Kit Ready to Go

Today we got all our kit packed up and ready to go at UN MOVCON. We will see if they actually live up to the acronym. All 20 of us each with 4 pieces of luggage, two hockey sized duffel bags and two green army barrack boxes went to MOVCON and tagged our stuff and got it piled in the appropriate area of a large ten at the Khartoum airport. The kit is supposed to go ahead of us to our sites and maybe...maybe get there two or three days after us. We will see. The rest of the day we spent at UN HQ sorting paperwork, getting our MOP's ...that's movement of personnel for all you non-UN types.... think I am pretty cool don't I? Anyways paperwork and signatures is what the UN thrives on so that is what we did. Then we had some spare time and I got myself hooked up with the wireless internet service that is supposed to have coverage in Abyei. Again... we will see.

For dinner we took a taxi to this pizza place here in town (it was really good everyone loved it), and I learnt that the Sudanese or at least here in Khartoum there are traffic laws. On our way back to the apartment from the restaurant the taxi (Damas) driver made this crazy turn infront of oncoming traffic at a stop light. Just when we were getting used to seeing our lives flash before us everytime we got into a taxi, as the driver made this hollywood manoeuvre a local traffic police officer was right there and bingo bango thanks for coming out and there we were walking. The young driver was looked a little embarrassed I am not sure what the penalty is for such a stunt but we didn't stick around to find out. We got another taxi half way down the block and home we went.

So that is all for today. Anyone figured out what maAa assalama mean yet? well maAa assalama once more.