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.