It was a fairly hectic day with the stats reports again so it was an early start and a late finish (still working, thought I would break to update the bloggerama).
A few things of note happened today. We are travelling to Shuwak on Tuesday and needed to get papers from the government authorising our travel. We needed our passports and a passport picture. I’m not sure what it is that the Sudanese government do with these, but so far they have 3 pictures of me and they are about to get a fifth. We had already brought our passports into the office with the accompanying picture and passed them to the man in charge of acquiring such papers. We detailed again that we would be travelling on Tuesday, he said the papers would probably be ready by Wednesday. It appeared that I had stepped into a time warp…
Me: “I fly on Sunday, I need my visa today.”
Crocket: “Come back on Monday, we can talk then”
Me: “In case you didn’t hear me, I fly on Sunday.”
Crocket: “Come back on Monday when you are less angry Mr Paul.”
He looked at us for a second and realised what he had said, then said that he would get them pushed through for tomorrow. Phew, I thought I was back in the Embassy with the crazy people, but luckily not…
In the afternoon I’d just got myself a coffee, was sitting down to continue with some coding and then the power went, making me realise how much light the tinted windows on the building cut out light. The servers continued running as the UPS kicked in without a flicker, the satlink was still running and my laptop had switched to battery, But all power had been cut to the building. My immediate thoughts were “Where are the flack jackets and the P90’s”, perhaps this was the military koo that had been discussed and it was the beginning of a new age. I had already been told that the first two places to be taken in Sudan with previous koo’s were the Airport and the Government controlled television station, the only television station I have ever seen with tanks parked outside it and a full compliment of troops. Abdulla had told me when we passed the TV station the previous day, that if you owned the Airport and the TV station you controlled the country. I thought to myself, perhaps the 3rd building to take was the UNHCR offices. All my old army training came back in a flash, such a flash that it went straight past me, then I realised that I hadn’t been in the army. Perhaps the best reference I had was MacGyver, I needed to find some paper clips, a torch and some Tan shoe polish to create a make- shift explosive device which would harm no one in the area but render them all unconscious or make them stagger around clutching their heads. Hmmm where could I acquire these items, then “pop” the power was back on… I turned to Abdul Bassit and asked him what was happening and whether he had any paper clips, a torch and some Tan shoe polish. The answer was “The trip switches are sensitive, nothing to worry about”. Luckily he did have a box of paper clips, but he was a little light on the other items, at least I could scale a wall if nothing else…
The rest of the day went like this:
Coffee…
Coding…
Reporting…
Coffee Cigarette…
Coding…
More coding…
No Duty Driver available as usual, get a taxi…
Taxi driver showed me a new meaning of Inshallah with his driving…
Collected Room Key…
Said Hi to all my boys in the hotel…
Met Rob for dinner…
Had coffee…
Got asked for a Visa again…
The only thing that I can assume as to why he asked me for the visa in the first place, was because he knew I was doing work for the UN and perhaps he assumed that the system in the UK worked like it does in Sudan? As I have said before, in Sudan people who are connected make things happen for their friends and family, getting jobs, giving and receiving “back hander’s” and bureaucracy is surpassed by influence. Oh… hold on, it is like the UK and the rest of the world, but in Sudan it is “blatant” for want of a better word and in the “civilised world” it is more secretive where democracy and equality is available for all, especially the more privileged. Which ever way it happens, blatant or clandestine, it affects the average person in the street in some way and at some point in their lives, but this is the way of the world we live in. Perhaps our two worlds are not that different after all? After thinking about this for some time, it’s a comparison that I couldn’t easily make between our two worlds, at least in more prosperous parts of the world, there is equality for a greater portion of the populous, but then again that still isn’t equality!
I nearly did it again, bursting into “We are the world” by Michael Jackson, I think when I get back to the UK I am going to have to go for psychotherapy … If I don’t get this checked out soon I’ll probably start talking about how great the 80’s were and they don’t make songs like they used to… oh dear…
Anyway on that happy note, I make a plea for anarchy. To all those who are reading, take up arms with your brothers and sisters, I pray that by the time I awake, TV talent show creators (XFactor, Fame Acadamy and many others) and reality TV creators (Big Brother, Wife swap blah, blah, blah) are the first against the wall. Vive La Revolution!
G’night all…
PS: I know there are a few people reading this who may take this seriously, please don’t start a revolution because I said so, I know the media has a large sway over the populous. But why not do it because you want to.
PPS: PS is my initials, how strange that I’m an afterthought by name…
PPSS: I was only kidding about the PS, I mean the anarchy bit, not the fact that my initials are PS, they really are.