More pics

Spring MAY be near... some new blossims






Our drive.... My Car

We think these are enemy sentries... they come out of no where and stare us down...

WOW...

More kids running to see who is driving by...



Now we do see a great deal of women doing most of the hard work in this country. These women are carrying wood to their homes or to the local market to sell. They load the wood in to even piles and then tie it to a long pole. They carry the pole on their shoulders for the entire distance. Today we met two older women (about 60+ years old) and we asked if we could take a picture with us lifting the wood. They agreed. These two women were over 60 years old and had NO muscle tone (lack of food and nutrients over the years). We were severely shocked when we went to lift the wood. All three of us (two guys bigger than me) had a very very hard time lifting the wood. We figured that it was about 60+ kgs!! I could not believe that these woman were lifting such a weight and then walking 2-10kms with it. I had a new respect for them!! I gave them some of my food, some sweets and some water.



I wanted to show you an interesting thing. Check out the shoes on the two boys in the front. We see a great deal of these. They are a one piece rubber shoe. They have no inserts and no cloth or material. Just rubber molded to look like a runner. Sometimes they have laces. We see a great deal of these.



We decided to try our hand at pumping water. This one actually worked and produced good water. The yellow pails are what people use to transport the water home. Again it is normally the women and its on a long pole across their shoulders. Its equal to carrying to cases of 24 beer.... Very heavy and carried for up to 10 kms.




Locals lining up at the water pump

UNMO House...

So I finally took some pictures at the UNMO house where most of my friends live. They pay an average of $150 USD per month. There is No A/C, only electricity is from a generator that gets turned on from 730pm - 1100 pm. The water is from the local wells brought in by donkey (not drinkable).

This is there private space... 1 cot with a crappy mattress and what ever you can string up for privacy.

The eating area

The shower and toilet. To shower you get a bucket of donkey water and a cup.

Hmmm kinda glad I chose to live at the MSA camp for $660 per month... I think it's worth it...

Keili kids come out to greet us as we drive by



Modes of Transport - Donkey Cart - Very common transport - poor things - very abused!



Mode of Transport - This is a delivery truck, a bus/taxi, a troop carrier. And All-in-one transport vehicle... very often broken down or upside down. There are no rule as to how much, how high or how many people you can put on to one of these trucks.



Another happy village...




My new friends.....

Internet is working so I will post more pics

The Force Commander speaking to the protection force from India



Kai and I on a patrol



Nomads, notice the age of the kids.... they are responsible for heards of cows and goats



This one pissed me off and I caused a little stink... but not as much as my friend from AUZ caused..

Back in Nov I, along with 6 other people, became sick. The only common factor was the water. When I approached the Pak Army commander about this he wouldn't believe me (part of their cultural pride). Anyways, two weeks ago we had two members feeling unwell... the water containers (which is where we get our clean, purified drinking water from) were just about empty. I decided to take a look inside to see how clean and fresh they were. This is what I had found... sand, dirt, a plastic bag and some sort of mold/spore floating in the water.




One person seen me taking the pic and he asked what I was doing. He quickly reported this to someone else who was kind of responsible for the water. He checked the water and reported it to someone else ect...... From what I understand a few (2-3) people were now worried about their jobs. I decided not to do anything more as to let the local process deal with it and to see if it satisfied me. My AUZ friend from UNPOL took the pics and set them to AUZ where they ended up eventually in the high commisioners office and eventually they got back to Khartoum and heads did role...

I am still very very cautious about the water...but its hard not to drink this water when you need so much every day....

More Pics

Women heading to the market. Notice they carry everything on their heads. The one on the left is carrying a bed which is also a couch. It is the most common sitting/sleeping device in Sudan. The middle woman has coils of rope made from vines and other materials.



The kids of Doya with their new ball... they don't look happy as they were made to stop playing so that the picture could be taken.



More people heading to the market. They can sometimes walk up to 4 or 5 hours to get to a good market.



This is me briefing the UNMIS Force Commander, Deputy Commander, Sector Commander and many others who I do not know... It was fun... I was able to finally express our concerns to the highest level!




Thanks MISS LAM! LOL This was a recent gift for my.... ummmm 25th B-Day....

Finally some pics

A small village that supports the north while they are surrounded by the south..will be interesting in their future.. They loved the soccer ball and we have video of the kids jumping and then running off to play with it...







This is me educating the head of the village, through an language assistant, on the ways to mark a found land mine or in this case an unexploded mortor rocket.




MOM...Look what I found. We were thankful that the local kids did not dig this up to see what makes it go BOOM!




Finally some pics with local herders and their ride...

Another happy village receives a soccer ball...

Friday 19 Feb

It was nice to have a day off. We still had training to do and I had a little paperwork to complete.

The night before I ran 6km had a pot of K-D and two beers and was in bed by 11pm. Friday Kai and I made Pancakes for breakfast (haven't had any since Christmas morning) and then I made some chocolate chip cookies. As I made the cookies the chips melted...LOL They became chocolate cookies...LOL

About 1:00pm it was getting real hot. I measured the temp outside. It was 55 degrees in the sun and 48 degress in the shade with 20% humidity. Inside my cabin with the A/C on it was 35 degrees!!! Thats a HOT DAY!!!

So the rest of the day I did my laundry and cleaned my cabin while watching movies. I think I watched 3 movies that day. It was a nice day to chill out and not to have to deal with too many people... Maybe I am getting older...LOL

We found out some interesting things during the week and actually witnessed some things that we have never before witnessed. The annoying part is that the leader did not mention it in his report until a day later when I mentioned to him the massive immportance of what we had seen. Only then did he mention it to someone... even then I am not sure if he actually did.

What we had seen went against the UN and international humanitarian law. And we were the first to have witnessed it.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I am going to try to work more on the bar here. If I don't no one else will. There is NO will or drive in almost anyone you meet here. The problem with working on the bar is that it is so hot during the day. At 9:30pm it is still 40 degrees here.

I will try once again to get some pictures up soon. The internet has been slower then ever before.

I am counting down the weeks and days till I make my move home....

I will update again next week.

Mike

Another Week in Sudan

Well it has been another interesting week in the Sudan.

The week started on Sat with a training exercise and debrief occurring at my team site. The exercise was the first of its kind being run here in the Sudan by UNMIS. The good news it that the exercise highlighted all of the problems that I have already pointed out to my team mates and others in the chain of command. I find that it is amazing that there are so many people here who sole job it is to forward an email without ever reading it or analyzing it for its relevant information. We were directed (ordered) from our sector to patrol various areas and villages over the past three days that DID NOT EXIST!! That’s right! The next level of command here failed to realize what was real and what was part of a training exercise. When we informed them they just said…Um just go anyways and see. In other words they can't and not are not willing to make a critical decision and question their superiors on what the actual intention is and how they would like it carried out. This did cause us to waste 2 days and 15 hours of driving on nothing! I was mad! I finally took the reins and went around my team site leader and started asking many questions and formulating answers then manipulating other service officers until I received the answers I wanted. From there I developed a plan that went against orders and I implemented it with the approval of only one person. It worked out great.

The best part of this exercise was that I was asked to brief the Task Force Commander of UNMIS on the exercise and related matters. For 35 minutes I had the full attention of the commander, his deputy, my sector commander and his deputy and about 24 other decision makers. I, one they asked me specific questions, was able to express to these people the concerns that our team site has had and have been trying to deal with for over 6 months. All of the items were given approval and changes were made within hours of the briefing. Finally something has gone right! The sad part is that in order to get a simple tool to make the job safer I had to speak to the highest military person. That is a poor command system.

Over the past two days the temperature has climbed very hi. The other day it was 36 degrees in my cabin with the A/C on full. Yesterday I was on a long range patrol and we had the A/C in the car on full and we were still sweating the entire trip. Last night I slept outside (as we were on the patrol) and there was a large (massive) rock near us. At 1000pm we could still feel the heat coming off of the rock! It was very hard to sleep last night as it was hot and muggy. I figured by 1000pm it was about 36-38 degrees. They say it will get hotter as we move closer to the rainy season in Apr/May.

On Monday I finished teaching first aid to the local police officer who were on the Crowd control course. They loved the information and had some interesting questions. It is really unusual to teach to people who have nothing. When I was looking for medical supplies (bandages, splints, slings) I went through the pile of garbage behind the police station. I will send pics soon…I hope. I was telling them that if someone feels faint you should lay them down. Then when they feel better sit them up on the ground for a few minutes. After that sit them in a chair and then slowly allow them to stand up and see how they feel. A question was raised… “we don’t have any chairs, what should we do”. Other questions included if someone is bleeding what do we do. So the answer is; stop/control the bleed and get them to a Dr. Of course I was reminded that a Dr is probably a 4 – 8 hour donkey ride away!!! Two men had very interesting questions about what to do if a woman’s menstrual period doesn’t stop and she keeps bleeding. What can they do for her? Remember in Sudan a large number of women die during child birth compared to an industrialized nation. I also had to remember that in order for the woman to get help it would once again mean a donkey or truck ride for several hours.

We celebrated the Chinese New Years the other day with a nice Chinese dinner prepared by our two Chinese officers. We even had Chinese music and chop sticks! The food was great!

We now have a pet Dog at the UNMO house. He was given to one of my team mates during a patrol. The dog (5 months old) would not leave the members side during the meeting with the village elder. As the patrol was about to leave the elder gave the dog to the patrol member who was the driver. The dog sat on his lap and curled up and didn’t more for the 2 hour drive back to the base. Again pics as soon as I can.

I was introducing a new UNMO to the town by patrolling through the village and showing him all of the important areas. There was a group of kids smiling and waving at us so we decided to stop and say hi. I introduced them to BUBBLES and gave away four bottles of bubbles for them to play with… They loved it and were fascinated by them.

We have been hearing rumours of the south force doing some bad things but we have never been able to confirm it or find proof. This week has been a good one for me as I have confirmed a place that was only a rumour and I was witness to another action by the south which is considered illegal by international standards. A good week!

Time is flying by at this point. I just looked at the calendar and realized that I only have 2 months left in Sudan. 10 weeks total! I still have one more CTO (holiday) where I will be visiting Tanzania, Africa and Cairo, Egypt.

I will try to get some pics us as soon as I can however the internet has been extremely slow this week.

Mike

Return to SUDAN.....

Well I figured it was about time for me to update you on life in Sudan once again.

I had a great trip abroad seeing Barcelona - Spain, Cannes, Nice, Aix-de-Provence – France, Monte-Carlo - Monaco, Genova, La Spezia, Cinque-Terre, Pisa, Florence, Rome (Vatican City), Naples, Pompeii and Siena – Italy. The biggest disappointment was the food. I guess I expected more flavor and variety. Over the entire trip was great!
But back to Sudan!

During my trip I received great news from Canada house… They found my Christmas lights! While in Spain I also found my Disco ball. Once I arrived back at the team site I had two gold bags waiting for me and inside there was boxes from my folks as well as Derrick and Melissa. In those boxes I received another surprise from my cousin Lorelei which was the Steam Whistle Beer Bottle openers for the new bar!!

On the note of the bar…well my suspicions were correct… nothing gets done fast in the Sudan or the UN. My bar and the camp site haven’t changed a bit except for the missing containers (shipped to another team site in the south). Even the garden didn’t get planted after I was promised it would have been.

It was hard coming back to the team site and Sudan. After spending 17 days in the history of Europe it is hard to come back to the bleak desert and brown wasteland. The coolest site was when I flew across the Sahara and looked out the window to see the very vast empty Sahara desert….It was an awesome sight.

I was invited to teach at the Sudan Police force Crowd Control Course this week. I was teaching emergency first aid and tactical patient removal. It was very interesting teaching first aid with the understanding that there are NO first aid kits anywhere and that the only supplies are those on the ground and around the area. Before the start of the course I wandered through the street and picked up some garbage that I could use in the first aid course. For instance plastic bag to use as a bandage to tie off a limb. There is no 911 for them to call and no ambulance is EVER coming! The ride to the hospital may be on the back of a donkey and may take 3-5 hours. Oh yeh… and there is no cell phone coverage in about 95% of the area.

The students loved the first part of the course. The second part will be next week,
I have been on two patrols this week that went well. One village was suffering while the other was doing quite well. I gave the first village a soccer ball and some pencils and books. They have a school that is not recognized by the government therefore it gets no support. They welcomed the pencils and books and loved the soccer ball.

I have come to learn that in Sudan and in the UN nothing gets done fast. I have also learned (although it took several times) that you can propose an idea, get people on board and willing to work and the minute they leave the room they forget all about it and act as if it never happened and they do nothing that they were supposed to. I also trained two guys to take over my job while I was away so that all of the daily work would not pile up. When I came back it was just as I suspected. NOTHING was done! Thanks “Team Mates”….

I am starting to look to the future of coming home. Hopefully I will be able to accomplish more here before I leave. I am still trying to get the CIMIC projects up and running. I have calculated that I only have 7 weeks on site left on this tour. The remainder will be occupied with another CTO trip and then the 2 weeks of check out procedures. I am getting concerned with the dates as they coincide with the elections here and that could cause problems.

The outdoor bar is receiving a new coat of paint as we speak. I had sent in a request for funds and support and it was approved. The paint is going on this week. Repairs to the cement floor will happen next week and then the new lights, disco ball and then the Steam Whistle beer openers. I am looking forward to its completion.

We lost our one day off this week due to an exercise in our area. That means my one day of sleeping in and catching up on the work that was not done while I was away is now occupied with a mini exercise. I am hoping on getting to the local hospital today to drop off some donated medications and toys for the children’s ward.

I dropped off a box of medications to a happy Dr at the local hospital from one of our German UNMOS from Damazin. The hospital said they can definitely use the medications. The Dr also asked me if I was the one who brought the children toys when I told him I was he was so happy and asked if I can come back when they give some of them to local sick children.