First impressions ...

Men wearing dresses and holding hands....need i say more:)
Sudanese aren't lazy. They're just a bit slow and unstructured :p

First of all I would like to apologise to my fans for being so late in updating my blog :p

After our troublesome start we started the proces of checking in at the UN. Remarkable how such a large organisation can adapt to the Sudanese lifestyle so quickly;). At least we managed to finish our induction course this week. This means we can go to work starting sunday ( but I think Jelle and I are still a bit too eager).

(view from UNMIS HQ)

If all goes well I'll ship out to Juba on tuesday or wednesday. I still don't have a clue if they are expecting me. The UN is mostly about figures and statistics. When you've checked in you can be added to the list and when you check out you can be deleted. What happens in between seems to be of no concern to the deskjockeys. For instance you would expect the personnel department to know what and where your posting is and who will be your boss. Questions in this direction often cause blank expressions with the staff. Ah well. I guess we'll just have to learn to live with it as we are learning to live with the climatological circumstances. Slowly we are adapting to the temperature. However we are now having more problems with the ever present dust in the air. Stuffy nose, itchy eyes and such.

As for the present political situation. I don't have any aspirations of becoming a novelist (I'll leave that to Hemi) so I'll keep it short. The situation is ever changing here. Darfur is the hotspot at the moment. The African Union (AU) is going to end their mission there and the UN would like to take over from them. This is something the Sudanese about. The UN tends to take the reporting of treaty violations more seriously than the AU so the Sudanese government isn't to pleased about UN presence in the Darfur area. Since it is alleged that the government is supporting several rebel factions in the area you now understand why. To underline this there was a "spontaneous" demonstration against the UN in Khartoum last thursday. It was of course all perfectly orchestrated by the government. Countries like Sudan don't have spontaneous demonstration. Result was that we were confined to the compound the whole day. Despite these incidents we still feel pretty much safe here. The people are generally friendly, but what do you if you're being considered a walking wallet:)

As I mentioned earlier I hope to be heading for Juba next week. This means AFRICA. Khartoum is more an Arabic city and reminds me of Turkey in many ways. The big difference is that Turkey is climbing on the economic ladder. Khartoum is anything but a rich city albeit for culture. And even in this aspect there is not so much to see. There is only one large paved road that is in good condition. The others are riddled with potholes the size of craters. And there is dust and sand...and some more dust and sand. But like I said the peeps are alright.

(ferry crossing at the Nile)