Settling in

I'm learning my way around the team site and the team – yesterday I got good briefs on the jobs of G1, G3 and the Duty Officer. The last is most welcome, since my first round as DO is... friday. Thursday – that is, tomorrow – I'll head out on my first Short Duration Patrol, ie: a patrol to a village or town where we dont spend the night. I'm quite excited about it, and also worried, since I'm the designated driver. It'll probably be okay, I just have to remember water, some food and my GPS so I can tag the place for later.


I'll see if I can't get down town to do some shopping today, I need a few odds and ends now that I'm in my permanent container. However, work first – I need to talk to G2 and G4 about their jobs, as well as read more of the Team Site instructions. And in between I am going on a TP – town patrol – to help gauge the local situation (probably calm and stable).

Arrived Yei safe and sound

Remember that wireless Internet? The one that the ISP swore up and down would work 100% in South Sudan?

Turns out it dont work quite that well... or at all. I'm peeved, but there isn't much to do about it for now other than borrowing a UN computer when I need to go online.

However, to learn this factoid, I had to travel to South Sudan - which is where I am now; safe, sound and with a full tummy. Team Site Yei is a small teamsite - a mere sozen UNMOs now that I'm here, a company of Dorce Protection, some UNPOL (UN Police) and some other odds and ends. The Team Site Leader is a dane, and quite happy to see another scandinavian face - he's been on his own for a couple of months and was longing for someone from his own cultural background to talk to.

Yei town itself is smallish, but large - pretend that it makes sence. Mostly brick buildings, with a handfull of mud huts thrown in for colouration. The roads are... well, the roads aren't. Mostly they are potholes, bumps, mudholes, small creeks from the last rain or parked cars. Off course, with roads like that even getting to the market means navigating an off road course - complete with other cars, bikes, donkeys and pedestrians. I think I'll be extremly hard pressed to break the speedlimit for UN vehicles...

For now, I've been assigned a temporary container to sleep in. A more permanent residence will become avilable soon - by the weekend at least. But even the temporary container is decent, it's mostly lacking the frigde, a second chair and a little garden in front of it to be up to the standard of the permant accomendations. Once I've been assigned a new place, I'll start working on sproucing it up.

The TSL - Team Site Leader - showed me one of the local eateries for dinner today; one of about four or five he would consider decent enought for a scandinavian to eat at. No menues, since what they have avilable changes depending on what was at the marked earlier in the day. Today they had a lot: beef, chicken orgoat, served with your choice of french fries or rice.

And yes, goat with fries was pretty tasty. Cheap too, a full plate with drinks (coke in glass bottles!) was a little less than half what we paid in Khartoum.

It's been a long time. I'll try to get some pictures of the Team Site uploaded tomorrow.

So long Khartoum!

In a few short hours I'll be on my way to the airport to grab a flight to Juba... wont be back in Khartoum until I'm passing by on leave.

It's with mixed feelings I see my stay here at the Norwegian House come to an end... in one way it's sad, because the AdminOff does a very, very good job at making us feel welcome here - making the House a little safe haven in a strange and confusing city.

On the other hand... our training is done, and the last couple of days have been spent waiting, waiting and waiting. Not that Brrrista Caramellos at the local coffee shop is a bad thing, but one cant really have more than one a day. I at least reach a point where there is little more to do than simply kill time... at least I've had good company for shooting the shit with.

So I guess this is the end of the first chapter of my African Adventure - tomorrow the next part begins!

Once again, Yay internets!

It was a couple of days tracking down information, but we found a ISP that supplies mobile internetwebs in the part of Sudan I'm heading too in the morning.

Reasonable cheap too - 90 Sudanese pound a month, and since I prepaid three months in advance, I got the dongle for free. The installation was simple enough, and the surfing speed is quite good (I'm posting this using my shiny new dongle). The downside so far is that I have to use it under WinXP, which runs slowly on my Eee - mostly because I am running it off a USB stick. I guess finding our how to run it either under PuppEee OS or the Xandros my Eee shipped with is my long term mission - if I choose to accept it.

More later - it's time to do the last of the packing.

Getting my stuff in order

On Sunday I will - hopefully - fly down to Juba, where I will - again hopefully - be able to finish checking into the sector so I'm ready to fly on to Yei on Monday. If I wont be able to finish my check in, the options is to press on the Team Site and try to deal with it from there, or stay in Juba and try to catch the flight o Wednesday. At any rate I had to pack my bag, do my laundry and so on and so forth.

But, I still had time to grab a couple of short videos, using a little loophole in the law: It is legal to photograph within your place of residence.

Khartoum Skyline

Tour of the Norwegian House