Abyei Times

First things first.... it hasn't been stated yet on this blog, but, there is BEER! in Abyei and having spent the last 30 plus years of my life living in Canada, especially not to mention the last 6 in surveillance, I thought I should bring it up. There is no alcohol allowed "officially" in the northern part of Sudan, sharia law and all that. In the south, and Abyei is right in the border of the two, there is no problem with alcohol, we weren't sure if it was allowed in Abyei until we got here and what do you know!? The prices are not too bad when you do all the math, but you have to do "all" the math to see it. Needless to say we... enjoy? Yeah hell who am I kidding beer is beer when there is only beer. There seems to be only three bands Heineken, Efes, and a Chinese knock- off of a German beer that doesn't exist, you go figure. I guess they just made a beer to look German with labelling and writing but it's not a copy of anything. But I am not complaining.

Now on the more serious matters...

The two bodies that were found a couple days ago appear to be that of the two missing Messeriya men. The investigation is continuing by the local police but I am very happy to say t there has been no back lash. The "suspect" is in custody... let just say the reason for holding him would not stand up to our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. But anyways the local police are on the job and the Messeriya seem to be for the moment content with the way the authourities are handling the case. So, we haven't been evacuated.

The four night camping trip has turned into a one day visit and one night stay over in Agok. We are going there tomorrow for the overnight. We were down there today and visited the local police station there. They had case last night where two people from another village came into Agok, got drunk and let fly a few hundred rounds with the standard issue AK 47 times 2. Then they headed back home. They also... get this... had nine yep, 9 women locked up for... adultery.... long thoughtful pause so as not to seem to be insulting our gracious hosts. I guess here adultery is a crime, plain and simple. If you are walking down the road with your wife and another man looks at her and she responds to his glance either by glancing back at him or smiling, she has commited a crime. And by the sounds of it they take it pretty seriously. Everyday we learn something. So Heather, what do you think about moving to Sudan? ha ha!

Another thing I wanted to let you in on is that the roads around here are absolutely horrible. They are red gravel and mud typical for the soil around here. They are so rough that at times the entire dashboard in the UN vehicles that we drive, Nissan Patrols by the way(full size 4X4 SUV's), shake so violently you think it is about pop off, every door on the car rattles all the way to Agok. It is about 35 kms from Abyei to Agok and it took us over an hour this morning. On the way back we did it in just over one hour. It is so bad at some points that vehicles make there own road paralleling one side or the other especially at the parts that are impassable because it is a soft spot and all the huge trucks have made these massive ruts. And speaking of soft.

Yesterday afternoon and this afternoon we had tremendous thunder showers move through the Abyei area. The showers left a layer of sticky mud on the ground about half to one inch thick. They only lasted about half an hour each but that is two days in a row that we have seen rain now... it's coming. The rainy season, people here are happy to see the rain, look up at the sky and gesture with their hands smiling. It' s a good thing but it also means more of what we saw in the last two days and I mean a lot more.... and the mud and the bugs and mosquitoes and snakes and not going anywhere for days at a time. Woo Hooo!

And finally.... the word Abyei is from a tree of the same name that grows in this area and Agok means monkey. Cliff facts of the day.