I hope you guys weren’t too worried about me. There’s been no Internet at WR for a few weeks and no signs of sudden return either. So I’m currently using the “V-sat” system over at WHO (World Health Org), but I have limited time here. I’ll do what I can to post when I can (hopefully again in a few minutes) but I wanted to get this post up before anything goes wrong with the connection, or my battery, or whatever.
I’m a bit bored right now. The other two guys are working and I’ve fixed everything I can fix here, so until I’m in Darfur tomorrow, I have nothing to do.
So I nailed down some specifics for you. I found a map here that shows exactly where the World Relief compound is in Al Geneina, which by the way is pronounced Gen-ay-nah. That’s ay as in “ay you, can’t you pronounce Geneina proper?”.
You can’t zoom in any further, but I put the compound dead center, that angled road is pointing right at it. You can zoom out to see where I am in relation to the city and the airport. The airport is a couple of dirt runways north of the city. Note the size of the runways in relation to the size of the city. I don’t know if that means the city is smaller than I thought or the runways are longer than normal or if I just don’t understand how citys should relate in size to airports.
By the way, I found out those are seasonal rivers. The images you are seeing are from the dry season when they’re empty.
View Larger Map
We just got back from lunch, which was delicious shishkabobs, vegetable soup, salad, rolls and some sort of mango shake that was very good.
The most interesting part of the journey was the short trips there and back. Basically Sundan’s road system involves a couple of paved roads interconnected by many dirt/sand roads. There are no lines, no signs, no rules. Intersections are places where people slow down (a little) and push their way through all at once. Growing up around all the signs, lines, police, rules, signals, etc, I would have thought this kind of thing would cause no end of accidents and road-rage, but no, everyone makes it through the chaos without even hurt feelings. Impressive.
As I was writing this I heard someone outside yelling something on a bull horn. I asked what he was yelling thinking that maybe it was some police action nearby. No, just someone selling vegetables. Oh well.
With all the new sights and sounds around me I’m really sad that I can’t take pictures and video. It’s illegal in Sudan to take any kind of pictures. I’ve been taking video in my room, and a little out the window (shhh). But still it would be nice to be able to get up-close-and-personal.
I did sneak these for you.
So here in Khartoum it’s just a small office with two laptops and an OfficeJet Printer/Scanner/Fax thingy. They also have a DSL modem and a wireless router.
I know that some of you won’t understand half of what I’m about to say, sorry in advance. You can go ask a geek, they’ll understand (well, most of it anyway).
My first goal was just to connect my laptop up and get some desperately needed Internet (I was starting to have some serious withdrawal symptoms). So I immediately look at the back of the router and notice that the cable running into the Internet port is coming from a disconnected cable that used to come from the printer. The DSL modem is running into a LAN port. At this point I’m lost. I ask them if they even have Internet access, and they say they do. I couldn’t figure out how this was even working until I tried to put it back the way it was suppose to be. That’s when I realize that they were just using the router as an overpriced switch. Someone couldn’t get it to work the right way (probable because the modem and router were using the same IP range) and just plugged things in until it worked. Anyway, I changed the range on the router and now things are back to normal, even faster. 
The laptops are pretty normal, though they were overloaded with the “complete” OfficeJet software. All 600+ megs of trash that HP loves to install. So a not-so-quick download of the secret “corporate only” drivers, a little fiddling with cables and IP addresses and now they don’t have the trash, but they also don’t have to pass a USB cable back and forth to print.
Oh, and I almost forgot, every once in a while I hear a pop, fiss sound. That’s the US to Sudan power adapter that sparks when the power flickers (every 20 minutes or so) or when you touch it. Luckily we all have laptops and they have a UPS as well.
Yes, I am in Khartoum, Sudan awaiting my travel permit to Darfur. While I’m here I’m doing some work in the Khartoum HQ for World Relief. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Everyone wants to know how my trip went. So here’s the gritty details (don’t worry it went well)
I got up at 3:00am Monday morning and hopped into my dad’s car at around 3:30 (thanks again dad, I hope you got some sleep when you got home). I arrived and went through security in plenty of time to have a nice breakfast and get some reading done.
My flight to NY was uneventful, long and uncomfortable, but what economy-class flight isn’t, eh? I discovered that in order to get to my next flight in NY I had to actually leave the airport, get on the “Sky Rail” and go through security all over again. Wee.
No problems getting to Amsterdam, but boy 7 hours is a long time to sit in a seat. Luckily I had an aisle this time and was able to get up regularly and walk around a bit. Amsterdam reminded me mostly of an Ikea, I’m not sure why, maybe the funky molded plastic chairs. Anyway, again through security and I was off to Khartoum. The only real issue I had was on arrival in Khartoum. No one told me I had to fill out a little form over on a side table in the corner, so I waited in the painfully long and slow-moving line just to be ask “Where’s your form?”.
So I went back, filled out the form and waited again in line (longer, and just as slow this time) to hear the dreaded words: “wrong form”. So after a breif search, I found the form I was supposed to fill out under (yes under) a stack of the wrong forms. By this time the lines were pretty short, so it didn’t take long, but still, argh.
I was met by a guy from WR and off we went “home”. WR has two appartments in a building a few blocks from the airport. One to live in that can house 4 or 5 people and another as offices. That’s where I am now.
As for jet lag, unless it’s going to hit later, I’m imune. I didn’t really sleep on the planes or in the airports, and I slept just fine last night in spite of the lumpy bed, hard pillows and air conditioner that has only two settings; ice-age, and off (in this position the 100 degree night floods in pretty quickly).
Well, there you go, I’ll have lots more in my next post, but I wanted you all to know that I was alive and kicking. Or at least alive and typing.
You know those “if you were stuck on a desert island, what two CDs would you bring with you?” kind of questions? I’ve got two new ones for you:
If you were stuck in a building in the middle of a war-torn desert for 2 weeks, and you knew that you could only bring 30ish pounds with you, what would bring?
…and for my fellow computer geeks…
If you were asked to fix computers in a building in the middle of a war-torn desert for 2 weeks, and you knew that all you would have is intermittent dial-up, what would you download ahead of time?
If you’re reading this before Sunday night, please list anything I might not have thought of in the comments. I’ll be downloading and packing like mad this weekend, and I’d love some input.
The way I figure it, the chances of two planes crashing at the same airport in the same week is pretty slim. Right after a crash, everyone is a lot more cautious, plus there’s the whole law of averages thing.
I wasn’t really worried before, but now I feel even better:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/africa/06/10/sudan.plane/index.html
One week from right now I’ll be on a plane. It’s starting to settle in that I’m going to be away from everything I know for nearly 3 weeks. Sure, some people may scoff at that. I had an uncle that used to be gone for months at a time. Soldiers leave their families for longer than that. But still, this is a first for me.
So, now that I’ve opened my heart to you, I’d like to ask for prayer. I know that most of those that are reading this are Christians, so if you are, I could use your prayers (if you’re not, just send cash):
Thank you. I’ll post more later, and as I’ve said before, I’ll post at least once a day (if I can) from Darfur.
I just finished a pre-trip counseling meeting thing with a guy here at the church that does that kind of thing. It was great. He really gave me some good suggestions for things I hadn’t thought of. One of the biggest things was three things to pray while I’m there. Which also works out to three things to keep thinking about too. So I will be remembering to pray:
Speaking of prayer, I’ve been asked a few times what people can be praying about. Right now there’s not a lot, since I’m still comfortably hanging around in a place that’s not a war-torn desert. But you can certainly pray for my preparation. There’s no way I can think of everything, but it sure would be nice not to miss anything major.
I’ll add more prayer requests as the opportunity arrises, and while I’m over there, check my twitter (link on the right) for more regular updates.
I figure since the government is already watching my every move anyway, I might as well share that info with the world. No reason T.H.E.Y. should have a monopoly on my exact location.
So, besides my regular blog postings from the other side of the world, I’ll also try to Twitter as often as possible/realistic and if those both fail me (due to lack of electricity or connectivity) then at least you’ll know where I Plan to be. Note the link to my Itinerary at the top of the screen.