GOODBYE ABYEI!!!

On December 13th we finallly boarded the chopper for the last time to depart Abyei. The night prior was pretty quiet, though on the friday our colleagues held a going away party for us which was a lot of fun. Two of the Dutch UNPOL's orginized it so we had our introduction to a number of Dutch drinking games like spijkepooper and cokhoper (spelling), or something like that. Here are some photos..... silly Dutch. In spijkepooper you try to get a nail that is attached to you into a can or a bottle. The other one is basically eating a cookie hanging from a string while you are blingfolded.

So the 13th December we finally said our goodbyes and saw the last of Abyei, Sudan that we would see for quite sometime. I have to say it has been an awesome experience for me. Awesome because of the people you meet and work with who bring their own special way of looking at the world and at policing to the job and regardless or because of those differences you manage to laugh your butt off... together.

Awesome because of the challenges that you face in dealing with those people and with the people you are there to help. Challenges like trying to explain community based policing theories to someone who has spent 90 percent of his adult life as a rebel soldier in a brutal war that is not only ethnically based but inter-tribal, meaning village on village. A war that lasted many decades, intermitently for almost 50 years.

Awesome because of the frustration you feel when you need thirteen stamps from thirteen different offices on one document so you can travel to Khartoum for a course and to go home.
Awesome because of the extreme environment you exist in when you are in Sudan, going from searing temperatures, to mud that would hold fast the largest trucks, to nights so cool that you need to put on a fleece and then back to the heat. A land that around Abyei at least is so flat rivers curl back on themselves for miles and miles then just end in the middle of nowhere.

Awesome because of the kids, they kept it real for me. Heart-breakingly real, but real nonetheless, which one needs when you are faced with such an alien environment.

And awesome because regardless of that alien environment people throughout this world have so much in common, one thing which I particulary like is that we all love to laugh and it doesn't matter if you are from Uruguay, Abyei, Ghana or Canada, everyone laughs at this one

Two cannibals are eating a clown and one looks at the other and says, "does this taste funny to you?" (thank you Splinter)
Do not read too much into that.

So to, Deon, Wayne, Jon, Peiter and Grant ( from Australia ), Mohammed, Ahmed, Ragy, and Samir ( from Egypt ), Edward, James, Alex and Joseph ( from Ghana ), Suresh and Mahendra ( from Indian ), Soud, Malek, Faisal, Saad, Osama, and Nesar ( from Jordan ), Roy and Bartho ( from Namibia), Bishwa and Anand ( from Nepal ), Michel, Jacobus, Matthieu and Michel ( from The Netherlands ), Robinson and Etsu ( from Nigeria ), Shah and Sattar ( from Pakistan ), Attila, Mehmet, Meshut and Hasan ( from Turkey ), Christopher ( from Uganda ) Yony and Luis ( from Uruguay ), Francis and Roy ( from Zambia ), Bright and Truman ( from Zimbabwea) and to my country mate, and friend Wanda, thank you for all for your support and letting me represent you for a short, crucial period of time, but most important thank you for making me laugh and laughing with me.

To the Abyei UNMO's your support and enthusiam for sport and the job you do is exceptional. To the TCC's the Zambian, Indian, and Kenyan deployments thank you for keeping us safe.

To the Indian Signals thank you for worrying about us when we are late to report in or more than likely forgot to.

To all the civilians, Head of Office, Civil Affairs, Resident Co-ordinator Office, UNDSS, Human Rights, RRR, DDR, CITS, GSS, Transport and everyone else who spent so much of their time in Abyei and working extremely long hours, thank you for all your assistance and making my time in Abyei such a positive one.

Most importantly to my family, my wife, the love of my live, to my princess, and my two best buddies, thank you for joining me on this mission, you weren't physically here with me but you were most definitely a huge part of it, a bigger part than you probably wanted to be, and for the sacrifice and hard work and time spent without me, thank you for the last nine months. I love you all more than you can ever know.

I originally thought I wanted the next picture, the last picture in the blog, to be a sunset but I think this one is more appropriate, this is the last sunrise I saw in Abyei but the first one for the rest of my life, the start of a new chapter in my life, and I hope and pray a new and better chapter in the lives of all those I leave behind in Abyei. God Bless.