My Next Vacation? Maybe Not!

I'm going in the rainy season, during which time a swamp the size of Belgium forms (no, really...it's true!). Malaria is rife. Cholera broke out recently. Dysentery, Typhoid, Rabies, Snakes, Scorpions, Spiders, Centipedes, Bugs that excrete acidic goo, rats, mice, larvae that burrow under the skin, ticks, fleas, and other microscopic nasties all exist in brutal harmony. And then there are the landmines which no-one marked when the minefields were set, and which tend to migrate during the rainy season (they move with the soil) so that a previously cleared route will likely no longer be... Granted, there aren't people shooting at us, but there have been a couple of attacks by "unknown groups" against UN compounds in the past weeks, thank God for force protection, even if they are (by all accounts) reasonably useless... and there are the machete-wielding maniacs, too.

There's no decent or indecent infrastructure so that we can expect roads and bridges to be washed out which means that the scope to patrol is limited...although the protection force has a number of river patrol boats where they can insert us to do our patrols on foot instead of vehicles ...But it's the rainy season (did I mention that already?) so it's likely that helicopters will be grounded a lot of the time so if something nasty does happen we won't be able to get a medevac for hours or possibly days...which means that if it's relatively serious someone will likely die. Luckily I will have two morphine syringes to ease the pain...my own!

And of course I really have no idea where I'll be. The UN could grab me based on my staff and logistics experience and plunk me in an air-conditioned office, or I could be in a Sector HQ, or in an isolated mud-hutted team site.

Did I mention I'm going to be unarmed?

This is an excerpt of an e-mail from an old friend of mine. He deployed on Friday as a UN Military Observer. I'm not revealing where - and since there are envoys to so many scary places, you can all have fun trying to guess his location. He'll be gone for 6 months - I'm sure his girlfriend is hoping to have him back in one piece in time for Christmas. Be safe, PoD.