I learnt quite a bit of Swahili on this trip I can say - I always wanted to pick up Swahili, and I reckoned because they speak such a pure version of the language, it might be great to start learning on my trip there. Although I must disclaim - I only know the phrases that every tourist learns. Pole pole (ah well, slowly slowly!)!
-------------------------
SCENE I
Tue 12th Dec
Holy crack of dawn
I'm up and I'm excited. 'Bubbling', you can say. I'm up an hour early.
My bags are packed, all electronics are charged, toothbrush double-checked in the bag, tickets are all in place, the Rough Guide is at the top of my backpack ... all money has been sorted into 'Large Bills' and 'Small bills' and tucked away in separate secret pockets ... and I have two sets of sunglasses and my cheesy sun hat. I am as ready as I will ever be. But I cannot stop pacing around my room and checking everything repeatedly.
I still have to wait until midday for my flight to take off. I am going to Tanzania for a week, via Nairobi. I've been planning for weeks ... but I'm still a little nervous because without proper access to books and telephone in Juba, none of my plans could be 'confirmed'. I'll plan as I go. More fun!
Today is also a sad day ... and I have other things on my mind which I cannot push away, and are probably the reason I couldn't stay in bed this morning ... but I've decided that I will worry about it when I return.
Right now, my only concern is that the flight takes off today, and that I am on that plane. From Nairobi, I go to Arusha --> Moshi (Kilimanjaro) --> Dar es Salaam --> Zanzibar. All in 8 days! Yeeehah!
SCENE II
12 December
Late afternoon
It seems like my relationship with matatus are to be long and lasting.
I took a smallish bus/biggish matatu from NBO airport into town - was feeling a little too cheap for a taxi, and a little too energized by my recent departure from Juba. I had energy (adrenaline) in abundance - I could negotiate anything! And company is good ... nothing wrong with matatus!
The bus finally - through sardine-like human and car jam in the KenCom (short for Kenya Commercial) area - arrived at the stop and I alighted.
Item 1 on to-do-list: Get bus ticket for early tomorrow morning
My book says only take one of the three luxury companies ... DO NOT take any of the smaller shuttles from disreputable companies who probably do not have licenses and insurance anyway, and a lot of times drive very irresponsibly. The Nairobi -> Arusha -> Moshi route can be dangerous so it is best to dish out a little more and buy safety.
The initial plan was to fly from Nairobi to Moshi (Kilimanjaro) but the adrenaline caused me to drop that idea and want to go by road so as to get a better view. So an expensive bus ticket did not add anything to the calculation. I went for the most reputable-sounding one - Scandinavian Express.
I place a lot of faith in anything scandinavian.
Item 2 on the to-do-list: Arrive at my friend's place to spend the night
I finally did arrive at their place, but after going through basically all the distractions of KenCom. I bought mangoes, avocado, rings made of cow-horn, and an SD card from a shady dealer (which actually ended up not having the promised 256MB!). Its amazing how big city street vendors can seem attractive when you've not seen anything like them for months. I was THAT close to buying clothes from there.
And ALL this, with my bag and backpack on myself. I finally forced myself into a taxi.
That evening, it was declared unanimously that mangoes and avocadoes were either unripe, or bad.
Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. And besides, I am going to Tanzania tomorrow!
SCENE III
Dec 13 (Thu)
Nairobi
Early morning semi-darkness. It is 6am. Groggily repacking the things I’d taken out of the backpack last night, I was ready to go. I even got a free ride – score!
Time: 6:30 am; location: Scandinavian Express bus station.
I have a brilliant plan for touring Tanzania – start in the north at the mountains, and then finish in the south/east at the beach. All in one week … blame the Juba cabin fever for my ambitious plans. Although the distances are not great this time, it is a time-consuming journey because of the condition of the roads and the innumerable stops. But still, I have decided to run up and down Tanzania when I should be ‘resting and recuperating’ away from work.
The map shows my road expedition charted …enter and exit via Nairobi, Kenya by air. I wanted to travel inside Tanzania by bus. It will be time-consuming, but necessary in order to see the land from up close. And according to the book, the scenery is worth traveling overland for.
First stop: Moshi town, at the base of Mt. Kilimanjaro (it looks a little high on the map ... Moshi is actually parallel to Arusha). Initially I wanted to fly directly to Moshi, but then decided to go through the Namanga border. More adventure surely!
The guidebooks strongly denounced all forms of road transportation between Nairobi and Moshi – buses, coaches, minibuses, microbuses, matatus, shuttles – except for three bus companies. At 7:00am my ‘luxury’ Scandinavian Express rolled out of the terminal, and I settled down with my Rough Guide.
Outside were vast expanses of savannah spotted with baobab trees (growing more laterally than vertically) and covered sparsely in short bushes. Along the pock-marked road, occasionally some tribal people appeared, jogging in a way so that their bodies remained as vertical and erect as the stick was horizontal at their side. I sat up and craned my neck every time I could see a Maasai.
The region south of Nairobi is Maasai land – the very famous, recognizable and very traditional tribe living in both Kenya and Tanzania. They are very dark, very tall and have a lean structural frame – accentuated by the various pieces of traditional ornaments and weapons they like to carry. Their spears have been replaced by shorter sticks, and their leather clothing by bright red, orange or purple wraps slung from the shoulder. Their white shoes add another dimension of starkness to their appearance, along with their blazing wraps. The women are similarly dressed, but with strikingly colourful beaded neck collars and ear-pieces … not sure if I can call them earrings.
(The bumps in the road were not small, but the ‘luxury ride’ was serving me well!).
Before I knew it, we were at the Namanga border! Time: 9:30am. I could really be in Moshi by noon! Quick, invisible victory dance was in order. The border was crowded with with buses and trucks in crooked lines, vendors selling crisps, groundnut and water (like any other border), Maasai selling their beaded jewellery (not found at any other border) and touts trying to sell you matatu rides. I walked firmly towards the immigration office, after letting the matatu conductors know that I would not be needing any transportation today, and certainly not of the matatu kind. But the offers refused to stop. Sigh.
Thump thud, thump thud of the stamp on passports – the immigration line moved speedily … the formalities between Kenya and Tanzania are rudimentary. I watched it with satisfaction while waiting in the visa line first, form (and $50!) ready in hand. When my turn came up, I presented the papers, but no stamp issued. Some shaking of the head… some leafing through passport … more consultation … more people appearing to peer at the passport, and the final heavy words. One official fetched a neatly laminated blue sheet, which stated clearly “Citizens of the following countries …”
I pleaded, harassed, bargained and showed outrage, but no go. I should have tried the trembling chin … no, I’m told that I should have tried the ‘under the table’ method. But but … I didn’t see any tables. The ordeal was familiar although I did not expect it in the least – all the books and officials told me I could get a visa at the border without any trouble, especially if I held a Kenyan visa.
I finally peeled myself away from the window; I have to get a visa from the Tanzania High Commissioner in Nairobi. Where is the High Commission? How long would the visa take? I embarked on a side-mission to obtain a visa.
--- x ---
As I turned back to face Kenya, I realized there were some absolutely gorgeous mountains behind me. The sun was just peering from behind them. Two factors worked in my favour – it was still early in the day, and that the High Commissioner was in Nairobi and not in Timbuktu (which is actually a real town, and in Mali by the way). In my disfavor were also two factors – the direct Nairobi-Moshi buses are only in the morning (I have to depart again tomorrow morning) and there are no buses going from here to Nairobi in the next few hours.
I finally may need a ride of the matatu kind.
As I stepped out of immigration facing the wrong direction, the swarm of matatu conductors shot at me. Successfully. I had no other option – in order to waste just one day and not two, I needed to be back in Nairobi by afternoon. I need the visa today. Putting expediency before safety, I took a matatu – it would take only two and half hours.
Time: 10am. In a matatu, the ‘bumps’ become ‘craters’ especially when your backpack in on your lap. As we left Namanga, more and more people piled into it, with children, shopping, bags, food, greens and whatnot. We were packed snugly, and the matatu began picking up incredible speed.
--- savannah --- bush --- Baobab tree --- Maasai --- small shop --- savannah --- bush ---Baobab tree
--savannah --bush --Baobab tree --Maasai --small shop --savannah --bush --Baobab tree
savannahbushBaobabtreeMaasaismallshopsavannahbushBaobabtree
Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Oh dear ... I hope I get the visa today.
SCENE IV
Thu 13 Dec
Afternoon
Time: 1:30pm. By a miraculous stroke of luck – added with some extreme driving performance by the driver – I have arrived back in Nairobi. The story is not for the weak of heart. The matatu dropped me off at KenCom (Kenya Commercial) … no, I got off the matatu near KenCom because a half mile radius of KenCom is a veritable parking lot. I figured walking myself out of there was a better proposition.
By another divine intervention, the Tanzanian High Commissioner appeared at KenCom on the 9th floor of some building at 1:45pm.
1:50pm: I arrived at the offices and presented my case. The glass window clearly stated that it would turn into pumpkin at 2pm. More pleading … etc etc. This time, more showing of UN ID and talking with a high accent.
High accents work; I had a visa at 2:15pm. And without even a photo. Running out like a baboon out of hell, I headed for the matatu junction. I am going to Tanzania, and I am going there today. At 4:00pm, I am off again on the same road for the third time today. This story has a happy ending.
SCENE V
13 Dec
Night
If there were any fragmented journeys, then this was it. The one smooth bus ride from Nairobi to Moshi has now become a geometrically increasing number of segments. Although each time, cheaper.
I crossed Namanga border on 13 Dec at 6:45pm. It was dark. Matatus do not cross borders. I have to find another mode of transport, but that bothered me a fig – I was in Tanzania!
Jubilation lasted *very* briefly – there were no more buses to Moshi that day. I would have to overnight in Arusha … okay … no problem … I can figure something out. I opened the guidebook to new pages.
But this story developed new twists when an hour inside Tanzania, the bus slowed down – there was flooding on the road. The area is mountainous, and the rains have deposited a great quantity of mud on the road. SO much so that the tarmac was not reachable. As I was visually trying to trace the source of the flooding, our bus groaned to a stop. We were stuck in the mud.
How do you pull out a full-size bus? Maybe get a hauler or tractor? Some random thoughts slid around in my head as I stood outside in the moonlight with the rest of the passengers and at least two other marooned vehicles. I was too tired to think or act. Many of the passengers were foreigners, going to Kilimanjaro to hike the next day. We had a good chat for some fifteen minutes, but then we fell silent. A bus trying to haul itself out of a muddy pool is an entrancing sight. I have to say that the more it spun its wheels, the deeper it seemed to dip, but let me not bring in Physics here.
A few heavy vehicles passed from both sides without getting stuck, but it did not help us. I cannot remember on exactly which split second it was, but I found myself having decided that I would hitch a ride. Arusha isn’t that far. I was tired beyond I could fathom and I just needed a bed.
One truck. Another truck. One bus in the wrong direction. Another trailer in the wrong direction. One off-road SUV. I decided this is it – it is now or never. I needed all the grit and charm I could muster. Squelching through the muddy road, I launched myself towards the SUV. It was dark except for the moonlight so I didn’t see the markings on the side of the vehicle until I was right next to it.
It was a UN car! I was saved! I professed my UN ID. Leaving many of the other clamouring passengers on the roadside, the vehicle took me.
That night, I had a West African meal, and slept in the house of a very sweet Guinean family who works for the UN ICTR.
It was a day of good karma after all.
Monday, February 4, 2008
Sunday, July 1, 2007
To be or not to be bizarre
Being in Juba has stopped feeling like a novelty anymore. Now I have the regularity of a routine, and there are no more first impressions to be made! Though that sounds a bit ostentatious, I would say that most things that may be explored, have been explored. There are no more new places to visit … and apart from tourist sights, even the daily oddities that used to strike me before do not strike me as odd when I come across them anymore. When I first arrived, I was intrigued by everything … noticed it all with a lot of care and interest, and when I returned home in the evening, sat down to reflect and write – about everything, from the people and cars to food and work. But now, I know that the newness has worn off because it feels just like tackling the daily routine. There are few diversions, and it is no wonder that for all staff, mandatory leave from the duty station is every six weeks. I’ll explain that shortly.
My routine is a 0615 wakeup, 0630 jogging expedition, 0700 shower and ready, 0720 breakfast, 0745 travel to work. Then the day just flies and we come home at 1900 hrs. During the day, my work is mostly desk work – I do not have any field projects. I compile and edit reports, collecting data from the various field offices, facilitating communication between this office and the satellite locations in the field or the other UN agencies.
But when you are in Southern Sudan, collecting the data can be a job in itself!
The other day, I needed information on water and sanitation in Central Equatoria state. The first email to a UNICEF counterpart went out on week 1. He was out of the office and I was advised to contact the following week. The following week, I received no emails, and when I wrote to other colleagues in UNICEF (which took another few working days), found out that the gentleman *had* returned, but had gone out to the field. More waiting. I asked if someone in his department could forward me the data – it seems like they could, if I explained to them what I needed. I thought it is easier done face to face, so I set up an appointment. When the day and time came for the appointment, I made a vehicle request to go to UNICEF, but alas, there were no vehicles at the base (office)! I waited and waited – two vehicles had gone out on mission and so we were operating tightly on the rest. Grrrrr. Sigh. I missed the meeting of course … patience is a virtue. Another meeting had to be set up.
One would wonder why I didn’t call to postpone the meeting when there was no car – that is what any rational person would do – but that rational choice isn’t available to us in Juba. At UNHCR – and probably all the other agencies – there is no functional local phone line! There may be one or two in the entire office but that is to facilitate emergency calls to local businesses, travel agents, etc. You cannot just make a quick local call from your desk. Our phone lines have an international exchange – the operator is in Geneva, and so we have Swiss numbers! So in order for me to call UNICEF, I would have to dial out of Switzerland and based on where their exchange might be, make an international call. Bizarre! So email is most preferred. But that isn’t always reliable of course ... especially when your contact is away! UNICEF is just a 5 minute drive from our office, but to get there, I would have to request a driver and vehicle for an hour, have the paperwork for that approved, then find the vehicle dispatcher, and coordinate with anyone else that might be going in the same direction! One almost has to dread going out on errands!
So now I am just used to planning a week ahead of time if I need to go somewhere, and then adjusting plans on the day of travel … you can spend up to an hour trying to coordinating logistics to get somewhere or find something. I know I whine, but the best person to make friends with is the head driver (dispatcher)!
So days end up being very long and semi-productive, which is very characteristic of the UN I believe. I think I am now used to this style of work, and just relax and do things as I can. I don’t rush because the farthest I can rush is to the gate! Outside the office, we don’t go too many places. Travel in the evenings is restricted after 8pm because of security issues so it is a rare weekday that we go out to get pizza at The Village. On Friday evening we try and return home by 6pm, and on Saturday by 530pm because our weekly volleyball has to be played! That is it.
Restaurants in Juba are mushrooming, as in any post-conflict region with a heavy presence of international personnel. There are a few hundred internationals in this town, there’s the Nile running through it, and there are a lot of industrious Kenyan and Ugandan businessmen around. Put them all together, and you get riverbank restaurants! The restaurants are called camps – Mango Camp, Civicon camp, Global Camp, and so on – and they serve ambiguous continental food, and charge New York prices for it. But for lack of options, the hundreds of internationals are going here, and business is booming. There are new camps opening up every month! There is even a website that reviews them! While a French buffet in Juba sounds bizarre, that is exactly what you will find here to cater to UN professionals who are earning big bucks here. There are of course local restaurants, but most of them happen to be ‘out-of-bounds’ for security concerns...
A buffet at a nice Italian restaurant is around $25. And we pay it without blinking. This is why I say I am complacent now - $5 for a can of pringles, $7 for a bottle of tang. $6 for tinned chicken bologna, $200 for a hotel room (check out the Juba Post website – if you are a tourist, you had better have a thick wallet!), $1.50 for a can of coke, $4 for 2lb of basmati rice … you see what I mean. For breakfast supplies, we go to one of two local stores, where milk cartons are found if the day’s supply isn’t all sold out – a litre of milk is $2. There is no chocolate, but I’m sure someone will think of importing them shortly because we are happy to pay $9 for a box of Ferrero Rochers! I believe this is like Iceland where everything is imported – even our bottled water and our daily pineapple supply come from Uganda. Things are 4 times what they cost in the developed world… after a while you ignore the prices because you are so happy to find those items here at all! There is a distorted economy functioning here, and although I really don’t have a real sense for it, I hope there is a parallel economy for locals.
Living costs for internationals is sky high, although the arrangements are ‘modest’. UNHCR maintains a subsidized camp for its staff which is what saved me! Rent otherwise would be anywhere between $1000 and $1500 for a small apartment! And you would have to buy water from the Nile by tanks.
There is however a parallel system for internationals … it’s called the duty-free shop! Every UN mission has a PX where you can get essential items, imported, and sold without any duty associated with it! As soon as you enter PX, you are greeted by crates of canned Coke from floor to ceiling. There’s Fanta, Baileys and also Heineken. The rest are canned soups, Johnson’s lotion, Crest toothpaste, German chocolate wafers, chocolate chip cookies, mini-packets of basmati rice, sugar, flour, frozen chicken and whiskey. Isn’t that all you need? Our weekly highlight is a trip to the PX, to get our cokes and wafers at New York prices.
I think I’m also used to the various other oddities in life here like walking two minutes (outdoors!) to get to the bathroom at night, lizards at least the size of my palm, no local phone at work, no internet at home, no cellphone at all, no car to go anywhere after 6pm, and of course no money because my gratis service is running me a little thin! There are frogs that croak louder than barking dogs, rats and mice that will bore their way into your tent should you forget and leave a cookie or an apple inside the room, and our lighting-catcher in the camp is our tallest light post … the other day a Kenyan man died after being struck by lightning, so as a response, we designated our tall lightpost as our lightning catcher. I’m used to the fact that I eat the same cereal (bran flakes) every day for breakfast, eat pineapples every day at dinner, and eat rice every day of the week. At least someone is cooking for me! It is not unusual to stand in the dark in the shower to realize the power – which means water too – has gone out. We should all know how the electricity, water, heat and a/c work in the camp because there may be no one to fix it. Of course, in that case you may step up your indifference a notch and choose to ignore the fact that it is boiling hot and your a/c is not working.
Outside the camp, there are also many things to become used to – roads which have craters as large as the moon’s so that your car is never truly horizontal, puddles about ten feet wide when it rains, an inter-state bridge where cars can use only one lane because an overweight truck damaged the other side, hordes of horned cows who have right-of-way on the main road, streets that actually become smoother when it rains, UN land cruisers constituting about half the traffic in Juba, matatus in some parts of the town stuffed up to the window rims, men and women looking tribal, christian and muslim all at the same time, people with Christian first names, and Muslim lastnames, and a general mixing of African, Arabic, Muslim and Christian cultural influences. South Sudan has many churches, and it also has mosques. It has become a familiar feeling to hear the azaan in the evening as we play volleyball.
Not much else to report today. If something else strikes me as new, I’ll come back.
My routine is a 0615 wakeup, 0630 jogging expedition, 0700 shower and ready, 0720 breakfast, 0745 travel to work. Then the day just flies and we come home at 1900 hrs. During the day, my work is mostly desk work – I do not have any field projects. I compile and edit reports, collecting data from the various field offices, facilitating communication between this office and the satellite locations in the field or the other UN agencies.
But when you are in Southern Sudan, collecting the data can be a job in itself!
The other day, I needed information on water and sanitation in Central Equatoria state. The first email to a UNICEF counterpart went out on week 1. He was out of the office and I was advised to contact the following week. The following week, I received no emails, and when I wrote to other colleagues in UNICEF (which took another few working days), found out that the gentleman *had* returned, but had gone out to the field. More waiting. I asked if someone in his department could forward me the data – it seems like they could, if I explained to them what I needed. I thought it is easier done face to face, so I set up an appointment. When the day and time came for the appointment, I made a vehicle request to go to UNICEF, but alas, there were no vehicles at the base (office)! I waited and waited – two vehicles had gone out on mission and so we were operating tightly on the rest. Grrrrr. Sigh. I missed the meeting of course … patience is a virtue. Another meeting had to be set up.
One would wonder why I didn’t call to postpone the meeting when there was no car – that is what any rational person would do – but that rational choice isn’t available to us in Juba. At UNHCR – and probably all the other agencies – there is no functional local phone line! There may be one or two in the entire office but that is to facilitate emergency calls to local businesses, travel agents, etc. You cannot just make a quick local call from your desk. Our phone lines have an international exchange – the operator is in Geneva, and so we have Swiss numbers! So in order for me to call UNICEF, I would have to dial out of Switzerland and based on where their exchange might be, make an international call. Bizarre! So email is most preferred. But that isn’t always reliable of course ... especially when your contact is away! UNICEF is just a 5 minute drive from our office, but to get there, I would have to request a driver and vehicle for an hour, have the paperwork for that approved, then find the vehicle dispatcher, and coordinate with anyone else that might be going in the same direction! One almost has to dread going out on errands!
So now I am just used to planning a week ahead of time if I need to go somewhere, and then adjusting plans on the day of travel … you can spend up to an hour trying to coordinating logistics to get somewhere or find something. I know I whine, but the best person to make friends with is the head driver (dispatcher)!
So days end up being very long and semi-productive, which is very characteristic of the UN I believe. I think I am now used to this style of work, and just relax and do things as I can. I don’t rush because the farthest I can rush is to the gate! Outside the office, we don’t go too many places. Travel in the evenings is restricted after 8pm because of security issues so it is a rare weekday that we go out to get pizza at The Village. On Friday evening we try and return home by 6pm, and on Saturday by 530pm because our weekly volleyball has to be played! That is it.
Restaurants in Juba are mushrooming, as in any post-conflict region with a heavy presence of international personnel. There are a few hundred internationals in this town, there’s the Nile running through it, and there are a lot of industrious Kenyan and Ugandan businessmen around. Put them all together, and you get riverbank restaurants! The restaurants are called camps – Mango Camp, Civicon camp, Global Camp, and so on – and they serve ambiguous continental food, and charge New York prices for it. But for lack of options, the hundreds of internationals are going here, and business is booming. There are new camps opening up every month! There is even a website that reviews them! While a French buffet in Juba sounds bizarre, that is exactly what you will find here to cater to UN professionals who are earning big bucks here. There are of course local restaurants, but most of them happen to be ‘out-of-bounds’ for security concerns...
A buffet at a nice Italian restaurant is around $25. And we pay it without blinking. This is why I say I am complacent now - $5 for a can of pringles, $7 for a bottle of tang. $6 for tinned chicken bologna, $200 for a hotel room (check out the Juba Post website – if you are a tourist, you had better have a thick wallet!), $1.50 for a can of coke, $4 for 2lb of basmati rice … you see what I mean. For breakfast supplies, we go to one of two local stores, where milk cartons are found if the day’s supply isn’t all sold out – a litre of milk is $2. There is no chocolate, but I’m sure someone will think of importing them shortly because we are happy to pay $9 for a box of Ferrero Rochers! I believe this is like Iceland where everything is imported – even our bottled water and our daily pineapple supply come from Uganda. Things are 4 times what they cost in the developed world… after a while you ignore the prices because you are so happy to find those items here at all! There is a distorted economy functioning here, and although I really don’t have a real sense for it, I hope there is a parallel economy for locals.
Living costs for internationals is sky high, although the arrangements are ‘modest’. UNHCR maintains a subsidized camp for its staff which is what saved me! Rent otherwise would be anywhere between $1000 and $1500 for a small apartment! And you would have to buy water from the Nile by tanks.
There is however a parallel system for internationals … it’s called the duty-free shop! Every UN mission has a PX where you can get essential items, imported, and sold without any duty associated with it! As soon as you enter PX, you are greeted by crates of canned Coke from floor to ceiling. There’s Fanta, Baileys and also Heineken. The rest are canned soups, Johnson’s lotion, Crest toothpaste, German chocolate wafers, chocolate chip cookies, mini-packets of basmati rice, sugar, flour, frozen chicken and whiskey. Isn’t that all you need? Our weekly highlight is a trip to the PX, to get our cokes and wafers at New York prices.
I think I’m also used to the various other oddities in life here like walking two minutes (outdoors!) to get to the bathroom at night, lizards at least the size of my palm, no local phone at work, no internet at home, no cellphone at all, no car to go anywhere after 6pm, and of course no money because my gratis service is running me a little thin! There are frogs that croak louder than barking dogs, rats and mice that will bore their way into your tent should you forget and leave a cookie or an apple inside the room, and our lighting-catcher in the camp is our tallest light post … the other day a Kenyan man died after being struck by lightning, so as a response, we designated our tall lightpost as our lightning catcher. I’m used to the fact that I eat the same cereal (bran flakes) every day for breakfast, eat pineapples every day at dinner, and eat rice every day of the week. At least someone is cooking for me! It is not unusual to stand in the dark in the shower to realize the power – which means water too – has gone out. We should all know how the electricity, water, heat and a/c work in the camp because there may be no one to fix it. Of course, in that case you may step up your indifference a notch and choose to ignore the fact that it is boiling hot and your a/c is not working.
Outside the camp, there are also many things to become used to – roads which have craters as large as the moon’s so that your car is never truly horizontal, puddles about ten feet wide when it rains, an inter-state bridge where cars can use only one lane because an overweight truck damaged the other side, hordes of horned cows who have right-of-way on the main road, streets that actually become smoother when it rains, UN land cruisers constituting about half the traffic in Juba, matatus in some parts of the town stuffed up to the window rims, men and women looking tribal, christian and muslim all at the same time, people with Christian first names, and Muslim lastnames, and a general mixing of African, Arabic, Muslim and Christian cultural influences. South Sudan has many churches, and it also has mosques. It has become a familiar feeling to hear the azaan in the evening as we play volleyball.
Not much else to report today. If something else strikes me as new, I’ll come back.
Mirror mirror on the wall
Sunday, Jun 24
Juba, Sudan
I liked the movie Blood Diamond. Contrary to most of my friends who either thought it was rife with of Titanic-like melodrama, or that the storyline was too sensationalized, I was of the personal opinion that it was timely, and that it had a good balance of the documentary and the entertaining. Whatever my excuse, the reason I mention the movie is that there is a scene where diCaprio (sp?) meets O’Connelly at the tiki bar, and upon finding out – to his disgust – that she is a journalist, indicts her of the heinous crime of being one of those foreigners who use hand sanitizer everytime they touch something local!
Of course he himself wasn’t exactly dedicating himself selflessly to the health and prosperity of Sierra Leoneans if you remember correctly! His line however sums up my mental state regarding hygiene though.
As I was packing to leave Boston, some of my ‘well-wishers’ made generous offers of contributing everything for my personal hygiene starting from toilet seat covers, to hand sanitizers, mosquito nets to deodorants, pen-knives and suncreens and even some other quite-unsolicited items, if you can get my drift! Although I usually do not take anyone else’s except my own opinion seriously, this time I was nailed. It was a strange new place, and I had heard that death by crocodiles was quite a common occurrence, so who knows what other hazards were lurking in wait for me?
The due visit to Target was made, and after we were done with it, the cart was full of junk from the health and pharmacy section. All for one person! I was feeling rather special, and quite enlightened too, because thanks to Sarah, I now knew the difference between Imodium and Pepto Bismol. But even if I didn’t, there was enough supply of each that I could take both at every dose had I needed to. This reminds me of a friend whom I have never met personally, but whose daily intake of Valium impressed me enough that I had to add her as a friend on facebook. This friend – whom we shall call Baloo from here onwards – is a human miracle as she survives purely on a diet of coffee and pulao and aloo. (For the non-Bangladeshis reading this, this is equivalent to coffee, twinkies and fries in terms of nutritional value). Feeling like Baloo, I contentedly packed my newly acquired lotions, tablets, capsules and sprays. I felt invincible – if I had a cape, I am sure I could have flown myself over to Sudan without the aircraft!
…
Well most of the product advisory came from people who were concerned that I would be unrecognizable when I returned … because I would be sunburnt and skinny. While slim I don’t mind, but ‘dark’ for any South Asian woman is the ultimate curse. I therefore prepared a morning routine for myself that would put backstage makeup artists to shame.
The day starts early here. After I missed the ‘bus’ a few times my first week, I realized that I should really not depend on my body clock. The alarm was then set for 6:30am. Following a teary goodbye with my bed, I proceed to the showers. Thankfully the geyser works on most mornings, and I can take a warm shower if I wish. (Even at the ungodly hour of 6:30am, I can see some people leaving for work, which keeps me from congratulating myself too much for being able to wake up at that time!)
Returning to the tent, I have to make a decision on what to wear. Although I brought short-sleeved summer clothing, it is wisest to wear long sleeves and long trousers to deny access to malaria anopheles mosquitoes. That is the reason you see many of the women here wearing long-sleeved Indian tunics.
And now it is the turn for the beauty products. First is the roll-ons for deodorization so that even if have to look like a sweat-oozing monkey, at least I don’t smell like one! Then it is time for the talc. I have a fat bottle of talcum powder that smells of something they put on us when we were children. By this time I have started sweating again because they have turned off the air-conditioning and the effort involved in taking a shower and then walking back to your tent is guaranteed to make you perspire. So the lathering of talc on every inch of skin is to be done calmly yet speedily, in a way to avoid further exertion.
Next is the suncreen. I have been judicious enough to being several types of sunscreen. The two that I have unpacked till now are a spray and a lotion. The spray goes on all exposed parts of my skin, and is quite a nice sensation because it is cool and fizzy. Short sleeves equal to more spray, so in the spirit of conservation, I wear long sleeves on most days. For the ladies out there – spray on sunscreen is the best thing to hit the planet, because you can even get that part where your ear-lobes meet your neck, quite nicely! Yeah! The lotion suncreen is a little thicker – not to mention pricier – and is only to be used on the face and hands.
And then I wait, for the spray and the lotion to dry so that other products may be layered on. After drying, I use moisturizer on my elbow, knees and ankles, because my mother tells me to. You will realize that I’ve put on talc and a spray-on sunscreen, but nothing moisturizing, and I certainly do not want to age in this sunshine, so thus the moisturizer. The sunscreen for the face is sufficiently moisturing, to take care of that part of it!
And then comes the protective part – insect repellent! I have a heavy-duty deet 40 insect spray that can even be used in the Amazon forests! That is sprayed on my arms, feet, and neck. And then that is dried. As the last layer cakes on, I pat some powder on the face that has by this time, started to bead up with sweat from getting ready. On some days, I add on some eye-liner to top it all off, but when I step out of my tent with nothing to show for the ten whole minutes of preparation, except my shirt already clinging to my back.
I was very proud of my meticulous routine that I had successfully completed for my first week. On the second week it was even better because I could do it in sub-eight minutes, and wasn’t even missing my bus anymore! But then I found out that I had been so worried about the ‘sunburnt’ part of everyone’s predictions that I had forgotten to pay attention to the ‘skinny’ part.
On day when some cargo was being weighed, I jumped on to the scales to see whether I had lost anything. And by the name of all the mangoes I’ve eaten here, boy did I receive a shock – I had packed on a whopping eight pounds! It is all that rice, oily curries and sitting in an air-conditioned office for ten hour stretches! And add to that the fact that I do not have a mirror to look at!
I needed a new game-plan. The alarm is now set to 6am, and I wake up early to get some exercise in. So the goal now is to manage to stay the same weight and colour when I see everyone again!
Juba, Sudan
I liked the movie Blood Diamond. Contrary to most of my friends who either thought it was rife with of Titanic-like melodrama, or that the storyline was too sensationalized, I was of the personal opinion that it was timely, and that it had a good balance of the documentary and the entertaining. Whatever my excuse, the reason I mention the movie is that there is a scene where diCaprio (sp?) meets O’Connelly at the tiki bar, and upon finding out – to his disgust – that she is a journalist, indicts her of the heinous crime of being one of those foreigners who use hand sanitizer everytime they touch something local!
Of course he himself wasn’t exactly dedicating himself selflessly to the health and prosperity of Sierra Leoneans if you remember correctly! His line however sums up my mental state regarding hygiene though.
As I was packing to leave Boston, some of my ‘well-wishers’ made generous offers of contributing everything for my personal hygiene starting from toilet seat covers, to hand sanitizers, mosquito nets to deodorants, pen-knives and suncreens and even some other quite-unsolicited items, if you can get my drift! Although I usually do not take anyone else’s except my own opinion seriously, this time I was nailed. It was a strange new place, and I had heard that death by crocodiles was quite a common occurrence, so who knows what other hazards were lurking in wait for me?
The due visit to Target was made, and after we were done with it, the cart was full of junk from the health and pharmacy section. All for one person! I was feeling rather special, and quite enlightened too, because thanks to Sarah, I now knew the difference between Imodium and Pepto Bismol. But even if I didn’t, there was enough supply of each that I could take both at every dose had I needed to. This reminds me of a friend whom I have never met personally, but whose daily intake of Valium impressed me enough that I had to add her as a friend on facebook. This friend – whom we shall call Baloo from here onwards – is a human miracle as she survives purely on a diet of coffee and pulao and aloo. (For the non-Bangladeshis reading this, this is equivalent to coffee, twinkies and fries in terms of nutritional value). Feeling like Baloo, I contentedly packed my newly acquired lotions, tablets, capsules and sprays. I felt invincible – if I had a cape, I am sure I could have flown myself over to Sudan without the aircraft!
…
Well most of the product advisory came from people who were concerned that I would be unrecognizable when I returned … because I would be sunburnt and skinny. While slim I don’t mind, but ‘dark’ for any South Asian woman is the ultimate curse. I therefore prepared a morning routine for myself that would put backstage makeup artists to shame.
The day starts early here. After I missed the ‘bus’ a few times my first week, I realized that I should really not depend on my body clock. The alarm was then set for 6:30am. Following a teary goodbye with my bed, I proceed to the showers. Thankfully the geyser works on most mornings, and I can take a warm shower if I wish. (Even at the ungodly hour of 6:30am, I can see some people leaving for work, which keeps me from congratulating myself too much for being able to wake up at that time!)
Returning to the tent, I have to make a decision on what to wear. Although I brought short-sleeved summer clothing, it is wisest to wear long sleeves and long trousers to deny access to malaria anopheles mosquitoes. That is the reason you see many of the women here wearing long-sleeved Indian tunics.
And now it is the turn for the beauty products. First is the roll-ons for deodorization so that even if have to look like a sweat-oozing monkey, at least I don’t smell like one! Then it is time for the talc. I have a fat bottle of talcum powder that smells of something they put on us when we were children. By this time I have started sweating again because they have turned off the air-conditioning and the effort involved in taking a shower and then walking back to your tent is guaranteed to make you perspire. So the lathering of talc on every inch of skin is to be done calmly yet speedily, in a way to avoid further exertion.
Next is the suncreen. I have been judicious enough to being several types of sunscreen. The two that I have unpacked till now are a spray and a lotion. The spray goes on all exposed parts of my skin, and is quite a nice sensation because it is cool and fizzy. Short sleeves equal to more spray, so in the spirit of conservation, I wear long sleeves on most days. For the ladies out there – spray on sunscreen is the best thing to hit the planet, because you can even get that part where your ear-lobes meet your neck, quite nicely! Yeah! The lotion suncreen is a little thicker – not to mention pricier – and is only to be used on the face and hands.
And then I wait, for the spray and the lotion to dry so that other products may be layered on. After drying, I use moisturizer on my elbow, knees and ankles, because my mother tells me to. You will realize that I’ve put on talc and a spray-on sunscreen, but nothing moisturizing, and I certainly do not want to age in this sunshine, so thus the moisturizer. The sunscreen for the face is sufficiently moisturing, to take care of that part of it!
And then comes the protective part – insect repellent! I have a heavy-duty deet 40 insect spray that can even be used in the Amazon forests! That is sprayed on my arms, feet, and neck. And then that is dried. As the last layer cakes on, I pat some powder on the face that has by this time, started to bead up with sweat from getting ready. On some days, I add on some eye-liner to top it all off, but when I step out of my tent with nothing to show for the ten whole minutes of preparation, except my shirt already clinging to my back.
I was very proud of my meticulous routine that I had successfully completed for my first week. On the second week it was even better because I could do it in sub-eight minutes, and wasn’t even missing my bus anymore! But then I found out that I had been so worried about the ‘sunburnt’ part of everyone’s predictions that I had forgotten to pay attention to the ‘skinny’ part.
On day when some cargo was being weighed, I jumped on to the scales to see whether I had lost anything. And by the name of all the mangoes I’ve eaten here, boy did I receive a shock – I had packed on a whopping eight pounds! It is all that rice, oily curries and sitting in an air-conditioned office for ten hour stretches! And add to that the fact that I do not have a mirror to look at!
I needed a new game-plan. The alarm is now set to 6am, and I wake up early to get some exercise in. So the goal now is to manage to stay the same weight and colour when I see everyone again!
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Who's Who
Work and play
Without the people I would not make it through the day. Just thinking about them makes me smile. It’s not the roaringly-hilarious kind of funny that I am talking about, but the chuckly-I-would’ve-never-imagined kind of funny. Each of them is like a private joke, and together that makes a lot of jokes – enough to get you through the day.
Before I came here I had brooded for hours, trying to ‘prepare’ myself for what I would find – in terms of the work, the people, the history, the war, the peace and the political process … and of course the ‘tribulations’ of doing humanitarian work in ‘Africa’. What I hadn’t even given a thought to were the people – not the Sudanese folk, but my co-workers. Yes of course they are a bunch of inefficient bureaucrats and yada yada yada, but without them, this story doesn’t even go half the way. They are important, you see – you learn about them and their experiences, as much as you learn to do your job. I think that it should be a part of your ToR that you spend at least 15% of your day gaining ‘anecdotal experience’! And their experiences and their circumstances are quite distinctive … they are of every ethnicity … they just been just about everywhere … speak every language possible (sometimes one person herself). Its like a mini UN or something … oh, hold on – it is!
Jocelyn and Emmanuel received me at the airport. Jocelyn is an HR assistant, and she is the quintessential Philippine in her 30s – round, chubby face, long black hair, synthetic floral printed shirt and white capris (which too, are of course Philippine in my mind). In an airy style she ordered Emmanuel to put my bags exactly where they should go. Then we whizzed around to everywhere I needed to be on Day 1… first the accommodations, and then in the office. Immaculate execution! Jocelyn loves routine … and rules! Emmanuel is chill, but all I saw then were his latest Matrix-style sunglasses – quite a rarity in Juba!
At the office, there was Peter Butili – Sudanese, smiling, short and stocky … upon introduction he was delighted to offer me the other desk at his office. I later found out that his delight was partially due to the fact that I had off-loaded one of his core responsibilities … but I’m not bitter. Peter can give you more local news and analysis in a half hour than can Anderson Cooper with his imitation of a speeding human train. And he knows people in every government office South Sudan … it shouldn’t be long before I meet the President.
Ditas (head HR) is also Philippine. She smiled more than actually telling me what exactly the Code of Conduct and ToR that I signed would do to me. She said it was mostly common sense anyway. She makes life easy … she was the one that told me they wear sandals to work, prompting me to bring all of my open, summer footwear. She was so casual that she even offered her phone code to call internationally! Yum yum.
Our office head, Raja, towers above everyone there – he is authoritative, but is also witty, warm and un-intimidating! If you can put those qualities together, you’ll understand why I find him the most unruffled person I have come across. I don’t know why no one has thought of this yet, but if we were to put him between the Turks and Greeks in Cyprus, that problem would be solved before the end of the summer! And to top it off, he introduced me to all the department heads himself!
I wanted to start the Raja Fan Club, but apparently it has been there since he joined.
Now with the second-in-charge at the office, I didn’t have such a wonderful unification. Ann’s Guyanese, and a power-woman. Her frame and her looks belie her tough personality. On first encounter, I remember wondering how she managed not to stop traffic in Juba … but as I went on around the office minding my own business, I was duly enlightened of her policing abilities that would be sufficient to send any traffic – even Juba’s – right on its way!
It happened like this – with or without reason, I had stepped out of my office into the hallway … with none of the world’s greater problems on my shoulder at that point, I was returning quite absentmindedly when I passed Ann and three other colleagues … she stopped and turned back to ask me who I was. Then she asked if I worked here … which should ideally have given me the clue about who she was, but I ignored all interventions from my sixth sense, including the fact that the others who knew me, didn’t jump in to do introductions … and began explaining to her in very simple terms what I do at this office … she stared at me quite hard, and the colleagues’ eyebrows went higher and higher … but I continued missing the point. Ann said nothing – and thinking that she wasn’t understanding, I might’ve simplified my project details for her … arrghh. Situma behind her, was going slightly blue from the need to laugh, and had there been a table separating us, I would certainly have received a sound kick under it, but no such respite graced us that day, and I went on explaining – and embarrassing – myself for a good two and one-quarter of a minute! I might’ve stopped after realizing that it was more a monologue than anything else … and she continued briskly again, followed by the others, … walking right into the office of the second-in-charge. I had just explained to my semi-boss what my job was. Life can be cruel.
My office with Peter Butili looks like it might only be a temporary arrangement. Thanks to my loud mouth combined with my low-life status, I might have actually talked my way out of this office. A glass window separates Peter Butili and me from our number one man of business, Girmai. He was on holiday, and my first three weeks were spent in concern about his absence as I needed to get his help on something. But when he arrived, he spent no time in informing me that he has absolutely nothing against interns, but he would like someone else doing my job – because obviously my job was extremely important to the office – and that he would also like to move in another employee to my location. Mm-hmm – I said I completely understand if he needs to have his supervisees near him … but I guess until that point, I didn’t understand, because before we ended our short but productive meeting he informed me that I need to keep my voice down for the time being because noise carried. Oops. So I’d gone and lost myself my office.
But my consolation was that Raja had assigned me my duties, so he obviously knew my abilities! Hah!
The rest of the people are crazy in their own way I’m sure, but I’ll wait to find out about them a little more.
What may not be the ideal setup, but has to happen in Juba is that there’s no work-life demarcation. You spend 10 to 11 waking hours at the office, and then you return to camp to find most of the people there, so it is imperative that you at least not take an intense dislike to anyone! I am happy to say that everyone was just too wonderful my first week … Situma, our Air Ops guy asked me to do a headstand, and when I did not, proclaimed me a sane person, and invited me to join the group of the real crazy people. The Crazies usually sit in one place, and find names for the others … someone who’s eating too much jam – ‘jam finish-ist’ … one who is forgetting to pay their share – ‘bill-avoidist’ … someone who is always late – ‘tardist’. And believe me, in this place, there’s no avoiding the public eye … everyone is in everyone’s face. Then there’s George from Cameroon who is possibly the loudest person in Juba … if you’re going to argue with him, you had better bring your spare pair of lungs, and your wit – last week, I saw him eating what looked like my leftovers … “George!!?!! What is THAT???? You’re eating my curry!”
“Ma friend, it is youh curry? I say your name is nowhere on it!”
“I don’t BELIEVE this! How could you DO THIS!”
“If you do not bee-leeve, I suggest you walk to the fridge and check inside, so you can beeh-leeve, before I eat my lunch! Do you want to go look now?? I’M WAITING!”
I could only fume and point my shoes at him.
“Little gahl! There’s nothing at the bottom of youh shoes!!”
Sigh. But when George is nice, he can also be quite charming … one time he asked why a nice person like me was here … wasn’t I too young? How would I survive? Of course, when I shut him up, he became even more curious and interested. Great I thought! I was setting myself up to be harassed by big men who were hardened by living in the field …
Fast forward two weeks –
Grace: “Farheen, please make him change the channel … this is enough!”
“George, change the channel”
“No!”
“george! Why noT?? You have the remote!”
“And SO?? Mah friend, I’m watching Africa Magic – cant you see!?”
“I can seee!! And I don’t want to see it!”
“You go change it!”
“George! …. Geor-ge! … Don’t let me get up”
“This GAHL!!!! Three of them in any house, and everyone will GO MAD!”
*Victory!*
And there’s Etienn! He is just there... for everyone to throw their demands at him, just because he is the elec. engineer! That has partly to do with the fact that all our troubles stem from stopped air-conditioning, stopped geyser, stopped air-conditioning, busted light, non-functional fan, stopped air-conditioning, fridge droning, stopped air-conditioning, and stopped air-conditioning. Poor thing – he and I are good friends because of the bonding we had when I had to be rescued from a ditch. Although ditches are a common phenomenon and quite visible, but why we found ourselves in this one is just fate! But thanks to that, I have another friend.
Eva is my buddy at the camp. She is Czech, and I think established her own identity slowly but surely, so I just follow her meekly! When she had first told everyone that she was going jogging in Juba in the morning, the collective jaw at the camp dropped with such a clang!=. But of course when she continued to do it, they all forgot about it. Jocelyn, with her love for rules, had made such a fuss that one would think Prince Harry had escaped to fight in Iraq! But Jocelyn keeps her own self busy, trying to control a campful of Crazies … each morning she threatens to leave for work at 7:15 which gets everyone scuttling about like squirrels because that threat could be painful. She dispatches the vehicles. But invariably, she delays and takes us with her. Most days a second vehicle also comes at 7:45 to pick up the stragglers. One of my best memories is the day when my alarm malfunctioned and I woke up at 7:45! Oh my … this should be interesting … I stepped out to see Jocelyn getting into the last car.
“AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!”
If my late appearance didn’t give her an immediate heart-attack, then my relaxed attitude was about to! I had broken the 7:15 rule – heck I’d broken the 7:45 one! She looked as though she might call the firebrigade to air-lift me to work. But firebrigades don’t do airlifts. And there are no fire-brigades here. Neither are there air-strips at work. So there was nothing to do. Just a little bit of unnecessary excitement. Nothing happened of course – another car came later, and I just watched a little more tv that morning.
It feels like a waste if you aren’t using all that security language you’re taught, and the emergency talk that’s thrown around! Its not our fault that we sometimes feel the need to have our little situations too!
Without the people I would not make it through the day. Just thinking about them makes me smile. It’s not the roaringly-hilarious kind of funny that I am talking about, but the chuckly-I-would’ve-never-imagined kind of funny. Each of them is like a private joke, and together that makes a lot of jokes – enough to get you through the day.
Before I came here I had brooded for hours, trying to ‘prepare’ myself for what I would find – in terms of the work, the people, the history, the war, the peace and the political process … and of course the ‘tribulations’ of doing humanitarian work in ‘Africa’. What I hadn’t even given a thought to were the people – not the Sudanese folk, but my co-workers. Yes of course they are a bunch of inefficient bureaucrats and yada yada yada, but without them, this story doesn’t even go half the way. They are important, you see – you learn about them and their experiences, as much as you learn to do your job. I think that it should be a part of your ToR that you spend at least 15% of your day gaining ‘anecdotal experience’! And their experiences and their circumstances are quite distinctive … they are of every ethnicity … they just been just about everywhere … speak every language possible (sometimes one person herself). Its like a mini UN or something … oh, hold on – it is!
Jocelyn and Emmanuel received me at the airport. Jocelyn is an HR assistant, and she is the quintessential Philippine in her 30s – round, chubby face, long black hair, synthetic floral printed shirt and white capris (which too, are of course Philippine in my mind). In an airy style she ordered Emmanuel to put my bags exactly where they should go. Then we whizzed around to everywhere I needed to be on Day 1… first the accommodations, and then in the office. Immaculate execution! Jocelyn loves routine … and rules! Emmanuel is chill, but all I saw then were his latest Matrix-style sunglasses – quite a rarity in Juba!
At the office, there was Peter Butili – Sudanese, smiling, short and stocky … upon introduction he was delighted to offer me the other desk at his office. I later found out that his delight was partially due to the fact that I had off-loaded one of his core responsibilities … but I’m not bitter. Peter can give you more local news and analysis in a half hour than can Anderson Cooper with his imitation of a speeding human train. And he knows people in every government office South Sudan … it shouldn’t be long before I meet the President.
Ditas (head HR) is also Philippine. She smiled more than actually telling me what exactly the Code of Conduct and ToR that I signed would do to me. She said it was mostly common sense anyway. She makes life easy … she was the one that told me they wear sandals to work, prompting me to bring all of my open, summer footwear. She was so casual that she even offered her phone code to call internationally! Yum yum.
Our office head, Raja, towers above everyone there – he is authoritative, but is also witty, warm and un-intimidating! If you can put those qualities together, you’ll understand why I find him the most unruffled person I have come across. I don’t know why no one has thought of this yet, but if we were to put him between the Turks and Greeks in Cyprus, that problem would be solved before the end of the summer! And to top it off, he introduced me to all the department heads himself!
I wanted to start the Raja Fan Club, but apparently it has been there since he joined.
Now with the second-in-charge at the office, I didn’t have such a wonderful unification. Ann’s Guyanese, and a power-woman. Her frame and her looks belie her tough personality. On first encounter, I remember wondering how she managed not to stop traffic in Juba … but as I went on around the office minding my own business, I was duly enlightened of her policing abilities that would be sufficient to send any traffic – even Juba’s – right on its way!
It happened like this – with or without reason, I had stepped out of my office into the hallway … with none of the world’s greater problems on my shoulder at that point, I was returning quite absentmindedly when I passed Ann and three other colleagues … she stopped and turned back to ask me who I was. Then she asked if I worked here … which should ideally have given me the clue about who she was, but I ignored all interventions from my sixth sense, including the fact that the others who knew me, didn’t jump in to do introductions … and began explaining to her in very simple terms what I do at this office … she stared at me quite hard, and the colleagues’ eyebrows went higher and higher … but I continued missing the point. Ann said nothing – and thinking that she wasn’t understanding, I might’ve simplified my project details for her … arrghh. Situma behind her, was going slightly blue from the need to laugh, and had there been a table separating us, I would certainly have received a sound kick under it, but no such respite graced us that day, and I went on explaining – and embarrassing – myself for a good two and one-quarter of a minute! I might’ve stopped after realizing that it was more a monologue than anything else … and she continued briskly again, followed by the others, … walking right into the office of the second-in-charge. I had just explained to my semi-boss what my job was. Life can be cruel.
My office with Peter Butili looks like it might only be a temporary arrangement. Thanks to my loud mouth combined with my low-life status, I might have actually talked my way out of this office. A glass window separates Peter Butili and me from our number one man of business, Girmai. He was on holiday, and my first three weeks were spent in concern about his absence as I needed to get his help on something. But when he arrived, he spent no time in informing me that he has absolutely nothing against interns, but he would like someone else doing my job – because obviously my job was extremely important to the office – and that he would also like to move in another employee to my location. Mm-hmm – I said I completely understand if he needs to have his supervisees near him … but I guess until that point, I didn’t understand, because before we ended our short but productive meeting he informed me that I need to keep my voice down for the time being because noise carried. Oops. So I’d gone and lost myself my office.
But my consolation was that Raja had assigned me my duties, so he obviously knew my abilities! Hah!
The rest of the people are crazy in their own way I’m sure, but I’ll wait to find out about them a little more.
What may not be the ideal setup, but has to happen in Juba is that there’s no work-life demarcation. You spend 10 to 11 waking hours at the office, and then you return to camp to find most of the people there, so it is imperative that you at least not take an intense dislike to anyone! I am happy to say that everyone was just too wonderful my first week … Situma, our Air Ops guy asked me to do a headstand, and when I did not, proclaimed me a sane person, and invited me to join the group of the real crazy people. The Crazies usually sit in one place, and find names for the others … someone who’s eating too much jam – ‘jam finish-ist’ … one who is forgetting to pay their share – ‘bill-avoidist’ … someone who is always late – ‘tardist’. And believe me, in this place, there’s no avoiding the public eye … everyone is in everyone’s face. Then there’s George from Cameroon who is possibly the loudest person in Juba … if you’re going to argue with him, you had better bring your spare pair of lungs, and your wit – last week, I saw him eating what looked like my leftovers … “George!!?!! What is THAT???? You’re eating my curry!”
“Ma friend, it is youh curry? I say your name is nowhere on it!”
“I don’t BELIEVE this! How could you DO THIS!”
“If you do not bee-leeve, I suggest you walk to the fridge and check inside, so you can beeh-leeve, before I eat my lunch! Do you want to go look now?? I’M WAITING!”
I could only fume and point my shoes at him.
“Little gahl! There’s nothing at the bottom of youh shoes!!”
Sigh. But when George is nice, he can also be quite charming … one time he asked why a nice person like me was here … wasn’t I too young? How would I survive? Of course, when I shut him up, he became even more curious and interested. Great I thought! I was setting myself up to be harassed by big men who were hardened by living in the field …
Fast forward two weeks –
Grace: “Farheen, please make him change the channel … this is enough!”
“George, change the channel”
“No!”
“george! Why noT?? You have the remote!”
“And SO?? Mah friend, I’m watching Africa Magic – cant you see!?”
“I can seee!! And I don’t want to see it!”
“You go change it!”
“George! …. Geor-ge! … Don’t let me get up”
“This GAHL!!!! Three of them in any house, and everyone will GO MAD!”
*Victory!*
And there’s Etienn! He is just there... for everyone to throw their demands at him, just because he is the elec. engineer! That has partly to do with the fact that all our troubles stem from stopped air-conditioning, stopped geyser, stopped air-conditioning, busted light, non-functional fan, stopped air-conditioning, fridge droning, stopped air-conditioning, and stopped air-conditioning. Poor thing – he and I are good friends because of the bonding we had when I had to be rescued from a ditch. Although ditches are a common phenomenon and quite visible, but why we found ourselves in this one is just fate! But thanks to that, I have another friend.
Eva is my buddy at the camp. She is Czech, and I think established her own identity slowly but surely, so I just follow her meekly! When she had first told everyone that she was going jogging in Juba in the morning, the collective jaw at the camp dropped with such a clang!=. But of course when she continued to do it, they all forgot about it. Jocelyn, with her love for rules, had made such a fuss that one would think Prince Harry had escaped to fight in Iraq! But Jocelyn keeps her own self busy, trying to control a campful of Crazies … each morning she threatens to leave for work at 7:15 which gets everyone scuttling about like squirrels because that threat could be painful. She dispatches the vehicles. But invariably, she delays and takes us with her. Most days a second vehicle also comes at 7:45 to pick up the stragglers. One of my best memories is the day when my alarm malfunctioned and I woke up at 7:45! Oh my … this should be interesting … I stepped out to see Jocelyn getting into the last car.
“AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!”
If my late appearance didn’t give her an immediate heart-attack, then my relaxed attitude was about to! I had broken the 7:15 rule – heck I’d broken the 7:45 one! She looked as though she might call the firebrigade to air-lift me to work. But firebrigades don’t do airlifts. And there are no fire-brigades here. Neither are there air-strips at work. So there was nothing to do. Just a little bit of unnecessary excitement. Nothing happened of course – another car came later, and I just watched a little more tv that morning.
It feels like a waste if you aren’t using all that security language you’re taught, and the emergency talk that’s thrown around! Its not our fault that we sometimes feel the need to have our little situations too!
The car is leavinggggggg!!! Right now!!!
May 7, 2007
I know I haven’t explained what Phase III security clearance means when you are out in the field with UNHCR but on a scale of 1 to 5, it is nothing to shrug at. You shrug – and Gordon Brown the Destructor sends you a howler. (We will talk about Gordon Brown’s tendencies some other time for sure.)
What I want to impress upon you is that the security clearance level in Juba right now keeps our young, sprightly souls confined within walls and fences that have been sniffed out by the likes of Gordon … aka, you can only go to certain places, for certain things, at certain times of the day, with certain people, and only by certain means. The certainty of each of those requirements is however complete. So when it comes to minding your own business, you have to have a ‘means’ whereby you can do it or else you just stay put where you are and listen to the radio traffic of other agencies for entertainment! In our case, the means would be the UNHCR vehicles.
Ever since I stepped into one of these, I’ve wanted to write about them. I’m sure it is of very little interest to the average observer, but I find them to be a religion – I worship them! They fascinate me! There are a number of these vehicles that work communally for. That means you have to wait on a queue for them unless, that is, you can jump on a vehicle that is headed towards your desired part of town, after vowing the original requisitioner of the vehicle your first-born. (I’ll have to produce 9 off-springs in the recent future to pay off my standing debt at this time.) If you don’t get my drift already, these vehicles are our life-blood here, the key to our destiny and destination. And they are in limited circulation.
Apart from being fitted with all kinds of fancy gizmos – that can transmit and decode all kinds of HF and VHF wavelengths, but cannot play a simple cassette – these puppies are tough! Their suspensions are like rock. I suppose that is what is needed for the limitless string of potholes that are Juba roads in monsoon, but that is what also guarantees that your drive feels like those bikini-bull-rides at the rodeo, if you’ve ever seen one of those. An occupational hazard is hitting your head on the (literally) 15-ft high interior ceiling as you bump along to work in the morning. But you never use seat-belts … uh-huh! For safety and stability, you grab on to the interior handles along the windows. These handles are a blessing in other ways because the land cruiser is so high that I have to heave myself in by grabbing one of these!
All – barring none – of the UN vehicles are Toyotas. Toyota must do some amazing business with the humanitarian community; I wonder if they have won any awards. (I see some Range Rovers also, but I guess the UN is too destitute for those!) There are all different kinds of Toyotas though – Land Cruisers, Tacomas, Corollas and even Coronas, and they range anywhere between 15 and 3 years old. At UNHCR we only move in the land cruisers because of the number of people it can accommodate, and the proportion of our time we spend in the field.
Each vehicle must have a driver, who is local. He (she?) is aware of the local
language, geography and often the politics. You are to be accompanied by him to all public places and if he senses that something might be up, you’re outta there! My first driver from the airport was Emmanuel, and I now take all my demands to him. He’s a great guy, soft spoken, instructive, and endlessly patient. All the drivers have interesting stories as they are locals, and have been in different places during the war. As a testament to the drivers’ patience, I watch them drive the 5-speed land cruisers, never able to go above second gear. That’s a pity because these things are powerful! I’m also sure that given a chance they could off-road like a charm but mine-protocol bars us from ever stepping a wheel out of line.
The vehicles take diesel. For long journeys, they can store fuel like a camel. The 4x4s have two tanks, one in the back and one in front, and can take a total of 180 litres! They are fuelled only once every two weeks – now that’s uber-efficient … *swooning* … I love powerful cars! Iran might be drying up, but we at the refugee agency, have our own tankers! Our reserve capacity is 20,000 litres – beat that!
It’s probably a good thing that only ‘certain’ people can drive a vehicle around here – because otherwise I would have spent the next weeks trying to get myself cleared to be a driver. Besides, although navigation had been one of my strong points in Boston, I cannot seem to figure out where anything here is, ever! Until I am able to do that, life will appear to be a shuttling back-n-forth between the ‘islands’ of the UN, observing Juba – comfortably, sitting cross–legged inside the 4x4.
I know I haven’t explained what Phase III security clearance means when you are out in the field with UNHCR but on a scale of 1 to 5, it is nothing to shrug at. You shrug – and Gordon Brown the Destructor sends you a howler. (We will talk about Gordon Brown’s tendencies some other time for sure.)
What I want to impress upon you is that the security clearance level in Juba right now keeps our young, sprightly souls confined within walls and fences that have been sniffed out by the likes of Gordon … aka, you can only go to certain places, for certain things, at certain times of the day, with certain people, and only by certain means. The certainty of each of those requirements is however complete. So when it comes to minding your own business, you have to have a ‘means’ whereby you can do it or else you just stay put where you are and listen to the radio traffic of other agencies for entertainment! In our case, the means would be the UNHCR vehicles.
Ever since I stepped into one of these, I’ve wanted to write about them. I’m sure it is of very little interest to the average observer, but I find them to be a religion – I worship them! They fascinate me! There are a number of these vehicles that work communally for. That means you have to wait on a queue for them unless, that is, you can jump on a vehicle that is headed towards your desired part of town, after vowing the original requisitioner of the vehicle your first-born. (I’ll have to produce 9 off-springs in the recent future to pay off my standing debt at this time.) If you don’t get my drift already, these vehicles are our life-blood here, the key to our destiny and destination. And they are in limited circulation.
Apart from being fitted with all kinds of fancy gizmos – that can transmit and decode all kinds of HF and VHF wavelengths, but cannot play a simple cassette – these puppies are tough! Their suspensions are like rock. I suppose that is what is needed for the limitless string of potholes that are Juba roads in monsoon, but that is what also guarantees that your drive feels like those bikini-bull-rides at the rodeo, if you’ve ever seen one of those. An occupational hazard is hitting your head on the (literally) 15-ft high interior ceiling as you bump along to work in the morning. But you never use seat-belts … uh-huh! For safety and stability, you grab on to the interior handles along the windows. These handles are a blessing in other ways because the land cruiser is so high that I have to heave myself in by grabbing one of these!
All – barring none – of the UN vehicles are Toyotas. Toyota must do some amazing business with the humanitarian community; I wonder if they have won any awards. (I see some Range Rovers also, but I guess the UN is too destitute for those!) There are all different kinds of Toyotas though – Land Cruisers, Tacomas, Corollas and even Coronas, and they range anywhere between 15 and 3 years old. At UNHCR we only move in the land cruisers because of the number of people it can accommodate, and the proportion of our time we spend in the field.
Each vehicle must have a driver, who is local. He (she?) is aware of the local
language, geography and often the politics. You are to be accompanied by him to all public places and if he senses that something might be up, you’re outta there! My first driver from the airport was Emmanuel, and I now take all my demands to him. He’s a great guy, soft spoken, instructive, and endlessly patient. All the drivers have interesting stories as they are locals, and have been in different places during the war. As a testament to the drivers’ patience, I watch them drive the 5-speed land cruisers, never able to go above second gear. That’s a pity because these things are powerful! I’m also sure that given a chance they could off-road like a charm but mine-protocol bars us from ever stepping a wheel out of line.
The vehicles take diesel. For long journeys, they can store fuel like a camel. The 4x4s have two tanks, one in the back and one in front, and can take a total of 180 litres! They are fuelled only once every two weeks – now that’s uber-efficient … *swooning* … I love powerful cars! Iran might be drying up, but we at the refugee agency, have our own tankers! Our reserve capacity is 20,000 litres – beat that!
It’s probably a good thing that only ‘certain’ people can drive a vehicle around here – because otherwise I would have spent the next weeks trying to get myself cleared to be a driver. Besides, although navigation had been one of my strong points in Boston, I cannot seem to figure out where anything here is, ever! Until I am able to do that, life will appear to be a shuttling back-n-forth between the ‘islands’ of the UN, observing Juba – comfortably, sitting cross–legged inside the 4x4.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
A night out
Saturday evening at the Camp
It was the usual post-dinner dilemma that I’d seen in my one week at the camp – what to watch on tv. Most were neutral or apathetic to which channel was chosen as they withdraw to their tents soon after, and the usual suspects who bag the remote and set the channel permanently to the English or the French league. I’ve watched more football here than I would care to remember.
Today was different, maybe because it was a Saturday night, but there were more people and everyone was energetic – we all wanted to have a go at the remote, though we were all equally ignorant about what could be watched aside from league football! The friendly bickering continued, and the channels moved back-n-forth. I got a glimpse of Paris Hilton in court, Larry King’s fifty years, Justin Timberlake at some concert, Tony Blair at Madame Tussaud’s, and even a bit of African Magic – the channel for late night soap operas. Some got beers from the bar, while our Italian public health expert talked about the virtues of taking Mefloquin against malaria. It was business as usual. I had eaten too much and the food coma confined me to my armchair at the Rakuba. My biggest concern then was to figure out whether I wanted to return to the dining tent for more watermelon. Deciding against gluttony, I busted out my precious supply of clove cigarettes. It was the perfect moment for a smoke.
As I stood on the sand of the volleyball court outside with the clove, I chit-chatted with WFP James. He’s a decent, laid-back guy and is usually trying to convince people to go out into town – WFP folks like their social life sizzling; we UNHCR people like it mild.
I grinned, "what is there to do?"
He could barely contain himself – “you ask what theya is?? ma friend, Juba is a happening pless, there are bahs, and pubs. You should come out and see! Like today, there’s a dance party at UNMIS!”
Those words in the same sentence seemed like a paradox. The UN Mission in Sudan consisted of all the agencies … and so that meant they were throwing a dance party at their compound! But I admit that humanitarians also need their fun, so why not a dance party? By all means! … you can have one anywhere as long as you have a flat floor and a boom-box … and of course there is no shortage of music with the int’l staff here. And tomorrow they’re showing the Good Shephard – but it’s a ‘bring your own chair, and share your snack’ event. Hmm … very enticing, I’ll have to find a ride tomorrow for sure!!
Peter (Situma) our security liaison, and Eva (Burgetova) walked towards the court, and James started on the ambitious undertaking of trying to convince not one, but three UNHCR fogies to go out for a drink. In less than 19 minutes, we’d all agreed to step out to the Queen of Sheba nearby. Eva and I lazily boarded James’ car in whatever we had on. Now if Situma wasn’t coming, then there was no way I would have taken off with James whom I’d only met. Situma on the other hand is a Kenyan teddy-bear – about my height, and twice my girth, but at the same time careful, vigilant, protective, and very comfortable to be around. Trusting at least him, I decided to roll.
The roads were pitch dark because there were no street-lights or any other lights for that matter. No sane person without an emergency would be seen outside after 8 o’clock and it was already 9. But feeling no qualms while locked inside the UN land-cruiser I just enjoyed being out for the first time past 7:30pm! It was spooky; there are patches of roads – bumpy, dusty and desolate – without any signs of life. An occasional wall or fence appeared here and there, but vanished as soon as the car headlights had moved past it. Our field of view was whatever our headlights could capture, and tonight the headlights died off into the distance without being reflected from anything. There was nothing behind or in front of us. Once or twice we passed another 4x4 at a rotary or an intersection, some of them UN personnel . In Juba, if you didn’t own a sturdy, secure vehicle, then you’re confined to your home after dark.
The Queen of Sheba had at least 15 SUVs parked outside. Most were white, but there were some black, and some that had patches of car stickers all over them. They were all heavily covered in dust so it seemed that this was some clandestine rendezvous that people had travelled far for.
Like the few other restaurants I’ve seen in Juba, QoS is artistically designed out of bamboo with a half wall, and a thatched roof. The rest of it is open. The bar to one side is designed out of wood and bamboo, and well stocked with foreign alcohol. The four of us sat in the high barstools and observed the crowd. We each had a drink and Situma had Red Bull … he’s strange like that.
The huge flat-screen tv was playing music videos from some 90s DVD ... but the music system blared some 80s and 90s favorites. Brian Adams, En Vogue and Boyz II Men. It was chill … I couldn’t stop swinging my legs from my stool, as I sipped my Amarula (Baileys is Western version of it). Life’s simple here. Peter and James tagged each other with more and more fantastic and unbelievable real-life stories … they can be such laughs! I got the inside scoop of what truly happened last weekend when there was a distress signal that one returnee had committed suicide at a UNHCR way-station. It was a false alarm! – I realized the kinds of fabricated emergencies these folks have to respond to at times, and my respect rose for the type of level-headedness they always display. Then it was time for some gossip, and so we scrutinized ALL the other employees in our unit.
At around 11, James thought we should swing by the OCHA compound and see what was going on … apparently there was a party there too, and there’d been some posters around. Note to all of you – if you want to throw a party in Juba, you make flyers, and then you print them and post them at the other agencies, and that's how they find out about it. We decided that OCHA also deserved a swing-by before we head home, but curfew was at 11pm, so it wasn’t a wise decision to be out for too much longer. No one would be responsible for you if you disappeared. I glanced at Situma … he appeared willing, so off we were to our next haunt!
Tt can be all party and play here, but let me tell you that people do it all with a risk. You need to do it to survive because this is such an artificial, restricted environment that everyone has to do something to simulate some kind of normalcy. Even if you have to break a few rules and aren’t ‘most security compliant’. Bottomline is its all about security – if you aren’t alive, then there’s no more humanitarian work.
As the car bounced along in pitch darkness, James told us about a close call. It was two nights ago … when driving back to the camp at midnight he got a flat tyre … everything was closed down, not a light in sight, and not a person around … and with all kinds of dangers lurking in the bush … there may be the militias and gunmen … mad people who want to hurt you, and take a UN vehicle … or rob you of your money, radio, anything of any value … so there are clear guidelines on what to do – if it’s a rear tyre, you just ignore it and drive home … if you hv a partner and it’s a front tyre, you change it … and if you’re alone you don’t stop under any circumstances. I found it fascinating, and our surroundings reinforced that chilling feeling.
The car sped up slightly and the bumpiness got more pronounced. I could see faint tail lights ahead of us. But at our speed, the tail lights approached fast … but no wait, it came up quickly because they’d braked … I wondered why they were stopping in the middle of the road? … there was a vehicle stopped on the opposite side also … James braked sharply, within two seconds of ploughing into the jeep in front … and then all hell broke loose. It happened so fast that I have only one fleeting image in my mind, lit by the headlights of our car. The jeep in front pulled forward a little more blocking the road at an angle, the opposite car flashed its lights, James and Situma exchanged hurriedly what they should do, the hair at the back of my neck stood up from the hard braking ... and it was then that I saw what I cannot yet reconcile - about 15 men in uniform and guns jumped out of the jeep in front of us … they were less than a 100 feet away, and they seemed to be mobilized for something ... I didn’t recognize what uniform it was, police, peacekeepers or militias and I awaited the shots. The only thing in my head was that we were out after curfew. The men started waving their guns to something across the street, and then people jumped out from the opposite jeep … the cluster of gunmen gathered in the middle of the road and then ran across to the other side … in the periphery of our headlights, we saw them holding back two individuals one of whom seemed to be female … someone in our car yelled that we should reverse but someone else said no, we should calmly drive through.
That is what James did ultimately … tightly weaving through the two angled 4x4s facing each other, and about 20 feet from the men, our car just steadily passed through as the armed men tackled some people off to the side of the road… my heart thumped. The time it took for us to clear those 200 yards seemed like an eternity. Looking back, I caught one last glimpse of the roadside crowd, unsure of whether it was a rescue, a hold-up, a gang raid or a heist.
When I regained my faculties, I realized that I didn’t even look at the plates of either of the cars, and can’t remember if I stayed silent or was screaming. Situma was absolutely composed and guided James through the knot. Eva just stayed quiet. We shook the event off in about a minute and a half, and kept driving towards the OCHA party.
It was the usual post-dinner dilemma that I’d seen in my one week at the camp – what to watch on tv. Most were neutral or apathetic to which channel was chosen as they withdraw to their tents soon after, and the usual suspects who bag the remote and set the channel permanently to the English or the French league. I’ve watched more football here than I would care to remember.
Today was different, maybe because it was a Saturday night, but there were more people and everyone was energetic – we all wanted to have a go at the remote, though we were all equally ignorant about what could be watched aside from league football! The friendly bickering continued, and the channels moved back-n-forth. I got a glimpse of Paris Hilton in court, Larry King’s fifty years, Justin Timberlake at some concert, Tony Blair at Madame Tussaud’s, and even a bit of African Magic – the channel for late night soap operas. Some got beers from the bar, while our Italian public health expert talked about the virtues of taking Mefloquin against malaria. It was business as usual. I had eaten too much and the food coma confined me to my armchair at the Rakuba. My biggest concern then was to figure out whether I wanted to return to the dining tent for more watermelon. Deciding against gluttony, I busted out my precious supply of clove cigarettes. It was the perfect moment for a smoke.
As I stood on the sand of the volleyball court outside with the clove, I chit-chatted with WFP James. He’s a decent, laid-back guy and is usually trying to convince people to go out into town – WFP folks like their social life sizzling; we UNHCR people like it mild.
I grinned, "what is there to do?"
He could barely contain himself – “you ask what theya is?? ma friend, Juba is a happening pless, there are bahs, and pubs. You should come out and see! Like today, there’s a dance party at UNMIS!”
Those words in the same sentence seemed like a paradox. The UN Mission in Sudan consisted of all the agencies … and so that meant they were throwing a dance party at their compound! But I admit that humanitarians also need their fun, so why not a dance party? By all means! … you can have one anywhere as long as you have a flat floor and a boom-box … and of course there is no shortage of music with the int’l staff here. And tomorrow they’re showing the Good Shephard – but it’s a ‘bring your own chair, and share your snack’ event. Hmm … very enticing, I’ll have to find a ride tomorrow for sure!!
Peter (Situma) our security liaison, and Eva (Burgetova) walked towards the court, and James started on the ambitious undertaking of trying to convince not one, but three UNHCR fogies to go out for a drink. In less than 19 minutes, we’d all agreed to step out to the Queen of Sheba nearby. Eva and I lazily boarded James’ car in whatever we had on. Now if Situma wasn’t coming, then there was no way I would have taken off with James whom I’d only met. Situma on the other hand is a Kenyan teddy-bear – about my height, and twice my girth, but at the same time careful, vigilant, protective, and very comfortable to be around. Trusting at least him, I decided to roll.
The roads were pitch dark because there were no street-lights or any other lights for that matter. No sane person without an emergency would be seen outside after 8 o’clock and it was already 9. But feeling no qualms while locked inside the UN land-cruiser I just enjoyed being out for the first time past 7:30pm! It was spooky; there are patches of roads – bumpy, dusty and desolate – without any signs of life. An occasional wall or fence appeared here and there, but vanished as soon as the car headlights had moved past it. Our field of view was whatever our headlights could capture, and tonight the headlights died off into the distance without being reflected from anything. There was nothing behind or in front of us. Once or twice we passed another 4x4 at a rotary or an intersection, some of them UN personnel . In Juba, if you didn’t own a sturdy, secure vehicle, then you’re confined to your home after dark.
The Queen of Sheba had at least 15 SUVs parked outside. Most were white, but there were some black, and some that had patches of car stickers all over them. They were all heavily covered in dust so it seemed that this was some clandestine rendezvous that people had travelled far for.
Like the few other restaurants I’ve seen in Juba, QoS is artistically designed out of bamboo with a half wall, and a thatched roof. The rest of it is open. The bar to one side is designed out of wood and bamboo, and well stocked with foreign alcohol. The four of us sat in the high barstools and observed the crowd. We each had a drink and Situma had Red Bull … he’s strange like that.
The huge flat-screen tv was playing music videos from some 90s DVD ... but the music system blared some 80s and 90s favorites. Brian Adams, En Vogue and Boyz II Men. It was chill … I couldn’t stop swinging my legs from my stool, as I sipped my Amarula (Baileys is Western version of it). Life’s simple here. Peter and James tagged each other with more and more fantastic and unbelievable real-life stories … they can be such laughs! I got the inside scoop of what truly happened last weekend when there was a distress signal that one returnee had committed suicide at a UNHCR way-station. It was a false alarm! – I realized the kinds of fabricated emergencies these folks have to respond to at times, and my respect rose for the type of level-headedness they always display. Then it was time for some gossip, and so we scrutinized ALL the other employees in our unit.
At around 11, James thought we should swing by the OCHA compound and see what was going on … apparently there was a party there too, and there’d been some posters around. Note to all of you – if you want to throw a party in Juba, you make flyers, and then you print them and post them at the other agencies, and that's how they find out about it. We decided that OCHA also deserved a swing-by before we head home, but curfew was at 11pm, so it wasn’t a wise decision to be out for too much longer. No one would be responsible for you if you disappeared. I glanced at Situma … he appeared willing, so off we were to our next haunt!
Tt can be all party and play here, but let me tell you that people do it all with a risk. You need to do it to survive because this is such an artificial, restricted environment that everyone has to do something to simulate some kind of normalcy. Even if you have to break a few rules and aren’t ‘most security compliant’. Bottomline is its all about security – if you aren’t alive, then there’s no more humanitarian work.
As the car bounced along in pitch darkness, James told us about a close call. It was two nights ago … when driving back to the camp at midnight he got a flat tyre … everything was closed down, not a light in sight, and not a person around … and with all kinds of dangers lurking in the bush … there may be the militias and gunmen … mad people who want to hurt you, and take a UN vehicle … or rob you of your money, radio, anything of any value … so there are clear guidelines on what to do – if it’s a rear tyre, you just ignore it and drive home … if you hv a partner and it’s a front tyre, you change it … and if you’re alone you don’t stop under any circumstances. I found it fascinating, and our surroundings reinforced that chilling feeling.
The car sped up slightly and the bumpiness got more pronounced. I could see faint tail lights ahead of us. But at our speed, the tail lights approached fast … but no wait, it came up quickly because they’d braked … I wondered why they were stopping in the middle of the road? … there was a vehicle stopped on the opposite side also … James braked sharply, within two seconds of ploughing into the jeep in front … and then all hell broke loose. It happened so fast that I have only one fleeting image in my mind, lit by the headlights of our car. The jeep in front pulled forward a little more blocking the road at an angle, the opposite car flashed its lights, James and Situma exchanged hurriedly what they should do, the hair at the back of my neck stood up from the hard braking ... and it was then that I saw what I cannot yet reconcile - about 15 men in uniform and guns jumped out of the jeep in front of us … they were less than a 100 feet away, and they seemed to be mobilized for something ... I didn’t recognize what uniform it was, police, peacekeepers or militias and I awaited the shots. The only thing in my head was that we were out after curfew. The men started waving their guns to something across the street, and then people jumped out from the opposite jeep … the cluster of gunmen gathered in the middle of the road and then ran across to the other side … in the periphery of our headlights, we saw them holding back two individuals one of whom seemed to be female … someone in our car yelled that we should reverse but someone else said no, we should calmly drive through.
That is what James did ultimately … tightly weaving through the two angled 4x4s facing each other, and about 20 feet from the men, our car just steadily passed through as the armed men tackled some people off to the side of the road… my heart thumped. The time it took for us to clear those 200 yards seemed like an eternity. Looking back, I caught one last glimpse of the roadside crowd, unsure of whether it was a rescue, a hold-up, a gang raid or a heist.
When I regained my faculties, I realized that I didn’t even look at the plates of either of the cars, and can’t remember if I stayed silent or was screaming. Situma was absolutely composed and guided James through the knot. Eva just stayed quiet. We shook the event off in about a minute and a half, and kept driving towards the OCHA party.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
Living on the Edge
Swedish Camp
Juba, S Sudan
When I left for Sudan, I fully expected to stay late hours at work. That was not only because I would be inundated with work, but also the fact that the office had air-conditioning. I had been told by the Admin lady (Ditas from now on) that the office had people staying late for just that reason. So like any other person from a tropical climate, I assumed that I naturally will only have a partially working table fan at the camp, if that ... and it would create an awful din if the speed was turned up ... and so we'd have to be sitting outdoors in sinking-chairs-that-are-hard-to-get-out-of after sunset, in order to cool ourselves down ... and the only recourse would be to fan ourselves with these large dried palm leaves that would also double as scratching devices for when the mosquitoes bit us ... because of course there were going to be mosquitoes, or why else did I buy all that industrial-grade insect spray ... and all in all it would appear to be like a lazy vacation complete with drinks-with-bent-straws and all that but - like Cox's Bazaar beach where we vacationed as kids - it would be unbelievably deceptive because with nightfall there would only be the lingering heat and the invasion of mosquitoes. I was sure that it would be more pain than it was worth - but determined to make the most of the 'experience' and realizing that this time my parents would not be around to buy me one more shell with my name carved on it everytime I threw a tantrum, I armed myself with chemical products to cool, protect, soothe, relieve, alleviate, massage, relax and heal the most treacherous of all skin discomforts. Basically I was fortified for the outdoors, because Ditas made it sound like the camp was literally hanging from a tree, and suspended over marshland. But I digress - my point was that I imagined that the office would be the only familiar, comfortable environment.
Its probably good that this is my first time in this environment. My mind had been on such an overdrive on how critical the living conditions were going to be, that without a frame of reference, I'd imagined a daily obstacle course. I'm sure some of you did for me too, and its all fair because if I weren't affiliated with a UN body (that aligns everything to first-world standards) I would probably have been hanging from a hammock with crocodiles snapping at my starved bottom. No no, I joke. The NGOs here have equally decent set-ups!!
When I received my offer email, it contained an overview of the offer. Which was nothing. Nada. Zip. Kaput. They were not going to pay me anything, offer no allowances, give no benefits, subscribe me to no insurance, and bear no travel or vacation costs. I was a free operator. I thought great! This is what I want to do with my life!
... for some time at least. What intrigued me most and sent some of my friend on spiraling jokes is UNHCR's offer to offer me a reservation in their "tented accomodations ... ". Hmm, I thought, so you could reserve tents these days? That was brilliant! Took one thing off my checklist that was yards long. And they said that if it was with SOLAR, then it was $15 a day, and without was $5 a day.
Wasting no time, and expending absolutely no effort in researching what SOLAR may or may not be, I reserved the $5/day tented accomodations. Hooo boy! This will be fun, I thought.
---
From the Juba airport, they drove me straight to the camp - formally known as Swedish Camp - and showed me around briefly. I gathered that there were four or more large tents and several smaller tents, and food and resting facilities. Jocelyn, my greeter then showed me my tent and gave me a key. "Key?" I thought ... oh well, I have to see this.
We walked towards the tent, and she pulled open the door. Yes door, there's a metal lockable door to the tent. That isn't usually locked though because there are no security issues. Along the center of the tent was a corridor that is flanked on both sides by two rooms each. The key was actually to the section of my tent - my room. It pretty much conformed to my expectations - multiple people to each tent, four in this case, but I never thought that the rooms would be divided as they are.
Everything is white tarpaulin, and the door basically zips up, and locks like a suitcase. I couldn't stop grinning when I saw it. We left my things, locked up my room and headed out to the office.
I got a longer orientation to the Swedish camp that evening. The compound is encircled with bamboo/wood walls. The car parking is at the entrance, followed by the bathrooms, then the mango trees, then the laundry tents, then the mango trees, then the volleyball courts, then a scattering of smaller tents, then the common area called Rakuba, a traditional thatched-roof compartment, then the dining tent, then some more mango trees and then the other sleeping tents like mine. The camp is also in a mangrove orchard I realized! The resident canine is called Play, who decided not to play with but bite my jeans, and when I shooed it away, it went away to eat some of the fallen mangoes quite resignedly.
A couple of ripe mangoes splattered on the ground as I walked. The entire place smelt ... mango-ey. I think I need to come up with an adjective for mango-smelling because that's what this place smells like.
The Rakuba is just the most wonderful thing. At any given point in time there will be at least one person, generally tall, dozing, male and Kenyan who would be watching football on tv. Oh yes, we have cable. While I'm quite used to seeing Christiane Amanpour reporting on Lebanon in the mornings now, breakfast the first day was completely surreal because I couldn't pour milk straight into my cereal when I realized I was eating cornflakes and watching satellite tv. Let me tell you, my assumptions are being questioned everyday. It is not a pleasant feeling.
Breakfast is usually taken in the open Rakuba because now the weather is so good. I suppose its good throughout the year because once monsoon is over it'll be the same but cooler. Lunch is taken at the office, and dinner is back at the camp, except in the dining tent. The maids/helping hands cook the food. They lay out all the meals ... and they clean up ... this is just too much luxury. If we want, we can even have them do our laundry. I protested vehemently against it and I insisted that I'll do my own laundry if I'm shown where everything is. A few minutes ago, I even walked into the laundry tent but that was pretty much it. I saw many people's piles of laundry, completed, and IRONED. I needed no further encouragement. I'm getting my clothes back - ironed - tomorrow afternoon. I am sure I'm generating employment in some indirect way.
*Yawn* ... I'm sitting here in my room, wondering whether the generator isn't working properly. The air-conditioning is slow today. (Oh yes, the tents have air-conditioning. And they are completely shielded from flying insects so no repellents needed after dark.) I complain only about the air-conditioning and the fact that the windows don't let enough sunlight in - but I supposed that's for our security.
I cannot imagine what the $15/day 'pre-fabs' must be like. They probably have jacuzzis. =)
Juba, S Sudan
When I left for Sudan, I fully expected to stay late hours at work. That was not only because I would be inundated with work, but also the fact that the office had air-conditioning. I had been told by the Admin lady (Ditas from now on) that the office had people staying late for just that reason. So like any other person from a tropical climate, I assumed that I naturally will only have a partially working table fan at the camp, if that ... and it would create an awful din if the speed was turned up ... and so we'd have to be sitting outdoors in sinking-chairs-that-are-hard-to-get-out-of after sunset, in order to cool ourselves down ... and the only recourse would be to fan ourselves with these large dried palm leaves that would also double as scratching devices for when the mosquitoes bit us ... because of course there were going to be mosquitoes, or why else did I buy all that industrial-grade insect spray ... and all in all it would appear to be like a lazy vacation complete with drinks-with-bent-straws and all that but - like Cox's Bazaar beach where we vacationed as kids - it would be unbelievably deceptive because with nightfall there would only be the lingering heat and the invasion of mosquitoes. I was sure that it would be more pain than it was worth - but determined to make the most of the 'experience' and realizing that this time my parents would not be around to buy me one more shell with my name carved on it everytime I threw a tantrum, I armed myself with chemical products to cool, protect, soothe, relieve, alleviate, massage, relax and heal the most treacherous of all skin discomforts. Basically I was fortified for the outdoors, because Ditas made it sound like the camp was literally hanging from a tree, and suspended over marshland. But I digress - my point was that I imagined that the office would be the only familiar, comfortable environment.
Its probably good that this is my first time in this environment. My mind had been on such an overdrive on how critical the living conditions were going to be, that without a frame of reference, I'd imagined a daily obstacle course. I'm sure some of you did for me too, and its all fair because if I weren't affiliated with a UN body (that aligns everything to first-world standards) I would probably have been hanging from a hammock with crocodiles snapping at my starved bottom. No no, I joke. The NGOs here have equally decent set-ups!!
When I received my offer email, it contained an overview of the offer. Which was nothing. Nada. Zip. Kaput. They were not going to pay me anything, offer no allowances, give no benefits, subscribe me to no insurance, and bear no travel or vacation costs. I was a free operator. I thought great! This is what I want to do with my life!
... for some time at least. What intrigued me most and sent some of my friend on spiraling jokes is UNHCR's offer to offer me a reservation in their "tented accomodations ... ". Hmm, I thought, so you could reserve tents these days? That was brilliant! Took one thing off my checklist that was yards long. And they said that if it was with SOLAR, then it was $15 a day, and without was $5 a day.
Wasting no time, and expending absolutely no effort in researching what SOLAR may or may not be, I reserved the $5/day tented accomodations. Hooo boy! This will be fun, I thought.
---
From the Juba airport, they drove me straight to the camp - formally known as Swedish Camp - and showed me around briefly. I gathered that there were four or more large tents and several smaller tents, and food and resting facilities. Jocelyn, my greeter then showed me my tent and gave me a key. "Key?" I thought ... oh well, I have to see this.
We walked towards the tent, and she pulled open the door. Yes door, there's a metal lockable door to the tent. That isn't usually locked though because there are no security issues. Along the center of the tent was a corridor that is flanked on both sides by two rooms each. The key was actually to the section of my tent - my room. It pretty much conformed to my expectations - multiple people to each tent, four in this case, but I never thought that the rooms would be divided as they are.
Everything is white tarpaulin, and the door basically zips up, and locks like a suitcase. I couldn't stop grinning when I saw it. We left my things, locked up my room and headed out to the office.
I got a longer orientation to the Swedish camp that evening. The compound is encircled with bamboo/wood walls. The car parking is at the entrance, followed by the bathrooms, then the mango trees, then the laundry tents, then the mango trees, then the volleyball courts, then a scattering of smaller tents, then the common area called Rakuba, a traditional thatched-roof compartment, then the dining tent, then some more mango trees and then the other sleeping tents like mine. The camp is also in a mangrove orchard I realized! The resident canine is called Play, who decided not to play with but bite my jeans, and when I shooed it away, it went away to eat some of the fallen mangoes quite resignedly.
A couple of ripe mangoes splattered on the ground as I walked. The entire place smelt ... mango-ey. I think I need to come up with an adjective for mango-smelling because that's what this place smells like.
The Rakuba is just the most wonderful thing. At any given point in time there will be at least one person, generally tall, dozing, male and Kenyan who would be watching football on tv. Oh yes, we have cable. While I'm quite used to seeing Christiane Amanpour reporting on Lebanon in the mornings now, breakfast the first day was completely surreal because I couldn't pour milk straight into my cereal when I realized I was eating cornflakes and watching satellite tv. Let me tell you, my assumptions are being questioned everyday. It is not a pleasant feeling.
Breakfast is usually taken in the open Rakuba because now the weather is so good. I suppose its good throughout the year because once monsoon is over it'll be the same but cooler. Lunch is taken at the office, and dinner is back at the camp, except in the dining tent. The maids/helping hands cook the food. They lay out all the meals ... and they clean up ... this is just too much luxury. If we want, we can even have them do our laundry. I protested vehemently against it and I insisted that I'll do my own laundry if I'm shown where everything is. A few minutes ago, I even walked into the laundry tent but that was pretty much it. I saw many people's piles of laundry, completed, and IRONED. I needed no further encouragement. I'm getting my clothes back - ironed - tomorrow afternoon. I am sure I'm generating employment in some indirect way.
*Yawn* ... I'm sitting here in my room, wondering whether the generator isn't working properly. The air-conditioning is slow today. (Oh yes, the tents have air-conditioning. And they are completely shielded from flying insects so no repellents needed after dark.) I complain only about the air-conditioning and the fact that the windows don't let enough sunlight in - but I supposed that's for our security.
I cannot imagine what the $15/day 'pre-fabs' must be like. They probably have jacuzzis. =)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
