Demining, something a little different!

Well it sounded like fun and the toys are big

So i have changed career yet again (well more gone back to something I have done before) from the offshore world of submarines to the world of machines that are designed to run over, chew up and blow up landmines, of both the Anti-Personnel and the Anti-Tank varieties, as well as allsorts of other goodies that they come across when doing something called BAC work (stands for Battle Area Clearance... the demining world suffers horribly from far too many acronyms, AP, AT, DA's, BAC, LOD, blah, blah sometimes it takes longer to say the acronyms than the words it stands for!!)
So I am based in Juba in South Sudan, at a camp in a place called Gumbo, on the west side of the Nile, across the bridge from Juba proper. Back to living in a tent! Always seem to end up going full circle!
I have been contracted as a "lead mechanic" to assist sorting what ended off last years operations.. I won't delve too much into the past, but it has certainly made the present a real mission! Arriving in country on the 9th August, I had been led to believe there was only some last and final checking through to do before all was ready.... so after 7 solid weeks, still everything in the yard is not fixed and usable.
This blog isn't about those trials and tribulations, although they will enter the story at points, please excuse me when they do!
There is apparently a total of 13 miles of tarmac road in South Sudan, I've only managed to find about 6 of those so far... at least the road in from the airport is tar, the first thing you notice about Juba is the smell, the second is the amount of rubbish, the third is that most vehicles are either aid related or if they are top of the range Land Cruiser VX/Amazons, they are GOSS (Government of South Sudan). I sometimes reckon if donors only gave Toyota Corollas in aid packages the road problem would be solved, because all the government folk would fix them just so they didn't break their backs riding around in Corollas!
It's is the rainy season here and even though daily temperatures are regualrly over 35C (in winter...) when it rains it is that wonderful African rain, we have had some massive storms including direct lightning strikes on the mobile masts just behind the camp here, the thunder was pretty loud and instant!!
Our greeting from the Program Manager when myself and the mechanic I was travelling with arrived at camp was "Well Gentlemen, welcome to Hell", couldn't have been that bad, on a Sunday, we had a shower then went for a beer along the Nile, first Da Vinci's (very over-priced and beer not that cold) to a local bar slightly further down, Mango Camp (cheap and cold!!) then to Bedouins Camp (good and quick bar snacks, cold beer, but the cemetry outside the gate is the local toilet so the smell is a bit ripe when the breeze is wrong!) then finally to Afex camp (African Expeditions, one of the longer established camps, OK price wise and cold beers, but for out here, great pizza!)
That week was spent discovering that who ever was here before, well they didn't have much attention to detail or give that much of a damn about machinery, the state of some of the stuff made for a lot of work, including a "fully serviced and ready to go" truck that broke down 2 kms from camp with clogged filters... the week flew by, before we had a little "team-outing" for all the folk who had arrived, the PM (Program Manager) and the Logi guy (Logistics) had arranged a mystery outing, to which we were given invites to be ready to leave camp dressed in Jock-straps and takkies (South African expression for trainers) with the suggestion to bring a camera. So loaded with coolbox off we set to Da Vinci's, a sunset boat trip on the Nile it was then! Our crowd (8 of us I think) joined by 4 others waited for the boatman, who came down with the fuel, the dark shades, ganga bracelet, Bob Marley T-shirt, hopped on the boat cool as you like and on went the tunes (the car battery connected to an old tape deck with really bad speakers and a really bad recording of Bob) hooked up the fuel and loaded us on, with out so much as checking the engine untied and off we went, pushed out into the Nile, 100 meters later, myself and the PM decided at the front of th boat to throw out the anchor so we didn't go to far from shore, because it didn't sound like the motor was going to go anytime soon.
Sure enough, the other mechanic and myself managed to get it going once each, after we had used the anchor to steer us close to the bank where the kids were swimming, we ran out of beer, watched it get dark before possibly the only other boat boat on the Nile pitched up to tow us back upstream... it was a wonderfully African disaster, fun because you kind of expected it to happen as soon as you saw the state of the thing before we even cast off, but there was much merriment and humour, the poor boat guy had lost all his "cool" by the time the tow arrived!

Another couple of weeks of intense work fixing and sorting the vehicles in the yard and trying to have enough running for all the manual demining training support work, there are some strange ideas of economy in some peoples heads!
The came the first trip, up to Malakal, there is still regular fighting up there, about a 2 hour flight north of Juba, also on the banks of the Nile, absolutely flat and featureless, it is black cotton soil and when it rains, the mud is pretty sticky, have a look at some of the photos, it makes for good exercise, carrying around 3 kgs of mud on each shoe because it sticks like shit to a blanket! (or Malakal mud to your shoes!)
Amazingly when coming in to land on the UN flight (you have to sign a little disclaimer that says the "flight may not meet ANY national or international flight safety standards due to the areas where operations are taking place, the National thing is worrying, Sudan doesn't exactly have a booming safety orientated airline industry... so the UN flight may not even meet National standards!!)
it was visible where the machine had worked last year, the rows were still visible planted with maize, a great thing to see when you realize until they started last year the entire town was surrounded by a defensive minefield and now with population pressure the town has actually expanded in to the minefield.
More on that when the machines have started clearing after the 1st October, I can hopefully get some photos of the machine working in amongst houses (cleared of all the occupants for safety).

Arriving at the camp, on what is effectively a flood plain with a volleyball court set up by the Bangladeshi Naval Riverine detachment that has a camp there, our camp is literally outside the gates, an issue that caused friction when fighting kicked off last year, the guys tried to get inside for safety and were denied entry!! So had to sit out the fighting in the mine proof Casspir and Rhino outside the Bangladeshi UN gates. Not such a pleasant experience when recounted!

It rained and boy did it rain, turned the camp into a quagmire in 5 minutes, so not a lot can be done when it's like that! The night before one of the guys had a lucky escape when the toilet fell in, he fell through up to knee deep in the long drop at 3 in the morning, had a lucky escape by ending up on a support pole instead of neck deep! rescued his boots and then got attacked by red army ants and bitten everywhere on his legs and nether regions, not a nice experience... it also meant the toilet was now on the other side of the camp a real trudge in the mud!
Lots to try and do in the drying out morning, going to get all the vehicles out of the UN compound from where they were stored since the sht down 3 months earlier, most of them were no problem, a couple were a little stuck in the mud and it was another of my "aid" moments seeing the equipment laying around that has been paid for as a donation or a taxpayer somewhere and then left to rot because the people working cant be bothered/ dont care (see the picture of the boat and the nrand new boxed outboard motor at $15000 in the boat full of water) all the other vehicles just parked up, not used or repaired, yet new ones come every year as part of "keep Toyota and Nissan in business", OK, OK I'll get off the soapbox again now!

Having got all the vehicles out and gone through them it was time to get the mine clearance machines up and going, for more info on these visit www.minewolf.com the MW370 and the MMW240 are the two machines, it took 2 hours to get the big machines doors open with jacks and hammers, the cab unit alone weighs 4 tonnes, all the armour plating and the armour glass, each door weighs in at 400 kgs+ so to shift them was a bit of a mission! But we did get them both running and moving, so at least work could commence on them.

On the Friday night we had the fascinating "cultural experience" of the Malakal "Hard Rock Cafe" 4 pre-fabs in the UN compound where they have a fridge, a stereo and some flashing lights that make up the disco/bar. There was a british policeman, from Australia, running the bar and about 9 the place rapidly filled up with the Indian engineering contingent, all of whom either dance with each other or ask you to dance, the slow dances they seem to reserve for between each other and I will confess to avoiding being asked by going and stand outside at the end of any song... just not my scene!
Saturday was a rugby day, invited by the UN "QA" guy to his pre-fab in the UN compound for a braai (bbq) and beer whilst watching the South African Currie cup.... pretty good humour for the middle of nowhere, at least the beer was cold, even if it was Heineken!!
Sunday was flight back to Juba, checking in at the chaos of Malakal airport (complete with British Airport Authority luggage trolleys... honest check out the photo!!) and bullet holes in the windows, fighting is fairly regular up here still, usually inter-village disputes it seems, the regular full on fighting has calmed down. 2 days after we left, the mechanic left up there did ring and say fighting had broken out close to the camp and he might use a Land Cruiser to take refuge in the UN compound, he was reminded that he had 3 Armoured vehicles, the Minewolf, a Casspir MPV and a Rhino MPV (Mine proof vehicle) so might be an idea to use one of those to drive the 3 or so kms to the compound, just in case of stray bullets, after all, if you have the tools...(or MPVs) use them!!

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