, Civil Affairs, CITS and so on) as well as a few guys from various NGOs I've been rubbing shoulders with the last year.

We held the dinner in the Blue, and he food - prepared by the cleaning staff, hijacked for the day - was plenty and tasty. After the food it was time for the speeches... and if half of what was said should be believed my Norwegian friend and myself have singlehandedly made the Team Site a better place.

I got mixed feelings about going home. On hand it's like "home, hell yeah!"... on the other hand I'm leaving behind people I've worked closely with for the last year. And while it has been times I've been wondering how people can be so incredible dense and/or stupid, for the most part we been able to put our cultural differences aside and work as a well functioning team. As people are fond to say when we have been welcoming new coworkers to Yei; we're more than a team, we're a family in Yei. And this have been made even clearer with the people who gotten redeployed to Yei from other Team Sites after July 9th - the stories they tell shows us just how lucky we been down here. Apart from an incident which took place two months before I arrived, there has been no fighting and very little argument between UNMOs - but if the stories are to be believed that is not too uncommon in other Team Sites (after all, it only takes two to fight and ruin the mood of the entire team).

I think one of the reasons why Yei have worked so well is that it's always been a small Team Site - the smallest in South Sudan - and that the officers stationed here have realized that they cannot afford to act like idiots if the team is to function. With the new, leaner mission all the Team Sites will be homes of small Teams. Hopefully the experience we have had in Yei will become common on all the sites in the future.

Leave and such

Today is the day I was supposed to go to the airport in Norway and return to South Sudan after my last CTO/AL at home... so I guess it was fitting that today was the day that HQ lifted the restrictions on going home on leave. And not only lifted them, but suggested that more than the usual amount of officers can go home on leave. Oh, and please take as much leave as you possible can, would you kindly? Tomorrow, or possible the day after, I'll know if I will get home soon. My G1 is trying to get the puzzle laid out properly, so that everyone who wants to go on leave will be going, and for as long as they would like.

Also today we got the redeployment order for those UNMOs who will move from UNMIS to UNAMID - the mission in Dafur - and much to my joy two of my UNMOs who were slated to be repatriated will be allowed to finish their Tour of Duty. And while Dafur is most assuredly as nice as Yei can be, at least they won't go home and miss out on the MSA and other goodies.

Hopefully I will have even more good news tomorrow!

Back to normal

The lists of who gets to go and who gets to stay is apparently "on their way"... in other words, they exists, but we are not allowed to see them yet.

In other words it is SNAFU here - just like it's been the last few weeks.

Going away party?

A large number of the UNPOLs are being redeployed to other County Support Bases* within South Sudan, and as such they wanted to have a going away party Saturday night. Along with the UNPOL TSL I offered to keep the Blue open if they organised the rest - like we done in the past.

How many of the UNPOLs came? Try one - and he came two hours after the party was supposed to start and had no idea where the others were.

At least my UNMOs can organise a party... On the other hand, the Canadian UNPOL TSL, the other Norwegian, one of my Peruvians and myself had a nice evening just sitting around and talking. The weather was cool and comfortable, and Mother Nature turned on the light show; we had a major thunderstorm on the horizon.

Still no news

Today two of my team left us for their scheduled end of mission, one Beninese and one Russian. Both good guys, and both just recently transfered to us from Abyei. As I told them during yesterdays little going-away-dinner; they came to Yei too late and left too early.

For the rest of us there is still no news - persistent rumours says we may expect something towards the end of the week. Once we know who will stay and who will go they will probably open up for leaves again... probably. If it don't happen within the next couple of weeks I'll barely have time to go on leave before my time here in South Sudan runs out; we're not allowed to go on leave the last 21 days before our end of mission, and my mission officially ends on the 18th of September.

Farewell party for UNPOL

Four of our UNPOL friends are leaving us - read: are being repatriated - on Friday. Sadly, among them is one of my good Canadian friends. So yesterday evening the UNPOLs threw a farewell party for them, and even if most people left as soon as the free food and drinks were gone, the two Canadians and I ended up hanging out in the Blue until almost midnight... basically just shooting the shit, having a few beers and complaining about the way we are moving from one mission (UNMIS) to the next (UNMISS).

Also yesterday, five of my UNMOs got their marching orders for Friday as well. One of them - the other Norwegian - got the message that he should stay in the Team Site anyway less than five minutes later, and the rest we will probably be able to put off until Monday. That would be good; not only will people have more time to pack and transfer responsibilities, but if four UNMOs and four UNPOLs with all their belongings were to cram themselves into one helicopter... overload for sure.

Stuff is finally happening

For the last few days we've been ordered to stand down - no LDP, no SDP and not even any TP... that is Long Duration Patrols, Short Duration Patrols and Town Patrols respectively.

However, we gotten two bits of news today that shows that things are slowly starting to move again. Firstly, the redeployment / repatriation from the sectors up north (ie: the ones that are not in South Sudan) is starting. Secondly, we're starting doing TPs again - even if it's clearly patrols for the sake of patrolling, it'll get us out of the Team Site again and that's good for the morale of my guys.

At this rate we might even know what we're supposed to do in the new mission by next week!