On the Eurostar Train London to Paris

Although we missed the delays, the train was not running for two days after Christmas due to 5 cms of snow over two days!!












Liam, traveling by laptop.....

Teri, enjoying the sunset as we pass through the English countryside

Changing the Guard at Buckingham Palace

Thanks to a call to Wellington Barracks, we were given a tour of No7 Company, Coldstream Guards conducting the daily Changing of the Guard ceremony - as guests from inside the grounds at Buckingham Palace.

As well, a great view of the warm-up inspection from the Officers Mess.



Our escort officer, truly someone of Guards stature!

Enjoying Holidays in London

A visit to Windsor Castle


Teri and Liam take a break at the British Museum


Making a call







Taking in a show at the Dominion Theatre, We Will Rock You (a tribute to Queen)







and shopping on Oxford Street!



And yes, Santa did find Liam in London on Christmas morning!

100 kms From Nowhere

Now this is why we check and re-check the vehicles each time we go out on patrol.

At least between two vehicles we had one spare that worked......

That's me, under the veh trying to get the jack to extend all the way so we could get the tire changed.

Once again, thank God its the dry season, not the rainy season....

More Nomads

I had a request to share more pictures of the Nomads.

There are many, many tribes here in Sudan, that move south for the dry season and then back north again in the wet season. They originally came from as far away as North or West Africa.

We had another patrol out that met up with a big group again last week. They move with all that they have. Mostly, they are friendly, but they are a society within a society and there can be a lot of pressure placed upon the usual residents of a place that they are moving through. So far in our area at least, they seem to move peacefully among the local population.

Remembrance Day Mail

We received packages from Canada recently, mail from home and real newspapers! It was Christmas come early - no kidding. Especially the packages I received from Teri and Liam (with coffee!)

We also received Remembrance Day cards from school children, as well as some early Christmas cards. It's great to receive their notes of thanks here.

On Nov 11 this year I was on the road in South Sudan for 3-day patrol. I took a moment to pause at 11:00 am, said a few words to my foreign patrol mates who did not know about Remembrance Day, then moved on with the patrol.

Accommodation on the Road

Just so you can see that we are not roughing it too much.....

"Hotel Bunj" - the open air Tukel we stayed in was actually a nice change, with fresh air at night.


"Hotel Arank" was actually indoors!







Some other tukels look like this, where the people in the area live














And, this our Tukel, outside our accommodation trailers - which would make anyone's porch or backyard proud!

Air Patrol - WADEKONA

Wadekona is a fairly sizable town, typical of just about everywhere here in South Sudan. Thatch roofed huts called Tukels, a few corrugated metal structures and the odd mud brink building. This place, at least, was well laid out and looked quite neat actually.

As usual for an air patrol, the local forces organized "transport" for us on arrival (in the truck taking pictures is our Indian Army Col from the Melut Team Site protection force).









The photo of the kids who gathered to see us off (seeing white guys is cool, but seeing helicopter is obviously way cooler) is a good representation of how sometimes it seems the UN views things here. We were not very happy with this air patrol. Despite our best efforts and the cost involved, the UN bureaucracy that runs the flight ops would only give us 45 mins on the ground. In a place visited by the UN no more than three times a year. Insulting to them really.




Our assessment after the patrol - we will visit much more regularly, for much longer periods. Hopefully stay over a few days.

Crossing the River

It's been a while since I added to this - sorry, kind of fell off the blog wagon for a while. I have actually been sort of busy. For a while there, the team site was down to just 5 Military Observers (UNMOs) so we were conducting patrols daily, doing the paperwork, back out again, etc. We have started to receive new UNMOs though, all of whom are welcome additions to the team.

In the past weeks, I have been on an Air Patrol north to a place called WADEKONA and a 3-day vehicle patrol to a place called ARANK, near the North/South border crossing. I will add some pics of these trips and a bit on what we have been doing there.

Flying by helo let us get a glipse at much of the area we can otherwise not see - the whole west side of the Nile. There are no bridges for hundreds of kms north or south of here, certainly none in three days drive either direction. So, we and all the people living in the area, have a very hard time getting across the river. Our only option is to patrol that area by air. The 45 min flight north allowed us to see much of the varied landscape and visit a remote location in our AOR.

Children of the Nomads

I had to add these great pics of children riding in the Nomad train. Their faces are full of wonder, looking at us!

...the first is my favourite, taken as we passed in the car

Nomads "Myseria Tribe" on the move

Last week I was on a long range patrol for three days to a place called BUNJ, a small village/town 250 kms away from our team site. To give you an idea of the road conditions, it took us over 5 hours in the 4X4's to get there.

There we had a task to count and verify soldiers and wpns at the encampment of the Joint Integrated Unit (JIUs) based there. The JIUs are an attempt to form one army out of the northern SAF and the souther SPLA troops. Predictibly, they are encamped in separate locations, wear different uniforms and are anything but "joint". At least in BUNJ, they seem to have good relations though.

We saw the coolest site on the way back, we encountered a tribe of Nomads moving from the north to south for winter. About 1000 cows, goats, assorted animals and 300-400 men, women and children. Very colourful, kind of friendly. the women were riding the cows, young girls as well carrying calves, and themen and boys walked along picking up straglers from the herd. I got the impression that they were as amazed to see us "white guys" as we were to see them. These are basically wandering non-state peoples - no address, no papers, no schooling, a society of their own. They carry their shelters and all belongings with them. Very interesting, a real "National Geographic moment!" You can see us in one of the jeeps trying to make our way through it all.

Patrol our Area of Operations, around MELUT. Mostly very tiny villages, with troops stationed here and there. Some roads, which are more passable now that the rainy season is over, but as we found out on this trip, many places are still cut off by swampy rivers or where the road just disappears. Flat, flat, flat - the whole place around here is about 300 m above sea level - and grass growing 5-6 feet.

the road just ended - I had to use the "expedient UN Observation Post" to see the objective - a village we anted to observe to see if there were any troop movements.

The best part of our patrols is seeing the children. They are almost always all smiles, incredibly curious of the "Kawajas" (which means foreigners or white guys). For many, the UN personnel are probably the only non-black skinned people they have ever seen in their lives. I always try to stop and speak to them, and am pleasantly surprised to hear many speak a lot of English (so there must be some schooling out there somewhere). Amazing, when you consider the town we live in has only two, barrack-dorm style schools for hundreds of children, almost no school supplies, few desks, hardly anything at all.

The two girls in the photo above are carrying home groceries for their family - on their heads, mid-day, 40 degrees, wearing only flip flops. Not sure where they were going, but the nearest hut or Tukel was about 3 kms away!

The other two photos are of some children who kept looking in the window of a commanders house/office when we were making a visit to a nearby military camp. One little girl came all the way in to see us! Of course, the commander refused to speak to us, because he had "not been informed of our visit", despite our coordinating it with his HQ two days before, so basically we had to return without meeting anyone. Not an unusual occurance. At least the kids made it a worthwhile visit.

Ultimately, the children are one of the few signs of hope around.

The Local Bakery

A big part of or job here with the UN is to visit the towns in the area and meet with the locals daily. Sort of show a UN presence. In Melut, where we are based, there is literally only one bakery - and it is a wood burning, mud-oven. The place seems to be run by three or four boys, all covered in flour! Only one kind of bread, a tough buy tasty flat bread baked on a wooden stick. They make hundreds daily, sell 5 small loaves for one Sudanese Pound (about 30 cents) and seem to be the only supply for about 500 people!

Spider on the Welcome Sign (Dad should like this one)

Just a quick pic of some of the fauna in the team site.....

Arriving at TS Melut

Finally arrived at UN Team Site Melut, an impossibly small village in south Sudan, along the Blue Nile. I passed through Malakal, which is the Sector III HQ location, staying there for two days. Very happy to get out of there, the place was a pit (the UN Camp I mean - desperately needs a Sgt Maj to sort things out there). First impressions in Melut are that its much better, newer, cleaner, much better lay out - the Indian troops here seem well set up and organized.

If nothing else, I am living a very healthy lifestyle here: up at 6:30, 5 min walk as a commute at 0750, work/patrolling until about 1330, rest (its hot) until about 1530, paperwork in the afternoon, volleyball with the Indian Force Protection Company at 1700, dinner at 1800, bed about 2100. Yep, that's about it. Reading and email in between. I should mention only one in about 10 of the Indian guys speak English and I am the only white officer that plays. I am sure I make their afternoon.



more pictures coming, if you are watching - takes about 40 mins to upload one photo!

Left Malakal for Melut on Thursday, 22 Oct. 45 mins by helo to the team site. Good view of the area of operations: flat, flat, flat. Very green now but I am told it will all turn brown in the next few months as the rains dry up. Its a little hard to believe, until you realize there is no real evidence of any irrigation for miles.