“What tomorrow will bring….”

October 27^th 2005, 0630B

The ground here moves. Not all the time or even much, & not for long either, but at about 2300 last night there was a series of tremors. Small ones to be sure, but plenty big enough to wake me up with the thought that my tent was about to slide down the valley. Not a comfortable feeling I can assure you :P And it’s not the first time I’ve felt the ground shaking since I’ve been here, as the same happened on Tuesday evening too, though it wasn’t quite so pronounced. Like I say, it was only small tremors, not even enough to make the windows rattle, but given that there are a lot of dead Pakistanis who also felt a “small tremor” before that big bastard quake in Kashmir recently, it was still rather disconcerting. Then again, maybe I’m lucky & those rumblings I felt last night was Bujumbura disappearing into Lake Tanganyika – one can always hope I guess :P

Other than the restless ground around here, it’s quite a pleasant area now that I’ve had chance to see some of it. It’s still really overcast & rainy here, but that just means that it’s nice & cool, and there are also no mosquitoes. There’s also some really dramatic scenery around here – lots of tall forested hills & deep valleys – but I’ve not had chance to take many photos unfortunately. The times I’ve been out of the base I’ve been a passenger, & the guys aren’t too keen on stopping just so that I can take a few photos L And you can forget about taking photos from a moving vehicle on the roads around here – I’ve tried, & “with limited success” would be a very charitable description of the results. I managed to get a few of the local kids as they ran along behind the vehicle, but that’s about it unfortunately. Some of those came out well enough though, so it’s not all been wasted effort.

I’ve even had a little trauma work since I’ve been here, & ended up putting in a few stitches yesterday. One of the vehicles slipped off a small bridge & one of the troops in the back smashed his chin into something, earning himself a nice gash in the process. I’ve always prided myself of my “sewing” – when it comes to people, anyway lol – but I found out just how badly out of practice I am when I came to suture this guy up. I still managed to do a reasonable job of it, & the wound looks pretty good this morning now that the swelling has gone down, but I was nowhere near so confident I’d done an acceptable job at the time. These days I just don’t get the practice I need to stay sharp, & it’s worrying to realise just how rusty I am. I’d like to wish for more opportunities to practice, but when you consider that people need to be bleeding in order for me to get that practice, maybe it’s best I don’t.

When they’re not injuring themselves, the people I’m working here are a decent enough bunch. The company commander & sergeant major are quite pleasant & sociable – even if they are complete wussies when it comes to chilli :P – and the rest of the company that I’ve had anything to do with are also alright. I’d been a little worried about coming here at first, as some of the other medics who’ve worked with this particular company have had hassles, but so far I’ve not had any trouble. This company is rotating to Kabezi this Saturday though, & a new company will be coming in, so we’ll see how things go with the new guys. I don’t really anticipate any problems with them, but it can take a little while to get settled & comfortable when first working with a new unit – every infantry unit has its own little ways of doing things, & the same is also true of myself as a medic, so a little adjustment is often necessary :P

I really hope I don’t clash with the new company in the way I have with others during my career, because my sense of humour really isn’t up to putting up with shit right now. The work side of things hasn’t been bad at all since I got here, but the personal side has been more than a little rough. There’s nothing specific that’s happened to make it such a bad week, but it’s been real shitty all the same. Monday didn’t start off too bad at all, but I started to feel down in the evening. I didn’t pay much mind to it though, thinking I was just tired & ratty from the drive here, but I didn’t feel any better when I woke up on Tuesday, & my mood just got worse as the day went by. I’ve regained a few of the happy thoughts this morning, but Tuesday evening was pretty ugly & yesterday wasn’t much better. I’d like to blame the mefliam, and I’m sure that contributed, but I’m getting tired of using that excuse for feeling miserable. I imagine that this extension thing is probably getting me down more than I realise, though hopefully I should start getting properly used to the idea soon. I’m never going to be happy with being away from my friends & my life for over a year, but I’ll at least adapt to the situation soon. Getting confirmation as to whether I’ll be staying or not will go a long way towards helping in that regard, because the uncertainty just makes it far too easy to second-guess myself over the decision to apply for the extension. It’s a little hard to “hope for the best” when I genuinely can’t decide what I want. No, I know exactly what I want – to come home in February & never even think of Burundi ever again – but I also know that the extra money I’ll get from staying will take a lot of the pressure off me next year. There’s a lot to be said for taking strain from missing friends & home for the next ten months, rather than worrying how I’m going to pay my rent or even eat while I’m looking for work come September next year. I’ll only find out about the extension in a few weeks at best though, so I’m just going to have to grit my teeth till then.

What happens after I finally get home is also a major source of stress right now, because even if my contract is renewed next year I reckon I have at most another 5 years of service left in the military, at least in SA. Even that might be being overly optimistic. Returning to the UK and joining the police or army there – both are evidently very keen on recruiting ex-SA military right now, & citizenship is no problem for me – is an option, but it’s one I’d prefer not to exercise if I can avoid it. I’d far rather find another job at home, but that isn’t going to be easy at all, not with my limited skill set. The civvy medical services are an option, but the salaries are really crap, & while there is a certain specialised & well paying market for my other skills – the killing people part of my job description – I’m sure you can see where there might be a problem with that…

Studying is starting to sound like a very attractive proposition, ‘cause all I have is a shitty matric & a tertiary qualification will certainly open more doors for me than that ever will. If I’m going to be here for the extra 6 months I should be able to afford course fees at least, providing I can decide on what to study or even get into tech or varsity in the first place. How to pay the rent after I get that right is likely to be something of an issue though, because I’m not sure that the old student favourite of waitering will work out for me – you don’t see many over 30’s serving tables at the Mugg & Bean after all :P

I seriously need to win the fucking lottery, ‘cause about the only other option that springs readily to mind is “man whore”, & I have serious reservations about that one after watching just the trailer for “Deuce Bigallo” lol

Anyway, I’m going to wrap this up for now. I may have whined through a fair part of it, but my sense of humour is somewhat better for it, so hopefully I’ll come up with something a little more cheerful next time.

Ciao till then though ;)

A new town & difficult choices….

<>October 24^th 2005, 1925B <>

So this is Muramvya….. It’s a little hard to give a first impression as it was quite late when we arrived, & also the weather had closed in so there wasn’t too much to see. I’ve heard nice things about the place though, so I’m hoping the weather clears up a little by morning so that I can see something of the place where I’ll be spending the next two weeks. One thing I can say is that it’s fairly chilly here, because in addition to the weather here today, Muramvya is also a respectable height above sea level here. Hopefully, like Mwaro, that’ll also mean there’ll be no mosquitoes, & that the weather will be nicer than in the capital.

One thing is for sure, & that’s that I’ll be getting a lot more exercise than is my norm while I’m here. Hell, any exercise is more than what I’m used to :P The reason for this is that the company HQ where I’m staying is in a house at the top of a hill, but the platoons are staying in tents at what looks to be a college further down the valley. It’s not such a great distance between the two places, only a few hundred meters, but it’s a fairly steep gradient in places & I’ll likely be making the trip a few times a day. It also looks as though we’ll be doing PT in the mornings a few days a week, so there’s a chance that I’ll be somewhat fitter & also thinner by the time I get back to Bujumbura on the 7^th. The “thinner” will be especially welcome, as I overdid it just a little on the Chinese & beer while I was in town, & my ass is just a touch wider than it was two weeks ago :P

I have to confess that the lazy bastard in me is really not looking forward to the jogging in particular, but it’ll be good for me so I shouldn’t complain. I know I’m going to struggle though, because I’m really going to battle with the altitude here – between the smoking & the embolism I had a few years ago my lungs are not in the best of shape. But if I have any sense whatsoever I’ll make use of this opportunity to get into the habit of doing at least some regular exercise. I don’t know as I’ll get that right, but it’s worth a try.

Otherwise about all else that happened today is that I handed in the statement to extend my deployment to August next year. Both my boss & Lt Col Munday decided to endorse it, & now it’ll go to the Contingent Commander for his input. I really can’t see him having any reason not to support it, so I expect it’ll arrive at Joint Ops in Pretoria for final approval before too much longer. The only people I expect to have any issue with my wanting to extend my stay here are my OC & RSM at the unit in Durban, because it’ll mean I’ll have been away from the unit for over a year all told. But me staying here means they won’t have to struggle to find someone to replace me in February, so I don’t really expect any trouble there either. As soon as I hear anything back, I’ll let everyone know what’s going on.

This is one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make in a very long time, & I’m not happy at all that I’ve been placed in a position where I felt that it was necessary to stay on longer. The cost of staying is not going to be cheap, & it’s going to be a long ten months between now & August next year, but the prospect of not having any sort of safety net in the all too likely event that I’ll be dismissed next year leaves me feeling that I have very little choice but to ask to stay. At least I’ll be getting those two weeks off I mentioned in the last post, so I should get to spend at least some time with the people I care about in around another 3 months.

That’s it for now though, as it’s been a long day & I’m pretty tired. I’m going to make myself some coffee & then climb into bed where it’s warm. Hopefully I’ll get to upload this to the blog fairly soon, as there are apparently a number of net cafés’ here in Muramvya. That’ll also mean that comms with home shouldn’t be too bad while I’m here, as I should have access to email.

Till next time though.

“Time to hit the road again……”

October 23rd 2005, 0955B

Well, I’m off to the bushes for another two weeks tomorrow, this time to Muramvya. Bujumbura hasn’t actually been too bad at all these last two weeks, but a change in scenery will still be appreciated. I’ve also wanted to get out to Murumvya for awhile now, so I’m quite looking forward to going there. The camera is also quite happy, as I’ve hardly even switched it on in nearly a week now :P
I am going to miss access to the landline & net connection here while I’m out of town though, as the comms have been surprisingly good lately. I’ve especially enjoyed having access to IM again, even if it has cost an absolute bloody fortune in net café fees. It’s been worth every cent though, so I’m not really complaining. I’ll be happier if I manage to get a net connection of my own in December though.

The last few days have gone well enough, though I’ve been a tad acid at times. I’ve pretty much made up my mind to apply for the extension to my deployment, & I’ve not been exactly cheerful at the thought of another 6 months away from home. I really haven’t enjoyed trying to convince myself to do something I don’t particularly want to, but the thought of an extra R70000 odd in the bank is proving to be a powerful incentive. I’m starting to get my head around the idea of staying longer though, & my attitude is becoming far more positive about it. I’ve also managed to cheer myself up with the promise to treat myself some if the extension is granted – there’s a shiny new notebook with my name all over it if I’m going to be staying longer ;) The one I’ve got my eye on won’t even put too much of a dent in the budget, as selling the one I have now to offset the cost won’t be particularly dificult.
Even though I’ve made up my mind to stay, it’s by no means certain that I will, as neither my boss nor Lt Col Munday seem too keen on the idea. I’ll be submitting the statement tomorrow regardless, but their endorsement would really help so I’ll be doing what I can to convince them to support it.
The irony inherent in my talking people into helping me do something I don’t especially want to do is so funny I might just burst something I’m laughing so fucking hard….
Anyway, assuming the extension is granted, I’ve been assured that there will be a two week break in February sometime, & as soon as I know when I’ll be coming home I’ll let everyone know so that the planning for how to spend those two weeks can start. Knowing my friends, it’s going to be a busy two weeks…. just be gentle with me, ‘cause I’m an old man :P As I’ve said before, I’ll let everyone know what’s happening as soon as I hear anything myself.

Something I managed to get right this last two weeks in town was to get to the factory that packages the local coffee. I wasn’t able to get too much this time, only 5 bags, but I’ll be going back as soon as I get back from Muramvya to see how much more I can lay my hands on. Like I’ve said before it’s not quite as good as the House of Coffees stuff I normally buy at home, but it’s plenty good enough, and at $2 – about R13 – for a 500g bag it’s almost free. By comparison, the regular blend I buy at home is about R25 for I think a 125g packet, so you can see what I mean about the local stuff being cheap.
There’s a limit to how much I can send home at a time, as Customs & Excise start to look at you sideways if you start sending 50kg at a time, but if I send smaller packages on a regular basis I should still manage to get enough home to last me quite awhile. Assuming Rob doesn’t drink it all first :P

I’m going to have to finish off here as I’m meeting people for an early lunch at the Chinese place around the corner. This will likely be the last update for the next two weeks, but I’ll keep in touch as best as I can while I’m away, & if I get chance to come into town I’ll try to get onto the pc to check my mail & send a few of my own.

Cheers for now though ;)

“Should I stay, or should I go…” Part II

October 20th 2005, 2010B

This is just going to be a quick follow on from the last post really – it’s not been long enough for much of anything to happen to put down here really :P
Pretty much all I have to talk about is that we’ve received information – unconfirmed as yet, as par the course for this place – that the mission to Burundi will be carrying on for what looks to be another 18 months to 2 years. As such, this contingent will be rotating back to SA in February, & there won’t be any trip through Tanzania to get the vehicles back, or at least not for quite some time, so I likely won’t be staying on till May.

No, instead of staying on till May, I’ll likely be staying on till August ’06 instead. The short version as to why boils down to money – I’ve said before I’m probably going to be out of a job in September next year, so it only makes sense for me to feather the nest as much as possible before then, & unfortunately that means staying here in Burundi as long as possible, where I’m earning an extra R12k a month, maybe more if our allowances do go up. I’ve applied for my contract to be renewed, & there is a chance it will be, but I can’t count on that & as such I need to build up the largest capital reserve that I can. I’m going to say right now that this is not something I want to do, because I really don’t enjoy the idea of another 6 months away from my home, from my friends, but if I don’t stay I’ll be shooting myself straight through the foot. I may still decide to say “fuck it, I don’t need the money that badly”, but at the moment I’m very seriously considering staying the extra six months, & frankly the sooner I make up my mind and get my head around the idea of being here longer, the better off I’ll be.

One thing that will make the additional time away a lot easier to deal with is that today I made a plan today to find out about the wireless net connection available here in town. It’s not going to be before December that I splash out the cash, but it’s 99% certain that I’ll be online under my own steam from the end of the year, & won’t have to worry about using net cafes’ or fighting for a gap on the work pc after that. The existing service available is, not to put too fine a point on it, fucking expensive - $2k to set up & up to another $1k a month subs after that, depending on the bandwidth you’re looking for – but in December the isp is planning to roll out a service similar to the I-Burst I have at home, at what sounds like a similar price. I’ll wait till then to see if I can’t get a connection at a more reasonable price, but if it doesn’t work out then I’ll take the hit to the wallet & get my ass online regardless. Either way, I’ll be splitting the costs with another guy who’ll be staying longer with me, which will make it more affordable.
Another thing that will make an additional 6 months away easier to bear is that I’ll have chance to go home for 2 weeks or so. It’s not as much as I would like, or rather I’d really enjoy chance for another 2 weeks at home in say May, but it’s at least some time at home with the people I care for. There’s always the chance that the Air Force will break the plane or something, so I could always end up spending longer at home, but at least I’ll have those 2 weeks.

Anyway, that’s about all I can say right now, but I’ll post any new info here as I get it, in addition to getting hold of as many people on the phone as I can. Again, I’m really not keen on the extra time away from everyone at home, because I seriously miss all of you, but I really don’t know that I can afford not to stay the extra time. Necessity is the mother of all fucking headaches, if you ask me.

Tell next time then.

“Should I stay, or should I go…”

October 18^th 2005, 0655B

<>

Well, it’s typed up. Now just to decide whether I’m going to submit it or not….

“I hereby wish apply for extension of the period of my deployment to Burundi beyond the scheduled date of return to South Africa of February 2006, to the anticipated end of the mission to Burundi in May 2006. It is, however, requested that should this statement be approved that allowance be made for me to return to South Africa for a period not exceeding two weeks in January 2006, at the convenience of the OC MTG and Contingent Commander. By January 2006 I will have been in the mission area for a continuous period of 6 months, and I feel it is important that I spend some time at home after an absence of that length.

For your further consideration,”

And that’s all it takes to sign away another 3 months of my life, a statement that took 3 minutes to type up. I know that this last post I was talking about a crappy dream where I ended up being deployed longer, but the crappy part of that was the compulsion involved – if I stay longer I want it to be my choice, not because someone arbitrarily decides I must.

I’m still really conflicted about this whole extension thing. Overall this mission has been pleasant enough, I’ve spoken previously about the financial aspects, & that road trip to get the vehicles back really appeals to me. But is that compensation enough another 3 months away? I’ve also spoken previously about how much I miss everyone at home, about how my emotional state has not been the most stable, and how much the Burundians get on my tits. And the bastards were on fine form for that yesterday, & I very nearly smacked one around the head with a fire-extinguisher. Ingrate motherfucker.

I have a feeling that the above statement is going to lie on the hard drive for another month or so, & I’m only going to make a decision about this a little closer to the end of the year. I wouldn’t even have typed it up now save that I was busy typing up my contract renewal statement, & figured I might as well get both out of the way at the same time.

Otherwise, yesterday went very well, or the evening did at least. I finally managed to get my retail therapy sorted out, & I’m now the not-so-soon-to-be owner of a 60gb i-Pod Photo, a docking station, & a little pouch for it. Kalahari say they should be able to get it to me within 12 weeks, but they weren’t prepared to make any promises. That still blows my mind – 12 fucking weeks!! Even taking international sourcing into account there is no way that it should take so long. If either the US or UK based Amazons were prepared to deliver it to South Africa, I’d have it in less than that many days. Still, Kalahari might surprise me & get it here sooner, but for some reason I have my doubts about that.

A little over R4k later the credit card isn’t looking too healthy, but that’s also because I used money I’d parked in it to flatten one of my loans at the same time. I think I’m still in the black, but not by much :P I’ll settle my other loan at the end of the year, & I’ll then be a very cheerful & debt free fellow, & with a little luck & discipline I’ll even be able to save some money. See, these external deployments are good for something at least lol

But what really made the evening such a good one wasn’t ordering the i-Pod, but rather managing to get in touch with as many people as I did. I managed to get YIM & MSN working on the notebook after much struggle, & managed to catch both Rich (Lacuna) & Shirlz for a brief chat before they went home for the day. It was frustrating that we only had a few minutes, & also that the lag was as bad as it was, but it was really good to “speak” with them. Especially Rich, as I’ve not spoken to him in a very long time, before I came up here even. For a Free State boy, he’s actually a bloody decent fellow, & he really deserves far better than to live in Bloem :P

I also managed to get hold of Mark on MSN for awhile before he also went home, & also Brendon which I was really happy about, as it’d been quite awhile since I’d heard from him. It seems that neither of us has been receiving the others’ sms’s, & even a number of emails have bounced. We managed to get quite a decent chat in before the hunger pangs dragged me away from the computer in search of food though, which I really enjoyed. Ash also sent me an sms while I was at the net café, & while it was very good to hear from her, she really wasn’t happy last night. I’ll try to call her after parade just now, & hopefully things will be better for her by then.

Speaking of parade though, I’d best be off or I’m going to be late. I should have some more to add to this before long though.

Ciao till next time ;)

Not an auspicious start to the day….

October 17th 2005, 0520B

That was a weird one. I remember some time ago that Gareth typed up a post for his blog about two really cool dreams he’d had, & that he said he wanted to get them down asap before he forgot what they were about. I also woke up after a vivid dream this morning, about 20 minutes ago, only mine wasn’t quite so cool as I remember Gareth describing his as. Nooooo.. in fact, mine was not the most pleasant I’ve ever had. For a start, neither a naked Kate Beckinsale nor winning the lottery featured :P
Jokes aside, the dream was that I had just arrived back in Durban after having stayed on here in Burundi till May, hardly by choice either, & I really hadn’t enjoyed it. We’re talking 20 minutes ago “just arrived back”, & I’ve gone straight to the unit to sort out the paper work for my leave – literally a 5 minute story – rather than going home & doing it the next day. Thing is I don’t even make it to the HR office before I get called into the one colonels office, where she proceeds to tell me that she needs me to deploy again immediately. She doesn’t even want me to go home at all, but rather get back into my vehicle & drive straight back to the mob centre in Bloem. She’s not even being apologetic about it either, but really cold & uncaring, like she really couldn’t give a shit. Naturally I freak, but the more I stand in front of her desk bellowing at her that she’s “fucking mad!!”, that I’ve not been home in over 11 months, the more she just looks at me, implacable as a glacier, & says “you need to do this, you’re still packed, & there’s no-one else who can go”.
So I get back in my car – I must have bought one along the way somewhere – start the engine, & drive immediately back to Bloem to catch a plane out of the country for another 6 months or more.

What has me worried about this dream is that something very much like it has happened to me before, after an internal deployment in ’95 or so. I got back to the unit on the Friday afternoon & walked into my boss’ office, after I’d just spent the last two or three months deployed, only to have him say “don’t unpack too much, you’re going out again on Monday for another 3 months”. There was far less yelling & swearing involved than in the dream I had this morning, but I distinctly remember not being particularly amused by the prospect of having had a mere two days off in 6 months at the time.
Now, I cannot imagine a situation short of the outbreak of open war where I’d be deployed again immediately after I got back from Burundi next year, but this dream has reminded me that in theory it is possible. It’d be grossly unfair to me, but there’s nothing I know of that says they can’t do it. The needs of the organisation come first & so on. The only thing that comes anywhere near that is that the deployment leave we accrue on ops must be taken within 6 months from the time you start earning it, or else it’s forfeited. We’re also only allowed to carry over something like 10 days annual leave to the next year. Note that I’m not saying that we must take the leave, only that we’ll loose it if we don’t use it.
Like I say, I really can’t believe that this could possibly happen, but I’ve now got this cold knot in my gut telling me that this was a premonition, & I imagine it’s going to be a niggling little worry for quite some time. Not a good way to start a Monday lol

Anyway, I’m going finish this off now & go make some more coffee. I’ll catch up again soon though, I’m sure ;)

A better day than yesterday…

October 16th 2005, 0915B

The retail therapy idea fell a little flat yesterday, but the day was pleasant enough all the same. Pretty much all I ended up doing was consume more beer than is healthy & pig out on Chinese food, but it did the sense of humour some good at least. The fuse is still very short, but I’m not quite so likely to indulge my homicidal urges :P

Speaking of the retail therapy not happening, could someone please tell me what the fuck is wrong with Apple? The demand for I-Pods far outstrips supply, so why don’t they increase production? Hello, Steve Jobs – this is costing you money, dumbass! How many people have bought something else rather than face a 12 week wait for a glorified bloody walkman? In a consumer driven economy you’re taking chances making people wait 3 days, never mind 3 bloody months. Sure, an I-Pod is nice to have, & I understand there’s a certain cachet to owning one, but if it wasn’t for the fact that I could really use the storage space & ability to transfer files directly from my camera to the I-Pod, I’d buy something cheaper & available in a heartbeat. Function beats “nice to have” any day in my book, & I avoid brand names like a dose of the clap, so all that restricting supply to artificially increase the status of owning one does for me is piss me off. Does annoying a potential customer sound like a good idea to you? It sure as hell doesn’t to me. And they wonder why far more people own pc’s than Macs.

At least I also got to check my mail & catch up on everyone’s blogs while I was on the net yesterday, so it wasn’t just time wasted on a fruitless search for a bloody I-Pod. It was great to get a mail from G, but I wasn’t too happy to hear about the fun & games he had with some over aggressive moron in traffic the other day. Kudos to Shirlz for running him off, & also to Gareth for not escalating the situation. I can well imagine that braining the guy with the gear-lock would have been very satisfying, but it’s by far a better idea to let the law sort the prick out. And potentially a lot more profitable :P
Something else I didn’t have much joy with was trying to find info on that wireless internet provider I mentioned the other day. I called them, & also had a look at their website, but language proved to be a problem in both cases. One of these days I’m going to have to make a proper effort to learn French, especially if I’m going to be doing any more of these external ops in future. Besides, chics dig guys who can speak French, though the reason why escapes me :P
The net café I go to uses this wireless isp though, & the manager speaks English reasonably well, so while it may be a little cheeky to milk a guy for info so that I can stop giving him money, I’m going to go back there today & see what I can find out from him.

Otherwise, about all else that happened yesterday was that I got to watch Sin City, which is every bit as good as I’d hoped it would be. I managed to borrow one of those pirate “5-in-1, handy-cam in the theatre” copied DVD’s that are so popular around here that had it on, & while the quality sucked and there was some tall bastards head in the bottom right corner through the whole movie, I still really enjoyed it. I’m really looking forward to watching my original copy when it gets here in a few weeks though. I also got my hands on a copy of War of the Worlds, and the brief 5 minutes of it that I watched was enough to suggest that I would have been better off spending my money on something else. I’ll sit down & watch the whole thing someday, but I’m hardly in any rush. Maybe I’m just getting really fussy in my old age, but there are very few movies being released these days that interest me, & I’m often disappointed even by those I’ve looked forward to watching. Sin City is a very rare exception to this trend, & it’s about the only movie I’ve seen this year that has lived up to my expectations.

Anyway, I’m going to finish this off so that I can head off to the net café & get it uploaded, and also hopefully get the info I’m looking for on that isp.

Till next time then ;)

“Don’t Tread On Me….”

October 15th 2005, 0650B

I don’t know, but maybe I should just go back to bed after roll call at 0800. It’s likely to be safer, or at least more pleasant for those around me, because my mood is not exactly “friendly” this morning. I imagine the mefliam is fucking with my happy thoughts again, and I woke up feeling pretty down. And also very… “twitchy” is about the best way to describe it that I can think of. I used to get like this after the rough days in the townships, back in the 90’s, when I’d had about as much of people shooting at me as I was inclined to put up with. The anger & aggression are bubbling very close to the surface this morning, I’m seriously jumpy, & there’s a good chance that startling me right now would provoke an… unpleasant reaction.
I’m a regular bear with a sore tooth this morning, grumpy and inclined to bite, & I fucking hate it when I get like this. The real kicker is that I have no particular reason to feel like this – it’s not as though anyone has done anything to piss me off this badly the last few days. In fact, I should feel quite the opposite, as the last few days have gone quite well. Bujumbura is shit, and my opinion of the town and its inhabitants is unlikely to ever change, but while I’ve been here this last week work has been interesting & kept me busy, & I’ve had comparatively excellent comms with everyone at home. I really should not be in the kind of mood where wanting to boil people in oil when they say “good morning” seems an appropriate response.

But enough of my borderline sociopathic tendencies. I going to try to improve my mood with a little retail therapy – there’s a 60gb Photo I-Pod that has my name all over it, providing I can find somewhere that has bloody stock that is – but failing that, there’s always the old standby of beer. Other than that, I’m likely to spend the day reading through the blogs I saved to the flash disk last night, & then typing up replies to a few emails I’ve received over the last few days. I hope you all have a grand weekend, & I’ll catch up again soon.

Cheers for now.

Not a bad day at all…

October 12^th 2005, 1340B

It’s been a bloody pleasant day actually. Expensive to be sure, but very pleasant. Bujumbura hasn’t been too bad since I got back either, or at least so far – the climate is still up to shit, & there are far too many assholes in too small an area, but I’ve still enjoyed the last few days.

It’s not been without its challenges & disappointments, but the good has outweighed the bad by a fair margin thus far. Monday was pretty arb, but the escort mission I did yesterday was really enjoyable, a drive down most of the Burundian shoreline to Lake Tanganyika, & receiving our cash allowances was also certainly welcome. We’re fairly busy here at the base in town right now, even if today was a quiet day, so fortunately it seems I won’t be sitting around twiddling my thumbs, which should help keep me from going off my nut too quickly while I’m here.

I woke up feeling rather tender this morning, but that may just have something to do with the amount of beer I sucked down last night, so I won’t complain :P I’m feeling pretty good now though, as I just got back from having a few hairs of the dog – the first one may go down like barbed-wire, but the next two or three taste just fine ;)

So far as the day being expensive goes, I finally managed to get my hands on one of those backpacks the Nepalese have for sale. It’s a different bag from the one I saw last time, a bit smaller & also more expensive at $40, but still very cheap at the price. And most importantly it still has the little extra daypack that zips onto it, so I have something to carry the camera & notebook in till the new camera bag gets here. I also bought myself a kukri while I was at the Nepalese camp, one of those wicked huge curved knives of theirs. You can chop down small trees with the damn thing, so it should prove a good deterrent to the locals the next time the rude bastards thrust out their hands at me, demanding money :P I may have hassles getting it home – I won’t be able to carry it on the plane, & the postal service is full of shit when it comes to what we can send home – but I should be able to make a plan. Failing that, it was only $10, so I’m not going to be hugely out of pocket if I end up having to leave it here.

Speaking of the camera bag, that’s one of the small disappointments of the last few days. I called Rob on Monday expecting him to say the package should be here in a day or two, only to have him tell me that there have been problems with flights & so on, & that he’d not sent the parcel yet. So it’s going to be another few weeks before I get the new bag, or the external hard drives. Bummer. There is an upside to this though, as the Sin City & Keen Eddie DVD’s I’d ordered from Amazon arrived on Monday, so he can dump them to one of the drives before he sends them up to me. I think he’s also ripped my Firefly discs to one of the drives, & I’m keen to watch those again. Which reminds me… last year I’d arranged with Shirlz & G to come over to watch those, but we didn’t get around to it. Something else to add to the “to do” list for when I get back ;)

Another thing I spent a fair chunk of cash on was a fan for my tent – at $55 it was *fucking* expensive, but worth every cent for the difference it makes here in Bujumbura – and also a hair clipper machine. The clipper I really needed as the beard in particular was getting a touch on the bushy side, & if I’d left it much longer I’d have needed one of those weed-eater things to trim it back :P It also cost me in the region of $50, but it’s a good one that should last a good few years, so it’s money well spent.

The best thing about being back in town is the greatly improved comms situation. The landline in the office is still up to shit, but email has made up for that, & I had quite a few waiting in my inbox when I got back into town. It’s been great to hear from everyone who’s sent mail, & the contact with home is really appreciated :D

It was bloody good to hear back from Nicole in particular, & I’m going to be putting in a little more effort to keep in touch in future. It was also good to get a mail from Gareth F, as it’s the first time I’ve had any direct contact with him since I got here. Ash also managed to get a few email addresses to me that I’d been short, & I’ll be firing off mails to everyone as soon as I’ve had chance to type them up.

In addition to getting my mail done, I also had chance to upload a few more photos to TravelGallery if you’d like to have a look. I’ve still got a few more that I want to upload but ran out of time for, so hopefully the computer isn’t too crowded this evening & I’ll be able to do it then.

Something I’m going to be following up on while I’m here in town is a signboard I saw for wireless internet connectivity. I have no idea what the area coverage is, or the cost either, but I’m damn sure going to be looking into it, especially after I lucked out with connecting to the UN wireless lan. I’ve really missed having a regular net connection since I’ve been here, & having a connection of my own instead of having to rely on net cafés or fighting for a ten minute gap on the pc here on the base will make keeping in touch far easier. We have the day off tomorrow because it’s a UN holiday, so I’ll see what I can find out then. Who knows, maybe by tomorrow afternoon I’m hooked up here in my tent again, so hold thumbs for me ;)

Anyway, I think I’m going to end off here so that I can make some coffee and then go jump in the shower – I’m itching like crazy after cutting my hair & I need to rinse off before it drives me completely nuts :P

Till next time ;)

“All the news that’s fit to print….”

October 9th 2005, 1540B

It’s been a quiet week for this blog, & I’ve not typed anything up for it since Wednesday. Actually, that’s not quiet true, I’ve typed up a post for this twice since then, but I’ve ended up deleting both of them. One of them ended up as a mail to the one person who really needed to read what was in it though, something I should have said to them long ago, so it wasn’t wasted effort.
I’ve also been in a bit of an off mood lately, which hasn’t helped much, but that seems to have improved during the course of the day. Of course, my mood improving could also have something to do with the fact that it’s a beautiful day, and that the beer is cold & also tastes damn fine – what can I say, I’m a man of simple pleasures :P

But it’s also been a quiet week all round, & not just for the blog, so it’s not as though I’ve had much to put down here. The platoon has been fairly busy, but I’ve not been going out on the escorts with them because I don’t entirely trust the repairs done to my ambo. It’s not that I think the tiffies did a shit job, but rather I’m very wary of filters that were cleaned & then put back into the vehicle rather than being replaced. It speaks volumes for our logistics support that the tiffies don’t have even simple spares like fucking filters on hand, & have to do “make-do” jobs like cleaning the damn things instead of replacing them. Our medical logistics support is just as bad, worse in fact. Nobody is going to die because their vehicle is off the road waiting for spares to be sent up from the States after all. On the other hand, someone may just die because I haven’t got the equipment necessary to adequately open, maintain, & protect their bloody airway, which is the very basic principle of emergency care, the very first thing you do when start treating a casualty. And when you’re talking about a 2 hour drive to get a patient to a hospital from where I am, protecting the airway of an unconscious patient becomes very important. It’s not that my bag is empty, and I’ve got a reasonable amount of what’s supposed to be in it - if not in the quantities I’d like - but there are some rather large & glaring gaps. Such as no laryngoscope & et tubes, or trauma drugs. And the ambulances are hardly up to standard either. I’ve contemplated having Rob send up my personal medical bag from home, but I’ve held off on that because it’s big, heavy & also bloody expensive. And I shouldn’t bloody well have to – I’m supposed to be properly supplied & supported here, by the military, not by what I can organise to be sent up privately from home. You know what, fuck ‘em - the loggies can bloody well do the job they’re bloody well paid to do. Not a damn am I going to do it for them.
I’d love to know where the problem is, because we’ve submitted log requests through the channels a number of times but we’re still waiting for the equipment & supplies to arrive from SA. And I know that it’s not just this contingent that has tried to get the equipment & scales of issue, both for the personnel & vehicles, up to scratch. The logistics support to these missions is not a shadow of what it should be, doesn’t even closely approach minimum standards, and I’d like to know whose fuck-up it is so that I could have a pointed discussion with them. There’s a tendency to fall back on the old favourite of “there’s not enough money for everything”, or “there wasn’t room for that in the budget”, but it’s bullshit. Especially in the case of these external missions, because the UN PAYS us to bloody well do them. The UN gives us the money to conduct these operations - all we do is supply the personnel & equipment, so where is the bloody log support we need to do our jobs properly?
There’s a quote that fits this situation perfectly, attributed to a General Sir Peter de Bellierre, former OC of the British SAS – I think that’s how you spell his surname at least. He said that “An army can only fight the battles its logistical capacity allows it to”. If you don’t have food, if you don’t have fuel, if you don’t have ammunition, then it doesn’t matter how good your tactics are, or how well trained your troops are, or how many of them you have. You are going to lose the battle. Just to further illustrate the point, I’m going to share a little piece of military history with you here. In 1942, long before the wheels fell off for the Germans in WW2, a senior German officer is noted as saying “we have already lost this war”. What precipitated that remark was the capture of an American logistics convoy, in North Africa I think. It seems that included in the convoy was all the personal mail for the unit for which it had been destined before its capture, and one parcel to a GI included a chocolate cake his family had sent him for his birthday. A chocolate cake that was still fresh when the convoy was captured. In other words, it had taken only a few short days to get that cake from America to the operational area, & the logistical capacity implied by that - that you have enough slack that you can send a low priority item like personal mail so quickly to the front, in addition to essential shit like food, ammo & toilet paper - is something the Germans knew they would never be able to match. And the Germans were the varsity team of the day when it came to fighting wars, and had been cleaning the clocks of everyone who couldn’t get out of the way for over three years by that time. But it’s logistics that wins wars, not how good your strategy or tactics are, the standard of your equipment, or how motivated & well trained your soldiers. You’re going to have a hard time beating the other guy without those, but it’s getting enough troops, with the right equipment to the right place at the right time that will win a war for you. Logistics.
But I’m going to change the subject here, because I can feel my blood pressure climbing. Logistics support in the military, or more accurately the lack thereof, has been one of my pet hates for many years, & you’d think by now I’d have accepted the way things are. Thing is, I don’t think anyone reading this has much patience for crappy service at a restaurant or supermarket, so why should I be any more tolerant of it where my job is concerned? Loggies, bloody jam stealing REMF’s the whole bloody lot of them.
And if you ask me nicely, I’ll even tell you what a REMF is ;)

But enough of the rant & rave session, even if I do feel somewhat better for it. Of course, that could just be the beer making me feel mellow, but if the result is the same I ain’t going to quibble about it :P
Pretty much all else I’ve done for the last few days has been take photos, not that I’m especially pleased with how many of them came out, & spend a lot of time on GTA-SA. The SA has been fun, but also bloody frustrating. I’ve not gotten too far into it yet, only about the tenth mission or so, but I’ve managed without cheating so far which I’m happy about, & it’s not even been too much of a struggle actually. Where the frustration comes in is the little “extras” in the game, in this case the gang graffiti you need to spray over. I’ve got the official guide with the location of every sign you need to spray, & also every weapon, oyster, bunch of flowers, horse-shoe, bloody everything clearly marked, but do you think I can find that last bloody sign? Not a bugger can I find the damn thing, & I’ve spent the last two days looking for it lol
I think it’s a case of I didn’t quite finish spraying one of them before I got arrested or something, so I now have to go back over every single bloody one & spray it again to make sure of it. Still, it keeps me busy I suppose :P
I’m keen on receiving the next package from home this next Wednesday or so, with the external drives that Rob is sending up, because unless I’m mistaken the images of my Baldurs Gate II cd’s will be on one of them. For some reason I’ve had a real hankering to play that game again, even if it is a good few years old by now. Without a doubt it’s the best RPG ever made for the PC, & the amount of detail in it is incredible, as I’m sure Gareth F will attest.
Speaking of Gareth F & computer games, it seems he’s been having lots of fun with WoW, judging by his blog, & I’m very keen to get involved in that when I get home. I’ve never been a big fan of the WarCraft series – I suck at RTS games, in all honesty :P – but MMORPG’s have always had an appeal for me. My online gaming experience hasn’t been the most fulfilling one so far - Joint Ops & so on plain sucked ass except over a LAN, though R.O.S.E Online and GuildWars were fun enough - but I’m hopeful when it comes to WoW. I’m also keen to try StarWars Galaxies again at some point, but there’s a problem with my account that I’ve not been able to sort out for some reason. I don’t know if I’ll go so far as to buy another copy to get my hands on another account key, particularly seeing as you have to import the bloody game, but I’ll certainly be firing off a few unhappy mails to SOE when I get back home I can assure you.

In addition to receiving eagerly anticipated packages from home, I’m also quite keen to get back to town so that I have my communications access back again. I’m heartily sick & bloody tired of struggling with the cell service from this side, with my messages either not going through, even though I still pay for every one of the damn things, or having people waste money trying to send messages to me that simply vanish into the void. The phone at the office may not be much more reliable, but at least it’s free, and I always have access to email for those people I can’t get on the phone while I’m in town. Speaking of which, Gareth F, Gareth L, & Mark – I need email addresses for you, & I’d appreciate it if you could get them to me at some point. Shirley & Ash both have my email addy if you don’t want to leave yours here, & I’m sure they wouldn’t mind passing along anything you’d like to send to me, ok?
I’m also eager to see if Nicole has had chance to reply to the mail I sent her last week, as I’d really enjoy hearing from her again. Then again, she’s in Stockholm atm, busy with 9 months worth of catch-up with her boyfriend, so I won’t be surprised if she’s been a little too… preoccupied to reply yet :P
Actually, I’m generally looking forward to getting back to town, or at least to leaving Mwaro for a few weeks. I still love this place, & have really enjoyed the time I’ve spent here, but I’ve spent two out of the last three months here & I’m feeling the need for a change. I can imagine I’ll have had enough of Bujumbura in a few short days & will want to escape the town again, but it’s still going to be a breath of fresh air to get out of this tent for awhile.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. Also, I’ve just run out of beer, so I need to go hunt down a few more ;)
I’ve certainly made up for being quiet lately with this post though – about 2 ½ pages long in 10 point Arial in Word :P I should be fairly busy in the capital this coming week though, so I’ll likely have some more to add to this during the week, & I’m also looking forward to getting in touch with everyone again while I’m back in town.

Cheers for now though ;)

“And So it Goes….”

October 5th 2005, 2030B

I’ve been trying to type something up for this for the last two days now, but always end up deleting what I’ve just spent an hour struggling to come up with. I’m having writers block typing up a blog post? What the fuck is that about? It has been fairly quiet the last few days to be sure, but that’s never stopped me from finding at least something to waffle on about before. Weird.

Anyway, as I just said it’s been fairly quiet since I last added to this. Pretty much all I’ve done the last few days has been read, drink coffee, smoke cigarettes, & play an hour or so of San Andreas every now & again. Oh, and lots of Minesweeper. I finally managed to beat that damn game twice on the same day on expert, after numerous attempts and much frustration, so I’m pleased about that. Something I’m not pleased about, on the subject of games, is that the copy of KotOR II I brought with me is buggered & refuses to install. At least the original discs are safe at home, & I think the cd images are on the drives that Rob is sending up to me so I’ve not lost it completely, but I’m still annoyed.
I’ve been hankering for something fresh to do lately, & that game would have done very nicely in terms of keeping me amused – just ask Ash if she managed to get more than two words in a row out of me for two weeks after I bought it :P Boredom has started to become a problem lately, & I’ve been getting a touch cranky, moody & irritable. I think I’m heading into the “mid-deployment slump” stage, which is when the cabin fever starts to set in. It’s round about at this point when you start running out of things to distract yourself with, & the same scenery & faces every day wear very thin. It’s a phase you go through on any deployment, though it’s a bit worse on these long ones, but it’ll pass before too much longer. It’s not as bad here in Burundi as it was in the Congo last year though. Here at least I’m only in the same place for two weeks at a time, whereas I didn’t spend more than 3 days at a time out of Kinshasa last year, & infrequently at that. I was sick to death of that town & the people there by the time I came home :P
I was able to keep myself busy editing a few photos today at least. I’ve not taken any photos the last few days, so instead I went back over a few of the photos I’ve already taken since I got here, seeing if I couldn’t do a better job of editing them the second time around. For the most part I reckon I succeeded, but I’m still keen on sitting down with someone who actually knows what they’re doing with Photoshop when I get home. I’ve come a long way in the last few weeks in terms of my post-processing skills, but there’s a hell of a lot that I need to learn still.

Other than that, pretty much all that’s happened is that I was in town again on Monday to sort out some paperwork on the busted ambo, & while I was there I had chance to do my laundry & also make a few calls. Actually, the laundry & phone calls were the main reason I went into town – the paperwork on the vehicle was an excuse really :P – as I loathe doing washing by hand, & I needed to call Rob to wish him a happy birthday, the old bastard :P
I also needed to confirm if he’d been able to send up the latest package yet, as I really need the new camera bag. The “daypack” I’ve been using till now to carry the notebook & camera is literally coming apart at the seams, & I’ve run out of material to sew together to keep it from falling apart. He was only going to be sending the package today, which is fortunate as there were also a few other small things I needed him to get for me, but I should still receive it this time next week. Hopefully the cheap ass piece of crap I’ve been using till now will last that long :P
The Nepalese contingent here have backpacks for sale, very good ones at that for the ridiculously low price of $25, & assuming I ever get chance to get out to their camp I’ll be buying as many as I can get my hands on. I’ve been trying to get one since I got here, as they have a daypack that zips onto the outside of the main bag which would have been perfect for carrying the camera & notebook. Even if that’s not an issue any more, I still want to get one for myself & a few others if I can as they’ll make good gifts.
I’d also hoped to update this blog & upload a few more photos while I was in town, but lucked out with the net connection. I managed to check my mail, & send a few of my own but everything else timed out on me, which was a tad frustrating. I’ll be back in town again next week though, & I’m sure I’ll manage then.

I’m going to end this off for now though, as I’m rapidly running out of steam & this body is in dire need of some beauty sleep.

Cheers for now ;)

“These are Better Days…”

October 2nd 2005, 0730B

I managed a touch more than 8 hours sleep last night, for the first time in over three months, & I feel bloody amazing :D All I needed was for Kate Beckinsale to be in the bed with me when I woke up & the day would have been perfect. A winning lottery ticket wouldn’t go amiss either, but I guess you can’t have everything :P

Yesterday also went quite well. I managed to arrange a replacement vehicle for my buggered ambo, so I have a CASEVAC capability again. I was a bit worried about that, as the best response time to get an ambulance here from Bujumbura is on the order of 2 hours, and then it’s another 2 hours or so back into town. That’s assuming that there’s a vehicle available, and also that I can make contact with the capital in the first place, neither of which I would be willing to bet the farm on.
I also confirmed with Rob that this story of the medics being charged by the infantry if they refuse to get into their operational vehicles is a crock of shit, and that civil claims would definitely be possible. Sometimes it’s really handy to be good friends with a lawyer lol
We’ve already had one guy charged over this, & he’s not a happy camper at all, but I have a feeling that it’s going to be an entertaining court martial if it gets that far. Particularly if the presiding judge is who I think it might be *insert eeeevil snigger here*. I pity the poor bastard who signed the charge is all I’m going to say ;)

I also had two rather pleasant surprises in terms of contact from home. First off, Noelle sms’d me at the crazy time of 0555, which I found amusing – I mean, I’m normally awake then, but most normal people aren’t, not on a Saturday :P It was the first time I’d heard from Noelle directly as I’ve never been able to get through to her number, or Pauls, since I got here & it was great to hear from her. My phone actually decided to cooperate, briefly at least, & we managed to exchange a few messages before it reverted to type & quit working. Permanently as it turns out.

Anyway, it seems that she & Paul were taking a train ride from Kloof to Nottingham Road, & needed to be up early to catch it. That sounds like it could be a really pleasant way to spend the day, & it’s definitely something I wouldn’t mind doing when I get home. I can imagine the trip back might be a little different to the one going up though, particularly if a stop at the Notties brewery is involved :P They make bloody good beer there, & I’ve missed it while I’ve been up here. The only problem is that it’s far stronger than you’d think, & after 2 pints my eyes start to cross. By the time I’ve had 4 my legs have wandered off to chat up the cute brunette in the corner, which makes getting up off the bar stool a tricky proposition :P Lovely stuff. My old lady quite enjoys it too, & whenever I’m in Howick I take her to a pub around the corner & treat her to a few pints. Half pints, actually, ‘cause my old lady is a similar build to Shirley & really can’t handle her booze. Which is, of course, exactly why I take her out drinking – I laugh my tits off at my old lady when she’s pissed :P

The other pleasant surprise was that I had a few personal emails waiting for me when I got to check my mail, from Shirlz & also from Beatrice. Some of you may remember Beatrice as BabyGirl from her brief tenure on the old NAG forums &, like Nicole, is someone I’d pretty much managed to lose track of since I got back from the Congo. Needless to say it was bloody good to hear from her again, & I’m looking forward to keeping in touch from now on.
It’s always good to hear from Shirlz, especially when she says such nice things about my photographs lol The suggestion has been made, & not just by Shirlz come to think of it, that I see if I can’t get a few published at some point, & I have to admit that the idea is starting to grow on me. Till now, photography has just been a hobby for me, but if I can make money out of having fun I’d be foolish not to.


So far as my phone dying on me goes, it suddenly locked up & switched itself off when I was halfway through typing up an sms to Noelle, & then flat refused to switch back on. Bastard thing. I’m still not entirely sure that I’m going to make much use of a cell while I’m here, but I decided to replace the phone anyway while I was in town & I got myself a Nokia 6260. I’d have preferred to get a Sony-Eriksson I saw the other day – the 750i or something – as that’s got a decent 2mp auto-focus camera rather than the crappy VGA “camera” that Nokia seem so enamoured of, but they didn’t have in the shop when I looked. The 6260 is nice enough, & I’ve always enjoyed the Nokia interface and ease of use, but I may still get that Sony-Eriksson anyway if I see it. It pays to always have a camera in your pocket, because you never know when the picture of a lifetime is going to appear in front of you, but the 20D I have here is just a little large for that – “Damn, but you’re VERY happy to see me!” :P
Perversely the old phone seemed to catch a second breath later in the day, & decided to start working again, if only for a little while before it went tits up on me again. At least I managed to get all my contacts off of it before it died again. There’s not much use having a phone if you don’t have numbers for anyone after all.

Anyway, that’s about it for now. I have an idea the rest of the day is going to involved installing GTA-SA again, and seeing how far I can get without the cheat codes this time – damn, but that game is bloody hard in places! Good fun though.

Take care everyone, & I’ll catch up again soon ;)


P.S. I’ve had a few people ask me for a postal address since I arrived here, & I’ve finally pulled my thumb from up my ass & confirmed what it is – sorry for the delay :P

89373583PF
SSgt I. Sankey
MTT Palace Base
Ops ONUB
FPO 3
ElardusPark
0153

I’ll be honest & confess to being an atrocious letter writer, but include a return address & I’ll reply to any mail I receive. So long as you’re not offended if I type any letters as opposed to writing them out by hand. Just ask Ash what my handwriting looks like…..

Cheers all ;)

Happy Birthday, Shirley :D

September 30th 2005, 1710B

I sent an sms this morning, but given the hassles I had trying to send it I have no idea if it was received or not, so I guess I’ll just have to repeat the message here :P

Happy Birthday, my friend ;) I hope you’ve had a great day & wish you all the best for the year ahead. I’m sorry I’m not there to say this in person & give you a big hug, but you can make a note that I owe you one for when I get back :P

Hopefully this year I didn’t screw up G’s plans for her present – last year I sent her a copy of Sims2 while I was still in the Congo, neatly stealing his idea in the process lol
I’ll be going into town tomorrow to sort out some paper work for my broken ambulance, & I’ll try to call & wish her a proper, if slightly late, happy birthday then. I should also be able to update this blog & send some mail while I’m at it, but we’ll see what happens.

Another reason I’ll be going into town is to have a quick chat with my boss, as the whole command & control issue between the medics and infantry I mentioned previously has cropped up again. This time it affects me directly, as there’s a UN policy that states that medical personnel may not at any time be inside a combat vehicle, or any vehicle being used for operational purposes – the UN sees medical personnel as non-combatants, even military medical personnel, or perhaps especially military medical personnel. It’s very different to how the Ops Medics – i.e. me – usually work at home, where we normally ride in the Caspir or whatever with the infantry guys, & it appears that a few of the infantry people are having a little trouble getting their heads around the idea. Something that isn’t helping is that we only found out about this policy recently, & up till then we’d been riding along with the infantry guys in their vehicles, so there’s a certain amount of “but it was fine last week!” going on. But my boss has stated that we will not get into the vehicles, and that’s the end of the story as far as I’m concerned. Regardless of any policy, she’s my direct superior in my chain of command & has the right to make decisions like that. The fucknut at the battalion HQ who has decided that the Ops Medics will get into the infantry vehicles when ordered to do so, or face being charged if they refuse, is NOT part of my chain of command, and does NOT have the right to give me an order like that. The Lieutenant here at Mwaro was quite decent about it – it’s not his idea after all, & he knows how much shit he’ll be in if he tries to implement this – but I still need to chat with my boss about it.
Actually I hope some retard does charge me for refusing to get into a caspir, ‘cause I could use the money a wrongful prosecution suit would bring in – I could buy a new notebook in addition to that lens I want :P

Otherwise it’s been a quiet day. It’s been bloody freezing & raining on and off since 0300, which is when I woke up this am. At least I managed to catch a snooze this afternoon, or I’d have been feeling rough as bears’ ass by about now. I seem to be managing ok without the sleeping pills, but I’m still short on sleep. Which might explain why I wasn’t exactly at my most cheerful when I typed up that post last night. But that little nap this afternoon seems to have improved my disposition somewhat, which is all to the good :P

That’s it for now though, so I’m going to make myself some coffee, then crawl into bed where it’s warm & read till it’s time to crash.

Till next time ;)

“The Long Road Home…”

September 29th 2005, 2210B

This time last year I had about 19 days to go before I got back to Durban. This year I’ve got roughly that many weeks left before I get on a plane. It may even be more than that, and perhaps even by choice. For the most part the thought of how long I still have to go here hasn’t particularly worried me, and I’ve been fairly well adjusted to the idea.
Tonight, however, is one of the times when it seems like the days I’m still going to be here stretch off into infinity before me.

You know what, I think I’m going to say fuck it & laugh this post off. It keeps going off in directions I really don’t want it to, so I end up deleting what I’ve just spent the last 20 minutes typing.
I’ll be fine tomorrow I imagine, but I’ve certainly been in happier moods than I am right now, & I’m not doing myself any favours by sitting here thinking about why I’m so maudlin and angry. I guess the abridged version will have to do.

I’m in a crappy mood, I miss my friends, & I want to go home.

See you all when I get home, guys. It’s not soon enough for my liking, but I’ll get there someday.

“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?”

September 28th 2005, 1250B

In that case, does anyone have a suggestion for me as to how to deal with a “lame” ambulance? Shooting isn’t really an option, or at least not with anything I can readily get my hands on, because the damn thing is armoured to withstand up to .50 cal rounds. I could always set it alight, but I don’t think that would be quite satisfactory enough – I’m thinking more along the lines of big fucking explosions right now.
It’s funny how the little things can get right up your nose & take you from zero to apoplectic in .05 seconds flat. Then again, maybe a busted ass ambulance is perhaps not such a small thing, ‘cause if I need to CASEVAC someone in a hurry there’s going to be shit. I’ve got a reasonable idea as to what’s wrong with it, but I’m not going to put any money on it – I think it’s either air in the fuel system, or clogged filters or something, but my knowledge of engines isn’t much more advanced than knowing where to put the fuel. The rest of it I leave to the little internal combustion fairies, with the understanding that I won’t interfere with them if they leave me alone.

It’s when the little bastards go on strike, such as now, that there are problems. Or maybe one of the fairies got careless, and fell into something which has jammed up the works. Anyway, the end result is that the bloody ambulance coughs, farts, splutters, and doesn’t bloody go. Well, not more than 10kph at least. And then only for a few hundred meters, whereupon it stops and proceeds to *severely* cough, fart, & splutter. I tried to bleed the diesel pump, working on the assumption that I could at least try to do that, because there was sweet fuck all else I could do at the side of the road. Did it help? In a word, NO. I don’t even know if what I was attempting to bleed was in fact the bloody diesel pump. It certainly looked like it, or at least the most like the diesel pump that I could see, but we’ve already established that I’m hardly an expert where mechanical shit is concerned.
At least we made it back to the base with the bloody thing. It took us over an hour to do 10k’s, but we made it, so I should be grateful for that I guess. I’ve sat 18 hours next to the road waiting for a mechanic before, and a repeat of that would not have done my happy thoughts & cheerful disposition any good. The tiffies are supposed to be coming out to the base today anyway, so hopefully I’ll have a functional ambulance again soon, but seeing as they were also supposed to be here yesterday but didn’t pitch I’m not going to be holding my breath. You remember how I’ve said previously that shit only happens when it’s supposed to by accident in this organisation? Well, that’s especially true when it comes to getting hold of a recovery vehicle or mechanic.

Anyway, other than fucked up vehicles, it’s been a pleasant enough day. It was pretty much more of the same as yesterday, providing an escort to civvy UN personnel, but it was to a different area as yesterday which kept things fresh & interesting. This really is a beautiful area, & I quite enjoy driving around it. It actually reminds me a fair bit of parts of northern Natal, especially the area between Eshowe & Empangeni. I also managed to get a few more decent photos, but the ones I really wanted to come out well didn’t unfortunately. There was a small kestrel or falcon flying around that I tried to get a few shots of, but the 200mm lens I’ve got just didn’t have the reach. If I crop far enough into the image that the bird is a reasonable size, the quality just goes to shit. Bugger.
Actually, I think this is an example of my firearms training having an impact on my photography. There are large areas of overlap when it comes to the skill sets involved – both involve you pointing an aperture at a target and maintaining a stable platform while you do it after all – but there are a few differences in application. One of them is in the area of focus, but not in the strictly photographic sense. Rather I mean that what you concentrate on is different when you look down the sights of a weapon compared to through a cameras viewfinder. With photography you need to consider the entire frame and how the different elements go towards creating an effective & pleasing composition, and not just your main subject. But when you’re firing a weapon at something, you pretty much need to focus exclusively on your target and ignore everything else that might distract you. Simply put, a bullet actually needs to hit its target to be effective, whereas with photography you have a lot of latitude as to where in the frame your subject actually appears. Anyway, to get to the point of this, it seems that I find it hard to break my “professional habits” when I’m using a camera, & I tend to focus pretty much exclusively on my main subject. It’s only when I think to remind myself that I’m holding a camera and not an assault rifle that I stop to consider composition, or that the falcon I’m trying to take a picture of is a rather small object smack in the centre of a fairly large frame. Now, if I was trying to shoot the damn bird I’d stand a fair chance of hitting it, but it makes for a very crappy photo :P My weapons training & operational experience also probably go a long way towards explaining my predilection for long zoom lenses, as anything that makes my target bigger – i.e. easier to hit – whilst still keeping it at a safe distance is to be desired. I’ve “enjoyed” the experience of exchanging fire from ranges as short as 5m before, & while those experiences were certainly exciting at the time, they also made me realise that maybe the sniper who picks off targets from a kilometre away may just be onto something lol
And also that body armour is your friend, even if it is heavy, sweaty & uncomfortable.
Not that the realisation that I’m probably allowing one set of skills & habits to influence another is proving an effective argument against my still wanting to buy that nice 500mm lens :P I’m really hoping that the rumours I’ve heard about our allowances are true, because it’s getting to the point where I’m going to splash out on that longer lens regardless, & hang the expense. I know that I should be saving money to put away against maybe being out of a job, but maybe Getaway will be more likely to give me a job as a photographer if I can supply all my own equipment :P

That’s about it for the day though. I have a feeling the next few days are going to be quiet, given that my vehicle is out of commission, but I should be able to come up with something for this again before too long.

Cheers for now though ;)

“A Change Would Do You Good…” Part II

September 27th 2005, 2020B

It was quite warm today, but it’s bloody cold here tonight, & the rain is pissing down. I’m in my bed, wrapped up in my sleeping bag to keep warm, with the notebook on my lap as I listen to the rain hitting the tent roof – and I’m loving every moment of it. After the heat & humidity in Bujumbura this last month, this is making for a very welcome change. And the quiet is bliss. Ok, so the genny running in the background is a little intrusive right now, but after a day or so it fades into white-noise & you don’t even notice it. No traffic in the street outside, no crowds, no radios blaring noise all day, and no bloody locals hawking knock-off Ray-bans, or demanding money from me. I really enjoy it here in Mwaro, & I’m always going to have fond memories of the time I’ve spent here.
Honesty compels me to admit that Bujumbura isn’t all bad, & I’ve quite enjoyed the odd day that I’ve spent there – Sunday at the beach, for example – but I can guarantee that I’m not going regret kicking its dust from my heels after I get home.

It’s been a pretty good day. Nothing special really, but better than the average. I managed a good 6 hours sleep last night even without pharmaceutical assistance, which certainly helped – I would not have been pleasant company today if I’d not gotten so much sleep I can assure you :P
Then again, I was seriously buggered when I got into bed last night, but hopefully I’ll have another decent night of it tonight. I spent a fair amount of time behind the wheel again today which should help, as driving a heavy vehicle takes a surprising toll on you.
So far as the days activities are concerned, it was pretty much more of the same as what I was doing the last week in the capital, providing escorts to civilian UN personnel. Today was fairly interesting though, as they were paying out ex-combatants who’ve demobbed & handed in their weapons. From what I gathered each of the ex-coms received a once off payment of $100, which is not bad considering that I remember the going rate for an AK on the Mozambique border a few years ago was only about R50. It’s also a fair chunk of cash in the local context, as the GDP per capita for Burundi is only around $600 a year.
I also got to take a few photos today, which I quite enjoyed & some of them came out quite well. I’m starting to think I need to change the focus of my photography for awhile though. Mostly I’ve been taking pictures of the locals, and while I think that people will always be my favourite subject, I should probably try something a little different if only for the sake of variety. I’m not exactly getting bored with it, but doing the same thing all the time will inevitably become stale over time. Or I should at least try photographing people in a different setting – sports photography is something I wouldn’t mind having a go at, for example. There aren’t too many opportunities for that here though unfortunately. Wildlife is something else I’m really keen to try pointing a lens at, and that I may be able to get right while I’m here if we start conducting ops in the northern forests. Actually, after my first choice of getting paid to take photos of beautiful naked young women, landing a job at something like Getaway magazine is my next ideal alternate career should I leave the military next year. The photo / travel journalism idea really appeals to me, which is part of why I’m seriously considering staying longer voluntarily if it means I get to do that “road-trip” through Tanzania to get the vehicles back to SA.
But the naked women thing is definitely my first choice, so if any of the ladies reading this want to volunteer as a subject so that I can get some practice in, feel free to let me know ;)
And to think that a year ago I didn’t even own a camera. I’ve always had an appreciation for good photography, but I never imagined that the bug would bite me as badly, or as quickly, as it has. If only it wasn’t such an expensive hobby :P I guess it’s true that nothing worthwhile was ever easy or cheap.

Anyway, my brain is rapidly going into shut-down mode & I’m in need of my beauty sleep, so I’m going to end off here.

Till next time then ;)

“A Change Would Do You Good

September 26th 2005, 1915B

This is much better. I won’t go quite so far as to say that I’d cheerfully spend the rest of my deployment here in Mwaro, as I would like to see some more of Burundi than this, but I’m far happier here than I am in Bujumbura. I miss having access to a phone & net connection while I’m here, but I still get chance for that at least once a week when I go into town so it’s not as though I’m totally cut off while I’m out of the capital. There’s also cell coverage here, though I’ve pretty much given up on that – it’s a bit much to ask people to spend money on sending sms’s to me at international rates if only one in five comes through. And I’d had such hopes when I got my hands on that sim card.

This is probably going to be a short post though, as I’m seriously knackered & I’m finding it very hard to keep my head from bouncing off the keyboard even at this early hour. It’s been a long & tiring day, and I only managed about three hours sleep last night as I’ve managed to lose my sleeping tabs somewhere along the line. Getting more is going to be a little tricky unfortunately, as I still have two weeks left to run on the current prescription and the pharmacist is going to have questions if I ask for more now already. I should get away with asking for more tabs next Monday, but I have a feeling that this is going to be a very long week if I’m going to have to get by on 3-4 hours sleep an night till then :P Actually I’m hoping that I can manage without the immovaine from now on, as I’ve taken them for far longer than I’m happy about. It’s not a physically addictive drug, but it’s still easy to fall into the habit of relying on them & I’d rather avoid that. Then again, I’d rather not have a psychotic episode because I’ve not had any sleep either, so we’ll see how things go this week.

At least not sleeping last night meant I got to spend some decent time on the net after everyone else had gone to bed, & I got a fair amount done. I got to save a fair number of peoples blogs to the flash drive, which I’m looking forward to reading over the next two weeks, & I also managed to get hold of all the CTRL-ALT-DEL & AppleGeeks cartoons I’ve missed since I got here. I love those web comics, & I’ve rather missed my fix since I’ve been away from home lol
Something else I got right last night that I’m very happy about is that I had chance to browse Amazon, & I ordered that Keen Eddie dvd set I mentioned some time ago, & also the Collectors Edition of Sin City. I can’t wait to get my grubby little mits on either of those, but especially so the Sin City dvd & I’m really sorry I didn’t get to see it on the big screen. Still, Amazon seem pretty sharp when it comes to their delivery times so it shouldn’t be too much longer before I get to see it. It strikes me as strange that Kalahari aren’t carrying it yet though, & there’s not even a mention of it on the site that I could find.

I’ve just realised that I’ve spent the last 15 minutes staring blankly at the screen in zombie mode, so I’m going to finish this off here & climb into bed. The next few days look to be fairly busy though, so I’m sure I’ll add to this again soon.

Keep well ;)