Busy as a Bee

Things have been really busy here at the teamsite. We are short with Milobs due to people being on leave and also due to losing some teammates due to their end of mission. This week we only had 5 people at the team site. Also, I have took over as Operations officer, as well as keeping my same job I had before (Intel Officer). Usually this job is done by a O-4 but none of these lazy O-4's at the office "wanted" to do it. Since I know how to do everything the Team Leader appointed me as Ops. So im doing two jobs and the other milobs on the team are doing their jobs at half effort. ugh... so frustrating. Two more weeks... two more weeks...

Not only is the two appointments keeping me busy, but now I have to set aside time to study and read and do my homework like a good boy. So far class is going good.

This week I went to the Guinea border again and almost found myself caught up in an international incident. Usually we travel to the border with the Pakistanis and when we get there, only the Liberians are there for us to talk to. The Guinea immigration/border officials are invited to be there, but they never come. So we sit down with the Liberians and they tell us the same thing... the borders are fine - no problems... they have no communication, no transportation, and only 3-4 officers and on and on... Well, this time when we arrived we were informed that the people from Guinea would be joining us. About 8-10 Guineans came over to the meeting. Military, customs, police, and immigration were all represented. Well, the purposes of these meetings are to ensure everything is peaceful, and that the borders remain free to pass.... no illegal smuggling, etc. Most people have family members that live on both sides of the border so most people cross the border daily. We are there to make sure there are no problems. Well, we get into the meeting area and the Pakistani Captain that came with us starts going crazy. He starts telling these people from Guinea to write their names on paper... and then proceeds to ask them questions without introducing himself or let them know what we are there for. Usually the Pakistanis wait out in the parking area and let the Milobs, who do these type of talks routinely, carry out the interviews. Well this guy starts grilling the Guineans and you can see them start to get irritated. Communicating was difficult too. The Guineans speak French and none of us spoke French. They also have their tribal languages that are common for Liberians and Guineans; Kpelle. So we would talk in English and one of the Liberians would translate in Kpelle to the Guineans. Then the Guineans would translate the Kpelle into French for the rest of the Guineans who didnt understand Kpelle. It was a mess. So this Pakistani Capt continues to grill these guys. These guys keep firing back that they dont want to tell us anything and then ask us if we know anything that is about the happen to Guinea that they need to be worried about. Finally, I had enough. The Deputy team leader and I started over and introduced ourselves and then let them know that this meeting is a routine meeting to check out the border security and the inquire about the ease of access to the border. They finally cooled down and opened up and gave us good information about security and the peace at the border. It was tense for a bit there... afterwards we all went outside and we snapped a few photos.... crazy. I wanted to punch that Pakistani in the face. He made the UN look bad. Not to say that im the best at conductng these meetings or interviews, but his method jsut plain sucked! I talked to him afterwards and told him next time, the milobs will have the lead.

Here are some pics:

This is from a few weeks ago when my boss was supposed to come visit me but hurt his back the night before. So the rest of the group came up to visit. (Left to right - Maj Hallberg from the USMOG Command in DC, Bangladeshi Lt Col who is the Chief of Operation at Sector B in Gbarnga, Lt Col Gaba - who is my boss and the highest American here in the UN mission, The Bangladeshi General, Capt Lisa Gerlt - Milob here in Liberia, and me). I took them all to meet my friend, the General of Sector B.

This was on the road to Ponata (Guinea Border). We had to stop at this bridge to rearrange some of the trees so that we could cross.

This is the border building at the Liberian/Guinea border of Ponata. Notice the flat right front tire on the car that we had to change before we left.

Here is me and my new Guinean friends. Check out the Military commander's shades. He kept them on the entire meeting... pretty sweet.

I went on a Air recce Patrol again. This was us loading up in the Helo.

Tudor's last day is Sunday so he bought a pig and cooked it up. It was tasty. Here are some of my new teammates. Maj Hu - China, and Lt Col Ayabambo - Nigeria.

Yesterday we had a really nasty rain storm in the morning. This picture was taken at around 11am in the morning. The skies were very dark and eerie. It was just like a rain shower during the rainy season.

I visited a town that had 8 people. Here is half of the town's population.

LiberCell is a mobile phone company here. Here is one of their stations.

This is pretty standard for Liberia.