Bonne Anne

I suppose it is time to update and start a new series. What shall I call it I wonder. I suppose 'bonne anne' is a good start as anywhere. I sit here in the for-special-persons lounge in the Dubai airport staring at an Arabic screen writing in English my blah blah blah. It is, after all, only 08h 30 and the V&O is kicking in and the Scotch is just now warming my tummy. Only 7 hrs left in this layover.

Happy New Year, and best wishes for the coming one. That is as good as it needs to get. Denise and I finally faced the big monster and initiated a plan. Papers are signed as nice and neat as the bow on the top of the Christmas tree. It is the end of an epoch, so let us hope that the new year brings other types of adventures. Consequently I am homeless once again. The Christmas weeks spent in my natal home were nice and quiet - save for the competition for the shovel every time it snowed. That, it turned out to be was once every three days. Fredericton has not seen a winter like that since ... for years. I sure do feel badly about selling Denise's snowblower even if she couldn't start it. Cheers for the new year coming. Homeless again has led me back to the folds of Action Contre La Faim (ACF); Paris this time. While looking for distraction I found one in a short-term posting in Sudan and thus started the program to shift from the NYC office to Paris. I figure a new year in a new climate is good. By escaping the snow of Frederiction I get to move kit-and-kaboodle to the sandy deserts of North Darfur. Deal! I like it better hot any way. However, hot is only one descriptor of the climate as the security seems, well, sketchy at best. Reports of over 200 NGO vehicle hijacking, uncounted robberies, humanitarian workers raped and killed, militias splitting and resplitting and fighting and well, even the UN has kicked in after 4 years with promises of a force of 19 000 force with a 'Chapter 7' mandate. That means that they get to shoot first if they wish and so this is considered a very big deal in the peace- making world. Of course the Sudanese government is not so amenable to this plan and thus 'bonne anne, on verra'.

So what is my plan for the first half of this new year? I get to be Head of Base, logistician and administrator for a tiny little patch in a tiny desert(ed) landscape called Shangil Tobay cosily nestled by two IDP camps. To whom my team and I will do food distributions and food security activities to the 50 or 60 000 folks following our re-installing/rehabilitate the base to make a more long-term and solid presence. Allah be praised, inshallah, shokran. Imam give us your blessing, SPLA - MM give us your birth.

As I noted, this is the year of the new leaf turning. Big changes, particularly after my 'promise' to settle down last October. I was committed but really ... me? The egg is on my face. Not even half-way through January and I got my nose to the porthole.

If you do the math that means that for the last two and a half weeks I have been a maniac tourista of Paris. ACF-P decided that they needed to see me for them selves and thus inculcated me into the first pre-departure training of the new year. As a side bar for those in the know - it has now been dubbed the 'Agnes Training' after the events of New Year's eve in Burundi. One starts to wonder if the top of fortune really is random. Still, being the adventurous and energetic kind of guy that I am (and being a cheapskate too) has allowed me to optimize my time in Paris so to maxmize any adventure. Still, I had to show up for training and the last metro is around 01h and thus I kept it in 'reasonable' bounds. But holy cow, a bottle of wine for 4 bucks? Imagine!

Denise's bro is here and so is his two kids. I was able to visit with them several times - and Christine too. Then there was the Hash House Harrier run through the Bois de Bologne followed by rousing rugby-like songs and forced beer guzzling. The lentil soup, most excellent I must say, is a bit bourgeois for such a group and I suppose was the balance needed for a bunch of english folks living in french. While in Paris, the City of Lights, I kissed a girl - but I am embarrassed to report that in fact she was NOT french. Hungarian. Still half a coup is better than a kick in the pants. I did meet some french folks though mostly through the ACF training and we did get along well. Went to a concert on a Peniche - I suppose you can say it is a ancient wooden barge converted into a beer hall - and enjoyed the female group singing. The lead singer is a friend of my new friend and classmate. Of course in the big city there are after concert events as well and so this led the group to a wine drinking party in the parking lot (mon dieu) and then to the club de choix qui s'appele Le Batofard. The name is a play on words and is a lighthouse refitted on a fire boat; all fitting as the boat is now the eurotech club de jour floating on the Seinne. Phew that was a late night. Then there was the weekend spend on the lawn of the Sacre Coeur in the first dazzling sunlight of the week, with a picknick of cheese and choriso on baguette. It does not get better than that. Well maybe the sunset over the Eiffel Tower with my friend is good too. The blowout dinner for the training consisted of the only, really only, french meal of my time here in Paris. Stunningly yummy, choc-a-block full of fat and marrow and pate and cheese and the requisite bazzillions of bottles of home-made wine. This resto was just a mom and pop deal in some corner broom closet around the corner from the home of our colleague and guide. At 25 euros per diner a bit steep for our 8 euros per day per diem. Oh well, when in Rome as they say.

My mind is whirling with all the adventures so far this year and the adventures to come in this year to follow. I continue to live and struggle with failures and unmet needs and I suppose this is not so unusual. I am, I think, being successful in replacement therapy if not necessarily on a distructive bender.

I arrive in Khartoum this evening after dark - it is always after dark when I land and that is frustrating. As things evolve I will keep you posted.

Halas (Arabic for 'enough already')
Bonne Anne a tous
Chris