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.
Saturday, May 19, 2007
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. =)
Some news in the mainstream media. :)
... I'm going to have to start practicing my 75 dances. One for each night!
Sudan's 'wedding of the year'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6607637.stm
Sudan's 'wedding of the year'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6607637.stm
Tuesday, May 8, 2007
Thursday, May 3, 2007
Romeo and Juliet in Sudan
Friday April 28th
I was quite attached to my cellphone in the US. Actually I cannot function without it at all - it is like my fifth limb, or a vital organ, or even a sustenance mechanism. You get the idea ... I even sleep with it next to my pillow. Or used to. So being in Sudan would have proved extremely difficult without placing myself at the beck and call of some sort of transmitting electronic device. The ring of a phone is like life-blood to the likes of me who need to be connected 24/7. To something. Even if it means that it is a barren metal tower on a knoll in South Sudan, where the most you'll ever know about is how many vehicles have been dispatched, to whom, and at what time - its quite useful actually if you'd like to hitch a ride on one of them.
Ok, so I exaggerate slightly. A little more than that is accomplished over radio, though you already figured that, so stop rolling your eyes at me.
From the moment I'd arrived in Juba, I'd been curious about these hunky-dory radio transmitters that some people carried. Its thick, dusty, hardy-looking and LOUD! The silence - and very often the noise - would be broken by crackling on the radio and then some cryptic "Juliet-Mike-Kilos-Romeo-Charles 1629348347874398725983474589....!" To me it was all the same. Except for being bothered by the incessant butting-in of the radios, I didn't think too much about them. However at several points during dinner (at Mango Camp), I wondered why they just weren't turned off if they weren't needed?? Bizarre ... These UNHCR people were such geeks with their (few) toys! Tch tch.
But as dinner progressed, everyone's radios appeared on the table at some point in the evening ... so it wasn't just one or two people with their toys ... and finally it was absolute chaos when 'Radio Check' was conducted at 7pm! One by one, the coordinates of every individual and every radio is confirmed from radio room (headquarters). It starts sequentially from the boss, and goes all the way down the ladder. Neat, I thought. The boss then pointed at me and boomed - "you didn't get your security briefing yet? you're still free! hahahaha! that'll have to change soon!" (sometimes I don't get the jokes here)
Though pretending that I was doing quite well in my unconnected corner of the table, I secretly rejoiced that I'd get a radio to carry around also! yippee! I was in! ... or something like that ...
Right then the Admin head - Ditas, from the Philippines - turned to me seriously and said. Well, you have to have your radio on you at all times! Its serious. And there's protocol you must follow. At 7pm, radio headquarters does a Radio Check to see where you and your radio are - its our only way of knowing that you're safe, you know! (Yes, okay, that makes sense ...) "And you have to respond in radio protocol, just to confirm you're okay - nothing superfluous!"
Raja stepped in at that point, and in his usual jovial way, told a story about this dude who was so drunk by 7pm that he responded by saying "Check, loud and clear! I'm very well thank you, and how are you!" The entire table cracked up! ... so it was funny... hahaha ... okkay ...
Then he goes on to tell me that that kind of behavior is absolutely unprofessional, and is usually reported, and the transgressor is warned. (I thought, what's the big deal) But I gradually realized that being in vast, unconnected, ungoverned territory meant that the radio was not only pompous, but an expensive, sophisticated and essential security mechanism. There's no two ways about it - entire safeguard mechanisms are built around whether you respond or not. If you don't, then the entire camp may be notified, and then the base. Your unit, and then your boss. And all this is done in such haste that no time is lost to save people if they are in any kind of danger. We might be sharing jokes at Mango Camp, but the security alert could be triggered in a heartbeat. Literally. I might be shadowing people now and only moving in droves, but there'll be a time when I go out with just one other person ...
I guess I didn't want to have convoys dispatched to my coordinates simply because I had managed to pass out (drunk?? ...) somewhere!Then Raja joked that I'll be allowed to miss Radio Check once. heheh. Great.
Oh dem ...
---
Saturday April 28th
It was the next day that I realized that every moving piece - I mean, seriously everything that can leave basecamp has a radio attached to it! All the personnel hang on to it for dear life (or for fear of radio HQ) and all the stations have one installed in it first thing! The best are the 4-wheels! Their antenna is gigantic! It is a huge rod sticking out to the heavens in no uncertain way! I had to take a picture to show what I mean. Listening to the radio inside the car is actually quite smooth and un-crackly for that matter. The car transponder can go about 100 miles I believe. (I'll have to check).
I got my radio today. A Motorola GP360. Its temporary. I get my own on Sunday. Whheeee. And I learnt radio protocol. I feel so *M*A*S*H*. I have my own call signal ... and everything has its own radio name! Its like learning a new game! My call signal is JR 1.3.2! Said like Juliet Romeo one three two. And also like "Juliet Romeo Base to Juliet Romeo one three one, come in!"
Ooooooooooooohhhhhh! I get to say things like Roger, Over, Read you (!), Come again ... heeeheee
This is just too titillating. I don't think I'll stop playing with this!! But the only check on such transgression is one I've already been warned about - *ALL* the UN missions in Juba can hear what you're saying. At any time. Don't ask me, but the channels are open.
You cannot just *whisper* over radio. No such thing as privacy ... you *broadcast*. I guess that's why they call it a radio. You have to call on one channel to locate the person of your choice, and when you do, you move to a different one for communication...
and of course that came with the HCR joke ...
"when you hear what channel they're moving to, you move to it ALSO, to find out what they're saying!!! hahahahaha" yeah.... Fascinating! I really want to do that. Rrighttt ... (well, at the beginning, maybe I do)
Along with the protocol, I learnt something else that was cool - the military alphabet! from now on, A isn't apple, but alpha! N isn't nancy but november! J isn't january but Juliet, and R isn't robert, but romeo. Now I'm a discreet person, so I won't go ahead and divulge the entire military alphabet (right here in this post) but that why people have been going on and on about Juliet and Romeo over the past few days ...
I am in Juba, so 'J' and working with refugees, so 'R', and my department is 1, and I'm in the third division. Hence JR 1.3.2! Voila! Neat, as I said. My handset is a black Motorola and weighs at least 1kg. (I'll have to spread it out btw my right and left hand so I build up the same muscles on both.) There is a red emergency button at the top. They said not to hit it. I think they were serious about that. Can I say again that this is SOOO *M*A*S*H*!! I can just see myself getting into a lot of trouble with this equipment!
... it just occured to me that if I see a cute guy in the street, doing his thang and just calmly saving lives, guarding a bridge, demining, moving vulnerable populations or building infrastructure for the sudanese ... I'd have to say "Romeo&Juliet etc etc" to give him my digits .... hahaha. And I must say that there is no shortage of well-built people here. Too bad we can't blast out over the calling channel "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" ... because that would mean "Rumbek UNHCR, why are you Rumbek?"
I'll have to find other suitable poetry or prose. Suggestions welcome!
I was quite attached to my cellphone in the US. Actually I cannot function without it at all - it is like my fifth limb, or a vital organ, or even a sustenance mechanism. You get the idea ... I even sleep with it next to my pillow. Or used to. So being in Sudan would have proved extremely difficult without placing myself at the beck and call of some sort of transmitting electronic device. The ring of a phone is like life-blood to the likes of me who need to be connected 24/7. To something. Even if it means that it is a barren metal tower on a knoll in South Sudan, where the most you'll ever know about is how many vehicles have been dispatched, to whom, and at what time - its quite useful actually if you'd like to hitch a ride on one of them.
Ok, so I exaggerate slightly. A little more than that is accomplished over radio, though you already figured that, so stop rolling your eyes at me.
From the moment I'd arrived in Juba, I'd been curious about these hunky-dory radio transmitters that some people carried. Its thick, dusty, hardy-looking and LOUD! The silence - and very often the noise - would be broken by crackling on the radio and then some cryptic "Juliet-Mike-Kilos-Romeo-Charles 1629348347874398725983474589....!" To me it was all the same. Except for being bothered by the incessant butting-in of the radios, I didn't think too much about them. However at several points during dinner (at Mango Camp), I wondered why they just weren't turned off if they weren't needed?? Bizarre ... These UNHCR people were such geeks with their (few) toys! Tch tch.
But as dinner progressed, everyone's radios appeared on the table at some point in the evening ... so it wasn't just one or two people with their toys ... and finally it was absolute chaos when 'Radio Check' was conducted at 7pm! One by one, the coordinates of every individual and every radio is confirmed from radio room (headquarters). It starts sequentially from the boss, and goes all the way down the ladder. Neat, I thought. The boss then pointed at me and boomed - "you didn't get your security briefing yet? you're still free! hahahaha! that'll have to change soon!" (sometimes I don't get the jokes here)
Though pretending that I was doing quite well in my unconnected corner of the table, I secretly rejoiced that I'd get a radio to carry around also! yippee! I was in! ... or something like that ...
Right then the Admin head - Ditas, from the Philippines - turned to me seriously and said. Well, you have to have your radio on you at all times! Its serious. And there's protocol you must follow. At 7pm, radio headquarters does a Radio Check to see where you and your radio are - its our only way of knowing that you're safe, you know! (Yes, okay, that makes sense ...) "And you have to respond in radio protocol, just to confirm you're okay - nothing superfluous!"
Raja stepped in at that point, and in his usual jovial way, told a story about this dude who was so drunk by 7pm that he responded by saying "Check, loud and clear! I'm very well thank you, and how are you!" The entire table cracked up! ... so it was funny... hahaha ... okkay ...
Then he goes on to tell me that that kind of behavior is absolutely unprofessional, and is usually reported, and the transgressor is warned. (I thought, what's the big deal) But I gradually realized that being in vast, unconnected, ungoverned territory meant that the radio was not only pompous, but an expensive, sophisticated and essential security mechanism. There's no two ways about it - entire safeguard mechanisms are built around whether you respond or not. If you don't, then the entire camp may be notified, and then the base. Your unit, and then your boss. And all this is done in such haste that no time is lost to save people if they are in any kind of danger. We might be sharing jokes at Mango Camp, but the security alert could be triggered in a heartbeat. Literally. I might be shadowing people now and only moving in droves, but there'll be a time when I go out with just one other person ...
I guess I didn't want to have convoys dispatched to my coordinates simply because I had managed to pass out (drunk?? ...) somewhere!Then Raja joked that I'll be allowed to miss Radio Check once. heheh. Great.
Oh dem ...
---
Saturday April 28th
It was the next day that I realized that every moving piece - I mean, seriously everything that can leave basecamp has a radio attached to it! All the personnel hang on to it for dear life (or for fear of radio HQ) and all the stations have one installed in it first thing! The best are the 4-wheels! Their antenna is gigantic! It is a huge rod sticking out to the heavens in no uncertain way! I had to take a picture to show what I mean. Listening to the radio inside the car is actually quite smooth and un-crackly for that matter. The car transponder can go about 100 miles I believe. (I'll have to check).
I got my radio today. A Motorola GP360. Its temporary. I get my own on Sunday. Whheeee. And I learnt radio protocol. I feel so *M*A*S*H*. I have my own call signal ... and everything has its own radio name! Its like learning a new game! My call signal is JR 1.3.2! Said like Juliet Romeo one three two. And also like "Juliet Romeo Base to Juliet Romeo one three one, come in!"
Ooooooooooooohhhhhh! I get to say things like Roger, Over, Read you (!), Come again ... heeeheee
This is just too titillating. I don't think I'll stop playing with this!! But the only check on such transgression is one I've already been warned about - *ALL* the UN missions in Juba can hear what you're saying. At any time. Don't ask me, but the channels are open.
You cannot just *whisper* over radio. No such thing as privacy ... you *broadcast*. I guess that's why they call it a radio. You have to call on one channel to locate the person of your choice, and when you do, you move to a different one for communication...
and of course that came with the HCR joke ...
"when you hear what channel they're moving to, you move to it ALSO, to find out what they're saying!!! hahahahaha" yeah.... Fascinating! I really want to do that. Rrighttt ... (well, at the beginning, maybe I do)
Along with the protocol, I learnt something else that was cool - the military alphabet! from now on, A isn't apple, but alpha! N isn't nancy but november! J isn't january but Juliet, and R isn't robert, but romeo. Now I'm a discreet person, so I won't go ahead and divulge the entire military alphabet (right here in this post) but that why people have been going on and on about Juliet and Romeo over the past few days ...
I am in Juba, so 'J' and working with refugees, so 'R', and my department is 1, and I'm in the third division. Hence JR 1.3.2! Voila! Neat, as I said. My handset is a black Motorola and weighs at least 1kg. (I'll have to spread it out btw my right and left hand so I build up the same muscles on both.) There is a red emergency button at the top. They said not to hit it. I think they were serious about that. Can I say again that this is SOOO *M*A*S*H*!! I can just see myself getting into a lot of trouble with this equipment!
... it just occured to me that if I see a cute guy in the street, doing his thang and just calmly saving lives, guarding a bridge, demining, moving vulnerable populations or building infrastructure for the sudanese ... I'd have to say "Romeo&Juliet etc etc" to give him my digits .... hahaha. And I must say that there is no shortage of well-built people here. Too bad we can't blast out over the calling channel "Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo" ... because that would mean "Rumbek UNHCR, why are you Rumbek?"
I'll have to find other suitable poetry or prose. Suggestions welcome!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
