Just another Saturday

Today is another Saturday in Yei...
I brought some of the new guys over to MAG so they could take a walk in the Mine/UXO garden, which is always nice and very instructive, our mechanics managed to fix the antenna mount that broke on of of our vehicles on Monday, and I have power restored in my container.

 Walking straight past half the mines on display... either they are slacking off since it's the weekend, or I'll never go on patrol with them again.

 While staged in this instance, this is not an unusual sight: parents will place UXOs in threes to keep them out of the children's reach.

 Frankly not impressed by the welding... I could done better myself if I had the tools. I give this weld two months on the outside before snapping apart again.

New circuit breaker... less melted, more Amps.

The rest of my day? Well, I'm making chick peas and vegetable stew with rice for dinner, and tonight the gang is going to meet up at one of the German NGOs for beer, bbq and just plain hanging out. I'm looking forward to meeting the other westerners again and learn what's been going on - haven't had a meetup since I got back from my last leave.

Looking for a nail

Electricity is something you hardly notice until it goes away... unless you're in deepest Africa and somewhat dependent on the air condition to get anything close to quality sleep that is. We had string of days in December when power was spotty at best, but today the trouble is a bit more personal.

If it's one thing there is enough of in the power grid in our little camp it is circuit breakers. There is the master breaker by the generator. There is the main breaker by the distribution board that split the power up into main lines going to BanBat, Signals, Offices and Accommodation. There is the breaker panel in the MSA camp, which divides power to each container, and there is the breakers in my container itself.

So when I lost power today and realized it wasn't the generators that had failed, it was a simple matter of tracing and find the fault...I did not have power, the neighbour had, ergo the fault must be either in my container or the MSA breaker panel. And since my breakers had not tripped, I make a quick trip behind the other Norwegians container to flip it back on.

But would it stay on? Only for five minutes...

I kept resetting - having disconnected everything except the air conditioner and the ceiling light - and it kept tripping. Finally I got bored, and decided to do a bit more surgery on the fuzebox to see what was up...

Yeah.. definitely something not right with that circuit breaker. Back in the old days I would be looking around for a nail right now to put in instead of the fuze... but with these modern breakers I would need a bit of wire and some pliers to bypass it.

Tomorrow I have to dig up the Camp Manager and beat him into fixing it ASAP ZULU... I'm sure one night with no AC is going to be plenty enough.

Ice in Africa

Here is a puzzler: When does the presence of ice in Africa makes you too hot?

When it is in the office air condition, thats when... It's been hours, but it still haven't thawed out.

The food you'll eat...

As the Norwegian saying goes; a beloved child have many names... Dead man in a can. Remains of blown up personnel. Recirculated personnel.

I am off course talking about ReserveStridsProviant - Emergency Combat Rations. Old style military cuisine; hermetically canned, irradiated (because radiation is good for you!) and piled high in military storehouses... until they started phasing them out at roughly the same time I joined the Air Force (ie: a long time ago). Luckily I managed to get my dirty little hands at a couple of crates when they sold them off, and I still had one crate left when I deployed to Sudan. So when I got back down here after my last leave, I slipped a few cans in my luggage... because there is no finer cuisine in the field.

Well. There is no simpler way to get a decent mix of beef, pork, lard and peas. According to what I was told in boot camp, the peas is added to recipe to give you some fiber to help keep everything inside your guts... it can be pretty greasy stuff, even more so if you're forced to eat it cold. Mixed with rice, maybe some fried onion, or anything you want it makes a quite decent lunch or dinner - just don't plan on eating too much the rest of the day;  it has more calories than you care to know about. The basic idea was that one portion should not only keep you on your feet all day, but keep you marching and fighting for that day.

 Simple, utilitarian packaging... one tin can, stamped on the lid with all you need to know: Armed Forces, Emergency Combat Ration, Manufacturer Code, year of manufacture... why yes, this lovely dinner in making is 21 years old. And your point was?

 I did forgo the traditional can opener (similar to the P-38 can opener) since I've never managed to open a can with that style opener. In the interest of not making a huge mess, I also did forgo the other traditional way to open these cans: using a bayonet or a sami knife.

 Just dump in a hot pan - the lard it contains means you don't have to worry about putting butter or oil in the pan first. Fry while stirring, until it gets warm throughout and turns a darker colour. If you like you can add some spices at this point, salt and pepper being the traditional choice - since that was you you got in the ration packs back in ye olden days.

 To bulk it out and add more fiber, I had boiled up a deciliter (uhm.. about 2/5 of a cup for my non-metric readers) of rice and added that to the meat... allowing it to simmer for a few minutes so the rice could soak up the flavours and reheat.

Mmmhm... yummy dinner. Off course, it should be properly enjoyed while being cold to the bones, sitting in a waterlogged foxhole and just waiting for the instructors to toss a tear gas grenade your way... but it's pretty durn good while warm, dry and sitting in a reasonable comfortable chair too.

For those out there who sadly cannot get hold of this delicate food, I know of two commercial alternatives that might be a little easier to get hold off:

- Trondhjems Turistproviant, which differs mainly in having less lard and have added onion and spices.

- Snurring, which again have less lard and have added rice, onion and spices.

Of those two, the first is the better option since it is closer to the RSP. And I said they would be easier to get hold off... not that they would be easy to find.

Office work

It may be the least glamorous part of my work down here, but from time to time I have to stick around in the office and do office type work.

Like today... while I much rather would have gone on a Long Duration Patrol today with the guys who was going, at least I know that the Leave Requests for April will be done, done right and done on time. And I must admit that I am rather pleased with the job as G1 and how I manage it... under previous G1s, arguments and ill temper apparently was the norm every time leave was discussed - as rumors tells us happens in most Team Sites. Now? Well, sometimes people gets a little disappointed, but no one gets angry. After all, they know that I follow the priority list everyone agreed upon back in November*, and a glance at the list tells them when they can expect to get leave next. And off course, if they decline leave when it's their turn, they are first in line next time.

In other news; the benefit of all that dust in the air now that it's dry season? Awesome sunsets!

*) Very simply put, the math goes (leave left) / (days left). So the more leave you have left to burn and the less days you have to do it, the higher is your priority - modified by the fact that your first and last leaves have priority.