Screwed Twice in One day

Well like I have said all along have a great sense of Humour!

So in order to go see the Sudan Pyramids you need to send an application to the UN to travel within the country. Then you need that to be sent to the Sudan Security agency too get a stamp. From there the Sudan Intelligence Agency wants to see it as well so they can say that they stamped it.

Well for some reason the UN personnel office decided NOT to sign it as they felt that as UNMO's we need to first get our team and sector site commanders signature and approval. Here's the kicker..... we don't travel, meet or fall under the site commanders until MONDAY and we wanted to see the pyramids tomorrow (Friday). Welcome to the UN methodology!!! It rocks! And just to add insult to it. This trip would have been on my personal time prior to deploying to the team site. Now if I see the pyramids it will be costing me time off from my lieu bank.

Here's the second kick today.... I am scheduled to fly from Khartoum to Ed Damazin (2.5hours) on Monday. If I had not bumped into an OPP officer (yes OPP from Orillia Ontario) I would not have known that....ready for it....That there is not enough aircraft in the UN and there is NO FLIGHT!!! There is however a lovely 8 hour bus ride (5 hours only on a paved road) on an older UN bus (just slightly more comfortable then a school bus!!!

So I am going to work on a university assignment now on Friday. I am charging all of my IPods, IPhone and Netbook with movies for the wonderful trip to Ed Damazin.

The good news this week is that the OPP officer and one RCMP officer are in Ed Damazin and they have said that the chopper from there site to mine flies 3 times in a week and if I call they will buy and ship food down from their local market to my site. I know have a helicopter grocery delivery service!! AWESOME!! Air Force ROCKS!!

They have also given me a great deal of information about my team site. It is quite small. It's located on the road between the town and the airport (poss not visible on Google). We only use Ethiopia money there and check this out...it's called..... "BEER" !!! LOL A coke can cost 3 beers. How cool is that?

Speaking of beer the Ethiopians have their own beer that is supposed to be good. There are also several Germans on my site and well....they don't do anything without a bit of beer around! (Thanks Weiss Family!!)

I have also learned that my site and sector is in a contested area between North and south. So things can get interesting. It is a wanted area because of the entry to Ethiopia. If you look on one of my previous maps I am actually North (Above) the 1-1-56 line. The South wants this area and has their military in the area. The North traditionally owns it if the 1-1-56 line stands true. It will be very interesting during the elections and referendum in Apr 2010. This may also explain why all the roads in the area are or were landmined. I also found a map today that highlights the mines and injuries in Sudan. The sector I am in is one of the highest. Rumour is that the civilian population in the sector has about 1 person injured or killed by landmines every 3-4 weeks. It's amazing to think that kids pick these things up as toys or for scrap metal.