Help donate water for Free!

I had to try. I did not know donating over 400 cups of water could be so easy. I read this article on The Road to The Horizon and thought I would give it a try.

I love to look at maps and it seems I can get a reasonably good score if playing games about maps.

Try it.. Can you beat my score? If so let me know as I feel a challenge coming up :-) Even if you cant ;-) you can help donate free cups of water!

OK i played again. dont blame me if the game dont work anymore. At 1015 cups it crashed.... so no badge for my record ;-( but still for a good cause :-)

Congo DRC: A Country cursed by natural resources

As I wrote in a short story about Congo, the line about following the money does not seem to be very distant. Even if we go back as far as 1885 the main reason for the problems has been Congo's natural resources. It would be very naive to think that money and outside powers intrests are not the main drivers of the continued instability Congo faces, even as I write this today.

1885 - 1908 Congo Free State
King Leopold II created the Congo Free State as his private possession, his private playgarden through the creation of a dummy NGO with him as the sole shareholder. Mainly to exploit the country on its Rubber. About 10 million people died either of deceases or due to the practice of chopping of peoples legs if they could not harvest rubber fast enough for his taste.

Rubber mainly exported to USA and a few other Car producing countries, as rubber tires is the invention of the day. This in addition to other inventions which came with rubber. Hoses, Insulation for electical wires and so forth.

1908 - 1960 Belgian Congo
The Belgian government was more or less forced by the international community to annex the Congo Free state as the cruelty of Leopolds management was far beyond what could be accepted at the time.

The Belgians built up a society of expats in Congo who ran the country and exploited the countrys resources. The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs are built with Congolese Uranium and a large part of the US cold war warheads are supplied by congolese uranium. There was some people among the rulers at the time who actually wanted to raise the standard of the Congolese and make sure they could develop in a more productive way but it was voted down by a large margin. Why change a winning concept they thought.

1960 - 1961 Congo gain independence
Patrice Lumumba together with Kasavubu and Mobutu manages to gain independence and Lumumba becomes president. Unfortunately he does not manage to gain control fast enough as there are lot of parties including the Belgians who were making the changeover as difficult as possible.The Belgians had large mines in the Katanga region so they started supporting a split off of that region from the country, well knowing that it is probably the richest mining area in the Country. Lumumba was seeking US support then asks UN for support to stabilize the country but was denied in both cases. Thus he turned to the Soviets who was more than eager to help. This by default sealed his fate as the US wanted him removed by any means after that. There are traces that even the US President through CIA was planning to remove or even kill Lumumba as they claimed he was a communist. Something Lumumba denies on the strongest and history has concluded he was not. (note. seems the intelligence of USA keep repeating the same mistakes?! over and over and over)

While trying to fight the Katanga region Lumumba lost the initial battles and was deposed by Mobutu and Kasavubu and Kasavubu then took control of the Country.

1961 Lumumba is under house arrest and is later for his own protection?! flown down to Katanga. ther he was held in the hands of Belgian troops and the party he was fighting against and is executed. Years Later the Belgian government formally apologizes to the Congolese for the role they played in the assasination.

1961 UN moves in and on request of various parties attacked Katanga but the leader managed to escape to Rhodesia.

1961Dag Hammarskjoeld dies in mysterious ways while enroute to Rhodesia to negociate a seize fire with the Katanga rebel regime. (Who had most to gain from his death I wonder?! I dont believe it was an accident)

UN attacks once more in 1962 and Katanga is finally reunited with Congo again in 1963.

1965 - 1997 Congo transforms into Zaire
Mobutu takes over after a military coup and start his 30 odd years reign of terror. He is supported by USA as its suits their purpose of not allowing Congo to become a communist state and are very happy to help mine the resources as they are still in the cold war era and in need of the Uranium and other resources. Mobutu has made concessions and is not concerned about the exploitations of the country as long as he can get his share. 60% of the worlds uranium exportation takes place from Congo to USA via Belgium. 80% of the worlds Industrial Diamonds are exported from Congo. And a large amount of copper is mined and exported mainly to USA and Europe.

Already in 1965-66 L. Kabila start various rebel activities and the Chinese are very happy to support with finances as Kabila has communist ideas. There is an autonomous area around Kivu which thrives under the communist rule until 1988 when it is finally crushed. Meanwhile the Chinese has been able to exploit the area against continued support with arms and funding.
In the late 70s and early 80s Kabila meet up with Museveni, Nyerere and Kagame who are all about to become presidents are all starting to support L. Kabila. Everyone thinks Kabila is dead as he vanishes in 1988.

In 1990 with the fall of the Soviet union and end of the cold war the US regime withdraw any support of the Mobutu and his regime as it is no longer on their intrest to support him. But exploitation of the country for the resources continues at an undiminshed rate.

With the Rwanda genocide and the influx of refugees in Kivu there is a new wave of rebel activities coming in and this is supported by Kabila's friends in Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania. Behind the scenes USA is also supporting the rebel activities as Mobutu is becoming an old unpredictable dictator and change of rule is a matter of time only. At the same time it is known that USA can not trust a Kabila who in the roots leaned towards communism.

1997 Congo's First war
In 1997 Kabila finally mange to overthrow Mobutu. Unfortunately for L. Kabila he does not necessarily play the game as his supporters had planned and Rwanda, Uganda and the USA instead help fund Bemba, a new rebel leader in the Kivu area. This leads to what they call they Second Congo war.

1998 Congo's Second war
Kabila is backed by new found allies in Angola, Chad, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Sudan . A seize fire is agreed in 1998. By this time there is a large amount of various foreign troops in Eastern Congo who help to exploit the resources.

2001 Kabila is assassinated and his son takes over the presidency. UN moves in and create the MONUC to maintain the peace in the country.

2003 all countries except Rwanda agrees to remove their troops from Eastern Congo. This after more than 5 years of massive illegal expolitation of the resources. Uganda and Rwanda continue with outspoken support for the rebels in Kivu area. Due to the rich Coltan mines in the Kivu/Katanga area the support for the rebels is reaching far beyond the shores of Africa.

2007 - 2009 The third Congo war?
With about 1,5 million people suffering in the Kivu region, the findings of Oil in Kivu and continued illegal exploitation of the mines including Coltan the fuel is at the critical mass to create another full scale war in Congo. Once again the foreign policy of various countries are being heavily lobbied by commercial corporations to support one or the other side. All depending on which "horse"they think will give them the best concessions for easy access to the natural resources. Yet again the people who rightfully should be getting a share of the cake will be left out unless the World finally WAKE UP!!! and is determined to stop this slaughter of people for greed.

I have been many times to then Kivu area. It could be paradise on earth with all the beautiful nature that is there and the friendly people that you will keep running into. Yet they continue to live in despair and are just trying to survive one more day.

People are tired of having to donate to this cause yet unless the same people stand up and say enough is enough everyone will keep having to give support (weither they like it or not) so that a number of corporations and their shareholders can continue to do major profits at the expense of the people in Congo as well as from you.

People suffer - YOU pay direct or in taxes -Corporations exploit and get rich- People suffer - YOU pay - Corporations get even richer

Civil Defence cars Dubai style :-)

I was on my way to Abu Dhabi from Dubai one day. The highway between the towns is a nice 4 lane road in each direction so it is not uncommon that cars drive fast. In UAE you better learn fast that its very important to look in the rear view mirror or you might end up with a Ferrari or Lambourghini in the back of your car. People coming fast normally flash their headlights repeatedly and it would be unwise not to move a side as who knows if the breaks really work that good. UAE has the highest number of fatal road accidents per capita in the whole world.

As I was speeding along I saw a car not flashing lights but having the blue light flashing ontop. I have seen that many times but not from a low yellow car moving as fast as this one was coming. I was driving probably around 180 Km/h and this car was approaching me very fast so I knew it had to do something between 250 - 300 km/h.

The car passed and I could not quite figure out what it was. It looked like a Corvette but never had I seen a Civil Defence Corvette.

It vanished infront of me as fast as it had caught up. I told some friends but they could not believe it either. About a month later we went to the Dubai Airshow and to our amazement the Corvette was there. So it had not been a mirage in the desert :-)


The car does 0 - 100 km/h in 3.9 seconds. Has a top speed of 320 km/h with 512hp in a 7 liter V8. (unless they have asked for a special tuned version which would not be unlikely as the normal Z06 dont have a spolier in the back)

They will for sure get very fast to a fire or accident but knowing that the only rescue equipment it has is the bumpers and a 5 liter fire extingisher there aint much they can do once on the scene..

It should also be noted that most times when there is a fire in Dubai it means a building is burned down to the ground as there is little chance of actually being able to extinguish the fires. I have seen labourcamps, shoppingmalls, warehouses burn on many occasions. Fire-department simply too late, too little.

The Worlds biggest Shopping-mall = The Worlds biggest flop?

I saw that the worlds biggest shopping mall just opened up in Dubai. I have seen it being built for the last 2 or so years as it is just next to our office in Dubai. The road I have taken to work was changed just about every week to make space for the mall. Now it is opened but at the same time the world economies are having a major crisis. So far the reporting in Dubai in general has been positive and spending has been continuing. The signs have though been there that a change was on the way.

About one and a half year ago EMAAR ,one of the largest construction companies, suddenly decided to sell of a larger amount of the apartment blocks they had built for rental. The tenants were basically informed that they had to purchase their apartment within 2 weeks cash or face eviction. Knowing that EMAAR is a multi billion dollar company trying to do a move like that with over 4000 apartments was strange. There was very little to no news reporting about this and other similar strange moves in Dubai.

The minister of Finanace in the UAE still seems very positive as the GDP and inflation has been in the double digits for the last 2 years so even if there was a decline in the overall costs and sales it would not potentially hamper operations in Dubai too much as per their predictions.

Within the last 24 hours there are though a multitude of news reports popping up that houses on the Palm island has dropped over 40% in value and people even try to use SMS spamming to try find buyers. About 40,000 Mobile phone users received a SMS with an offer to buy cheap?! if they were fast. In other places heavily loaned house buyers are trying to sell of fast. Probably not at a loss yet if they purchased about 5 years ago as then their prices where much lower than now.

The market in Dubai have over the last 6 years expanded so extremely that about 20% of the world construction cranes sit in the country. A massive amount of loans have been given and small time investors have purchased several apartments on speculation with full intention of selling them at a much higher price even before they were finished.

Already when I arrived in Dubai in 2002 there was apartment blocks completely empty. Not because people did not want to rent but due to that the owners simply refused to lower the rent and rather kept the apartments empty. But this meant that whole buildings with 200- 300 apartments could stand empty. The boom is now starting to shake in its foundation fast.

Banks are refusing to give loans to expats all over the country. Simply because they expect that there will be larger layoffs off people in large portions of the businesses. Even if Dubai by itself has a lot of money to invest in construction, based on oil and the profits from the Iraq wars the main part of the companies working in the country is companies that have their HQ somewhere else in the world. Dubai by itself do not have any raw material thus it is built on the trade and potential refinement of raw material imported.

The main travel companies in Europe are seeing a stop in the holiday bookings and are cutting down fast among the destinations and booking of hotel for charters, thus the influx of tourists for the shopping malls and hotels in Dubai will shortly also take a big hit. The newly opened Atlantis hotel has dropped the room rates from 400+ USD to around 44 USD per night with less than 30% occupancy rates.

Gulf news
By Suzanne Fenton, Staff ReporterPublished: November 22, 2008, 23:27
Dubai: Business at Atlantis, the $1.5 billion (Dh5.5 billion) hotel on the Palm Jumeirah is slow, with room rates slashed dramatically and occupancy low.
Despite the grand opening of the resort on Thursday night, which saw stars and celebrities descend on the Palm, causing actual residents difficulty accessing their own homes, business is not so impressive. Full story

With all this I would guess that there is a quite big chance for Dubai taking a Guiness World Record Title they probably would not want to see nor ever expected. The Largest Shopping-Mall in the world becoming the Largest shopping flop in the world in the shortest time ever. Over the last week alone the retail business has dropped over 20% in some areas.

Congo DRC, History repeating itself

I just read a piece on the BBC and was actually more interested in the comments around the article than the article/debate item itself.

Can Congo be saved from crisis?
More than 3,000 extra UN peacekeepers are needed in the eastern DR Congo to protect civilians there. Will this help the crisis?The head of UN peacekeeping, Alain Le Roy, said current peacekeeper numbers were not enough to protect civilians from violence perpetrated by rebel groups and the Congolese army. There are 9,000 UN peacekeepers in the region, out of 17,000 nationwide.The latest crisis began in August when rebels advanced towards Goma, which is now ringed with refugee camps. What can be done to stabilise eastern DR Congo? Are you satisfied with the performance of the UN peacekeepers? Are you in DR Congo or Rwanda? Read the story


The news reporting itself is the same as it always has been. There are no new angles to find in a story that has gone on for almost 50 years or is there? Somehow the basic facts of what is behind the story somehow always get lost. Maybe because it would hit too close to home for comfort??
I personally do not really believe an increment of 3,000 soldiers on top of 9,000 would do even a slight difference when there is about 1.5 Million people who are running away from their homes. I would believe that those 12,000 or so soldiers would be trampled to death if the hoard of people fleeing actually were set in motion, even if they had no bad intentions. During the Rwanda Genocide UN had even more soldiers in Rwanda and they could do nothing when the violence started.

There are so many angles on should EU, US, Nato, UN help the people in Congo DRC with the current crisis. Some people say, give the various tribes their own land so they can live in peace. Other say they (the Congolese) dont want us (Europeans) help anyway so lets just not care. They did after all throw the Belgians out in the 60s. Let them solve it themselves. The range of comments basically goes from a full scale intervention by an army to get all arms out of the hands of the population/ rebels/ freedomfighters/ tribes to simply just leave it be and see what happens, after all it is their problem?




”It is easy to turn the responsibility over to others or, perhaps, to seek explanations in some kind of laws of history. It is less easy to look for the reasons within ourselves or in a field where we, all of us, carry major responsibility. However, such a search is necessary, because finally it is only within ourselves and in such fields that we can hope, by our own actions, to make a valid contribution to a turn of the trend of events.”
– From speech by Dag Hammarskjöld at the University of Cambridge, 5 June 1958 (Falkman 2005, p. 193).

I sometimes wonder what the best approach would be, but no matter how its done there will be a lot of people that suffer. People that are affected yet they have no part whatsoever in what is going on around them. Pure victims to a situation they can not get themselves out of.

Its easy to say ”Let them solve it themselves as we are no party to it and they dont want our help.” But that aint the truth in any circumstance...

Unfortunately the First world countries ARE the problem.

Congo is one of the richest countries in the world when it comes to natural resources. But in most cases the population never see a cent of anything that is mined, neither will they ever.
Rwanda is the biggest exporter of Coltan which is used in batteries and capacitors for Ipod's, Laptops, mobiles and so forth. Yet they actually dont have that material in Rwanda?! It is stolen from Congo. The Road to the Horizon has an article on this called "Did your laptop cause the war in Congo?"
There is Oil in Eastern Congo which has not yet even been explored. This does however not mean that no one is trying. There are large copper mines and other mines galore in the country. The land itself is so fertile that if you eat an orange and spit the seeds out, the seed will grow in a few weeks. Both problems as that mean people might be in the way of the treasures that lie benieth.
To say that we should leave the Congo alone to solve their own problems means that you first have to remove the greed for the resources in the country, by all other countries. I have worked in the region between 1997 -2001 and keep following up on what is going on even though I dont work there anymore.

Already then I saw a lot of strange things going on.

- Unmarked US planes flying in military "advisors" and "material" via Uganda
-”Advisors” from South Africa
-”Advisors” from Russia
-”Advisors” from France
-”Advisors” from China
-”Advisors” from India

Ugandan military commanders flying in with foreign business partners?

This was already happening in 1998 when a plane with the brother of the current Army boss of Uganda, crashed and died while on a gold trading mission in Congo. Well the current aint so current as he was charged and convicted of a large fraud with Army funds... I just found out now when reading up again on the story.

The list seems endless.It is not that these ”advisors” necessarily had any plans to try help the population in Eastern Congo, it was rather that they were trying to negociate contracts for mining that would see the full potential once there was finally peace in the area?, or is it? Maybe it is actually better that there is continous instability in the area so that companies supported by some rich countries can loot the treasures without paying decently for any of the resources being taken out? Afterall, people that are fleeing and starving will not see or care about the looting of the resources, will they?! Can it be that cynical? I actually think it is as all the non- mainstream information when looked at keep pointing glaringly in that direction.

There is ban on buying Elephant husks, war Diamonds.. But that was only because the general public discovered the looting?!

The problem that the people in Congo are facing is thus not their own. It is actually a problem that to the most extent is created and kept alive by the rich countries around the world. To stop sending aid to the area can only happen once the same governments get fully transparent about their real motives for being in the country in the first place. In the 50s and 60s it was easier for a few countries to loot the resources. The African states around Congo had so many internal problems they did not have to many stakes in Congo. However since the last 20 years even the surrounding countries in Africa want to claim their part of the Congo wealth.
While sending aid and advisors there is also Arms dealers like what was shown in ”Lord of War”. While the movie is intended as good entertainment the fact is it is actually very close to the truth. Arms dealers sanctioned by various countries governments. Ofcourse they cant be seen as doing this kind of trade so it happens behind the scenes. All disguised while the countries officially is helping the poor African country and takes the positive credits for the donations and loans given.

Congo is a particularly interesting country for historical reasons.

• Belgian colonization.


• The Congo war with UN involvement in the 50-60s while trying to obtain freedom.


• Killing of the UN Secretary General under mysterious circumstances.


• The obscure ways of the rich powers putting Patrice Lumumba in power only to be assasinated and replaced by Mobutu. Mobutu a very cruel but smart dictator. Himself part of a puzzle not created necessarily by the Congolese but rather by the rich countries exploiting Congo.
  
  

All this is part of various schemes of accessing the rich natural resources in Congo by parties among developped world countries, sometimes through proxy countries in Africa itself. It has absolutely nothing to do with actually trying to help the population. It might sound cynical but in this case the rich powers are extremely cynical. In some countries it is simply called "Foreign Policy". That the policy is then created to actually help companies exploit countries in the best possible way for the market back home is not very visible but not less cynical.

It is however very easy to see what is actually happening. 3 words sums it all up. 3 words which was also put in a movie many years ago.

"Follow the money" Classical words in the movie about the Watergate scandal. These days it though seems like the media for the most part is more interested in being in the hands of the powers that rule rather than being critical at looking at the full scope of the news they create.

In many cases the Dictators and corrupt governments in the poor countries are blamed for not being able to build up their standards. But who can blame them when they are shown the full potential by their counterparts who simply apply their "foreign policy" and encourage corruption through advisors and companies. It seems easier to teach someone how to become corrupt than to teach someone to build a proper functioning country where the citizens can thrive. The intrest is definetely on the former as it gives quicker gains for the lucky few.

Taking pride in your work

Since I am travelling a lot I see a lot of hotels, guesthouses and so forth. One thing that has always interested me in these travels is to look at architecture as well as workmanship. Some of this ofcourse comes from my father who has worked on construction-sites all his life and also because I have it in my mind to build my own house one day. I still remember the time when we one Christmas day 30 years ago got out all the sledges and started hammering away in the house to expand my brothers room and how much pride my father took in completing the work in full accordance with all the rules and regulations as well as to the full esthetical potential.. Mind you the walls in the house I grew up in was not necessarily straight... but after my father had remodelled you could measure it to a millimeters perfection.

I have just come back from a trip to Nyala Darfur and in 3 nights I actually shifted room 3 times. In the first the AC did not work. In the second I almost had a fire as there was a bad connection in the AC electricity plug. I was very lucky. I did not take any pictures in Nyala as the risk of ending up in trouble with a camera was too great. Mind you this was the "New" guest house.

I am now back in Khartoum and am staying in a very good guesthouse. Its referred to as the Southafrican guesthouse most of the time as the owner is from there. It is by far the best place to stay at present in Khartoum. For 90 USD you get 3 meals, all the laundry done once a day and wireless internet. There is a free gym with jacuzzi, swimingpool and a TV lounge. Quite a good package for the money you pay compared to anything else we have found so far.

I just moved in to a room on the top floor when I noticed a few things which just makes me laugh.

I try to go in to the bathroom and can not open the door properly as it is stopped by the washbasin as the distance is too short, so I have to squezze myself in.

Once inside I shave and while looking in the mirror I realize that it is offset from the center above the washbasin... (am quite sure the worker installing it did this as he did not close the bathroomdoor and thus could not easily get it centred, or was it because he was afraid to crack the tile?)

I then turn around and notice that on the floor there is one type of floor inside the bathroom and another outside the bathroom.. Except that under the bathroom door and going into the bedroom the bathroom tiles are sticking out!!

Then I look at the door out to the hallway and see that the guys putting up the wall for some reason decided to offset the wall by a few centimeters thus leaving most of the doorframe inside the room. None of this makes sense.

If they guys putting up the thin (non bearing) wall had put the wall where it was supposed to be, 10 cm further inside the bedroom and thus aligned with the hallway-door then the bathroom door would have perfectly passed the washbasin and that door would have opened all the way. Then no tiles would have been sticking out in the bedroom and the guy mounting the mirror could have centered it as is normal. Soo easy and yet so difficult.

I am also the only one in the guesthouse who have a balcony. I am sure it was supposed to be a glassdoor but it aint, yet there is windowblinds infront of the door.

Ofcourse I can not lock the door to the balcony as there is something wrong in the locking mechanism.. Atleast I am 4 floors up and no one else have access to the balcony so I should be ok.

Seeing these kind of things make me wonder... Is it just me being picky or is the level of pride people take in their work just not there? It sure seems like it for these construction workers, yet the staff working in maintaining this guesthouse is the most dedicated I have seen in a very long time.

Unlikely Coincidences

That the world is becoming smaller as we get easier access to travel and can fly anywhere on the globe is well known. This sometimes lead to strange coincidences. In 1990 I chartered a 54 foot sailing boat for me and some friends to sail to a very small and very remote place called Banaba (Ocean Island)almost on the equator and in the middle of the South Pacific. This was one of the Ham radio expeditions that I organised a few times. Banaba is as 12 days sail from Fiji were we started from or can be a 2 day sail if you mange to get to Kiribati Islands. The island now has about 300 inhabitants most of the time but when i was there they were less than a hundred. Mainly there to ensure the country can lay claim on the fishing rights that go with the territory. Since the guano (used as fertilizer) has been dug out, there is little to no other reasons to keep the island financially, than for the fishing rights that go with it. In 1980 the the island was left in a hurry by the Brits and Australians doing the mining.

5 years later in 1995 I was still working with a commercial company and I was installing satellite TV systems on Ships of various nature. Among them was a Norweigan coastguard ship. I flew up to Bodoya in Norway to meet the boat. The boat was in port for supply so the timing was good.

Once on board we started a trip further north while still going in close to the shore. I worked and tested the antenna and late at night went to bed. In the morning when I woke up there was no land in sight anywhere. The idea was to test the system by finding the rough sea! while getting closer to Jan Mayen, the western most Norweigan island in the north sea. After 2 days we saw the island and the tests were found to be just OK. Thus my work was concluded. As we had a helicopter on board I figured they would find away for me to get off the boat. This was not to be the case for the next 5 days though. The helicopter could not fly far enough to get me ashore and they would be heading further up north to inspect the fishing boats in the north sea. A lot of Russian fishing boats were up there. It was kind of strange to see so many boats as we did once up in the helicopter. As I had nothing to do I was allowed to join the crew flying out to the ships. We hovered and lowered down the inspectors to various boats. It was good fun as I love being in helicopters.

We continued sailing north and one day we came very close to Bear Island (Bjoernoya). Being a radio amateur I was of course very interested in that island as it was its own entity and almost impossible to get access to visit under any circumstance.

The helicopter crew asked if I wanted to go ashore and have lunch with the team that normally live on the island and of course I wanted to. So once more we took off with the Lynx helicopter. It is quite an exiting moment when taking off or landing from a small deck on a moving ship. Luckily for me the pilot was the number one instructor they had in the navy in the whole of Norway so I figured I was in good hands. That he loved flying I had already discovered but when we flew in over Bear island it became even more evident. As there is almost no animals nor houses on the island with only about 5 -6 residents there at any time we did not need to abide by any flight restrictions in terms of height. We flew less than 30 meters above the ground and in between the valleys and it was an amazing flight. Low flying and with high speed was a real thrill, talk about roller-coaster ride.


We landed next to the permanent radio/Loran station they have on the island and jumped off. Me and 2 more guys were going to stay there for lunch while the helicopter continued for their work inspecting ships.

We were welcomed with open arms. The guys staying on the island was more than happy to finally have some other people to talk to. As they lived there 6-12 months at a time it could become a bit boring only talking to 5 other guys. We enjoyed the lunch and they showed us around the station and it was very interesting. While chatting with one of the guys about travels we ended up on the topic of South Pacific. I mentioned my backpacking trips and the charters I had done a few years before. The radio operator then says -well I was posted in Banaba in 1975 before heading out on some ships as radio operator. I could not quite believe it. There was never more than 2000 people on Banaba at anyone time (mostly imported Asian workers) and there was only 6 people on Bjoernoya and yet we were two people who had both been to same 2 km island in the pacific and manage to meet up on a just as small remote island in the North Sea of the Atlantic. I am not even able to figure out what the odds of a meeting like that would be but it seems to happen anyway. We continued our journey and when we finally cam close to land we were at the Russian border just above Kirkenes. From there it took me 5 different flights and a whole day to get to Oslo and then another day to get back home to Dalby, Sweden.

Strange as it seems I have two very similar experiences with very unlikely random meetings.

In 1989 I went to a small island called Rotuma in Fiji. To get to the island you have to arrange to live with the locals. There are about 200 people on the island and there are maybe 5 - 10 outside visitors a year on the island. Despite that I manage to have the seat next to a Danish guy (when flying from Copenhagen to Rome) who happened to have been to Rotuma also, 2 years after I was there.

I come from a small village in Sweden called Dalby. In my school there was 1000 students. In 1988 when I flew as a backpacker to Pacific and Australia I went to Frazier Island. There I see a familiar face and found out it was a girl who went to the same school as me just two years apart. She actually was in my little brothers class. That year these was 30,000 travellers from Sweden in Australia inclusive of all package tours. Now what are that chances that among 1000 people there are 2 who would travel to the other side of the world, get onto the same small uninhabited island, on the same day and actually meet.

I am sure there are mathematical formulas that would say it is more common than one might think :-) But it still amazes me.

You know you are in an emergency when...

There are so many anecdotes that can be said about an emergency in relation to things that don't work, crazy thing happening and so forth. All the below anecdotes are though true...

You know you are in an emergency when...

You hear a gunshot just outside your hotel bar and all people suddenly disappear.
You have 5km to find a toilette and shower even though you are in a town.
You for one week only can find an omelet to be the only edible thing in a town.
You see all the selection in a bar is disappearing in front of you with no replenishment.
You go to the main hotel in town and they serve half your team and then says sorry food finished.
You find yourself on a balcony heating military food rations gazing at military helicopters flying around with searchlights trying to find people who are putting houses on fire.
You have paid 100 USD for a substandard hotel room and still end up sitting outside town sleeping in a car.
You have to try kill about a thousand locusts in your room before you can go to bed.
You have to shovel away a mountain of locusts in front of your bedroom door.
You eat before sunset as the only generator in the place has not worked for 3 months.
You eat fish and rice for lunch and is lucky to find either fish or rice for dinner.
You are happy to sleep in a tent as the ground is shaking from earthquakes every 10 minutes.
You start re-using even your underwear as there has been only bottled water for the last 3 weeks in very limited quantities.

2 months, 3 continents, Taj Mahal and a new posting

Was just sitting updating my blog and realized that I had not had time to actually finalize and post the story about my trip to Fiji and that was 2 months ago even though it was written. It just shows how consuming our work and travels can be. The below story is a compilation of what has happened during the two months after that trip.

After arriving back to Dubai from Fiji/Australia I was in Dubai 2 weeks only to plan my trips to Delhi, India to and then from there straight to Derby, UK. Both trips of one week each and then I went back to Dubai for my last 2 weeks there.

As I have been posted in Dubai for 6 years I was up for re-assignment within WFP, an exercise which can make you very happy or very unhappy, for sure it will affect your life. The final agreeement was just done for my move while I stepped onboard the plane to India. It was agreed that I would take up a new posting in Rome at our Head Quarter and due to the project I would need to move within one month.

I just arrived in Rome last Sunday and quickly found an apartment about 800 meters away from Colosseum through one of my colleagues. I dropped my bags in the apartment and started work Monday morning. Then ofcourse Easter came up as I was back in Europe so I booked a seat on the last flights to head over to Copenhagen so I could get back to my parents to celebrate Easter. So here I am now on Easter Friday in Sweden. Something I have not even thought about doing for the last 6 years while being based in the middle east. Meanwhile my wife and son is still in Dubai :-(

This is the typical life working with the most dynamic UN organisation there is. To work and keep moving like this is not possible unless you really have the passion for the work you do and have a family that will put up with the constant travels and moves that happen. It is always stressful on the family life.

Luckily for me, my wife met me while I was travelling like this already so it is probably harder on me than her as I dont want to miss the little new things our baby does every day of his life.

While handing over my duties in Delhi and saying goodbye to the 25 superb staff I was supervising there, Pawan, the supervisor for the offshored global ICT servicedesk that I had been asked to set up, offered to take me to Agra to see the Taj Mahal but also a place called Fatepu Sikri, this on my last day in India. Over the last one and a half year I have been in India for work numerous times but had actually never been outside the office or hotel to see any of the sites including Taj Mahal, yet it was only 3 hours drive from Delhi.

Pawan and his wife's driver picked me up in the morning and we started the very interesting journey out to Agra. Even though we were driving on a proper highway with serious barriers between cars going in our direction and the others going back toward Delhi we had to be careful. It seemed like a national sport to go against the traffic also on a main highway. No one wanted to go an extra 200 meters to find the proper entry to the road so jsut go against traffic was the norm.

I think it took about 20 miniutes for both me and Pawan to figure out that our driver was not really of a higher caliber either. If he could speed up and hit the break just before hitting the guy infront he seemed happy and if there was no traffic for miles then he would slow down way below the speed limit, well that is if there was one as we never saw a sign.

After one hour Pawan swapped with the driver and I could finally release my foot from the imaginary brake I had been pushing. Telling me to remind him to tell his wife to fire the driver on our return.

McDonalds dont serve beef in India!
We stopped at several local places to get some coffee but neither of us thought that they looked very inviting so we continued until we saw a McDonalds. We ordered some coffee and I was just looking at the menu and to my surprise I did not see Big Mac. Hmm, but ofcourse no Big Mac.. That would have been an insult in a country were all cows are holy. I then remembered my first mission to India. We had been so busy going between potential offices that we had just stopped to get a quick snack and it happened to be a McDonalds. As I was busy in a telephone conference while driving I had just asked them to get me a bigmac. When the burger arrived I took a bite and it did not taste like what I had ordered. I did not think more of it at the time except that it seemed someone had not heard what I wanted. Now I was reading the menu on my last day in India and it just struck me how crazy it must have sounded the first time. Learning about the cultures we visit is a very interesting part as well as important part of what we need to do in our work.

Then I was thinking to myself, why on earth even put up an McDonalds in a country that dont even eat beef. There is so much good food with such a variety in India.

We continued our very interesting journey and first visited Fatepu Sikri.

It was a very nice old palace area with a very interesting history. To cut it very short the basic story was that there was this very rich guy and ruler of the are who about 500 years ago first married a Muslim woman. He built here a small house of one room. She never gave him any sons. Later on he married a Christian woman and she neither gave him a son but he built her a bigger house, which even had and upstairs area. then finally he married a Hindu woman and she gave him a son so he built her a palace whihc was about the double size of his own palace.. Infact he built her two just opposite of eachother one for the winter with less windows and one for the summer with many windows.

What was very interesting is that in all the houses/palaces all the religious signs and markings are prevailant from all religions in all the places. Now considering that this is built 500 years ago means that this man was way ahead of his time. We in this "so called modern" world can not even tear down the walls between the religions in this way. Its rather the opposite and it scars me that there can be so many religious fanatics in any and all the religions when infact most of the documented history somehow links together anyway.

Anyway then we continued to Taj Mahal. I have heard so many stories about this wonder of the world. Nothing could though have prepared me for the beauty of seeing it through the arch as we entered into the courtyard were it is located. It is the most amazing building I have ever seen and I have by now travelled quite some. The attention to detail is just overwhelming when you stand there infront of it. One thing which is very interesting is what most people are not told. All the 20,000 some workers who worked on the Taj Mahal all had their hands chopped off so they could not replicate or build something similar ever again. Talk about sacrifice for a wonder of the world.

Here I was several hundred years later trying to imagine what it must have looked like in those old days. Me, Pawan and many thousands more people. For sure it is a wonder and no one going to India should miss it.

We enjoyed the sunset out by the Taj Mahal and then headed back to Delhi.. Almost 4 hours night driving. We arrived at my hotel and just had time to do the final packing and just check out heading straight to the airport. I slept all the way to Dubai dreaming of the history days relaizing how lucky I am to still be travelling and working in these places.

The sad part is that it was also the last trip for me to India for some time. For now, my job is done there. I have set up 3 offshored units which all have very good people who for the most part would never hear that they are superb staff. Just for the simple reason that offshoring by default is a bad word as it means people in another place potentially lost their jobs as it could be done equally or in some cases better, but far cheaper in another location around the globe. While this offshoring might be sad it also shows that UN can save money for the real benficiaries.

46 days, 16 Countries and 37 flights later...

When 9/11 hit, Peter was based in Islamabad-Pakistan, and stood with one leg in a plane, ready to leave for a long assessment mission to Central and South America.. As we all knew it was going to be busy time in Central Asia for the next six months, Peter cancelled his trip, called me on the phone and asked me to fill in. This was the story I wrote about the trip. A typical story of "us being on the road the whole time"...
This story was first published on Peters blog and I have added in more details as well as pictures from the trip to the story in this annotated version.

Dear all,

I am on the final stage of my mission through our Central and South America offices in eleven countries: Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, Dominican Republic, Haiti, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Peru and Cuba.

This mission was organised in less than a week following the Sep 11th bombing in the US. I was on my way to West Africa for another assessment mission when I got a call from HQ to re-prioritize, with departure... euh.. immediately.

I have been away for 46 days now. During those 46 days I have taken 37 different flights. I have checked in and out of hotels 20 times. In several places I woke up in the morning not recognising the hotel room, wondering what country I was in, not a nice feeling.



I have been travelling through a total of 16 countries to asses 11 of them and visited 20 different offices. 70% of the flights were before 07:30 AM, just to make sure I did not enjoy a full night's sleep or breakfast. Especially if you know that most airlines here require you to check in three hours before take-off. I guess I am now an instant "Frequent Flyer Gold Status" on TACA-airlines !

In Miami I spent 5 hours going through 3 different security checks with my luggage as all passenger traffic had been rerouted to one location. Explaining to 4 guys how come I had so many stamps from various African countries who would for sure be on a terrorist list. When I finally was ready to board the plane, the automatic boarding pass machine spit out my boarding pass one more time which meant I had to once more open all my luggage as well as go through yet one more x-ray machine. Despite 5 hours in the airport I actually never even had a chance to sit down and have a coffee. That after already having travelled for 20 hours since leaving Kampala, Uganda.

On one occasion in Honduras I flew for 30 minutes, take-off at 0600 in the morning to arrive in San Pedro Sula to immediately continue in a car for 4 hours to reach Santa Cruz Copan. We stayed there about 30 minutes while I did the assesment and then drove straight back to San Pedro Sula. The morning after I was back in the air heading back to Tegucigalpa. At 6 AM.

In the Dominican Republic I had a whole weekend for myself.. "Great", I thought.. Until I turned on the TV and found a hurricane was heading straight at us... So I got locked up in the hotel room the whole of Saturday!

In Dominican Republic there was no flight to Port-au-Prince as the airline was grounded due to insurance problems. So I ended up going by road from Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic to Cap Haitien, Haiti, a trip of about 6 hours total. Crossing the border between the two countries was like being instantly teleported back to Africa. The next day at 0700 I flew out of Cap Haitien to Port-au-Prince on a local airline. The morning after I was out of Haiti heading to Columbia.

In Colombia I flew to Apartado via Medellin. In Medellin you land at one airport and you have to transfer to another airport to take a small plane to get to Apartado (Apartado = far away!). Well, these airports are one hours drive apart(ado). The area is more known as the FARC controlled areas in Colombia.
Up on the mountain above Bogota.

As they were warming up for the Miss Colombia beauty contest and had just selected the local beautyqueen the same day I arrived, I had the fortune of being kissed farewell by Miss Apartado at the Airport when leaving.

I lost my seat on the overbooked morning flight to Quito.. All my tickets got cancelled as I showed up as a no-show passenger on their computer... on the flight from Santo Domingo which THEY cancelled... I spent nine hours at the airport as the evening flight was delayed. Technical problems! When things go wrong they go WRONG! I could have gone back to the office but I had to spend almost two hours getting my booking for seats back on the remaining 15 flights I had on that ticket.

The Courtyard in Potosi, Bolivia. Once the capital of the Spanish conquistadors in S. America.


Heading out of Peru en route to Cuba via Panama the plane ended up doing an emergency landing in Quito as a passenger in business class had a fatal heart attack.

In Cuba I arrived with no visa.. Usually that is not a problem since I have both a UNLP [a UN passport] and a Swedish passport... But not in Cuba! Either you have a visa or you spend two hours waiting with no clue about what is going on... And they will make sure the people waiting for you in the arrivals hall do not know you are there...

In Cuba they changed back to winter time during my stay.. Well I didn't find out until almost a day later. No wonder there were no people in the restaurant at 0800 on Sunday for breakfast.. Because it was only 0700 for all the others?!

Once back in Managua it all ended up in a bit of a chaos as there were presidential elections and the security team decided to escalate the security precautions, demanding all non-essential staff to stay put.

A second Hurricane showed up during this final stage of the mission, killing at least four in Honduras before heading full speed for Cuba.

One day before my departure day out of the region I got the news that Sabena has filed for chapter 11 and Brussels Airport was on strike. Straight on my return flight route, of course! So all my return flights had to be changed to a different routing with yet one more ticket... That makes a total of 16 tickets. My travel expense claim will be interesting..

Yours Sincerely,
Mats
(in an airport somewhere)

20 years ago I decided to travel the world

Just sitting here at Sydney airport on my way back home to Dubai after dropping my 10 year old daughter back to Fiji. Yeah I know it sounds a bit crazy but I guess that is my life.

It all started 20 years ago just around this time of the year. I was still in the army in 1987/88 and we were out camping in the snow!

Being a lower officer in the army, with mandatory service, I was out on exercise with my platoon. We were out for 3 weeks in the cold winter. The weather was absolutely appaulling considering we had to camp in tents. It was about 0 degrees daytime so everything melted and we got wet, only to freeze to about -10 C in the night. I still remember about 4 nights when the fireguard either fell asleep or simply had forgotten how to keep the fire going. With the result that we, or rather I, had to restart the fire in the middle of the night. It was 3 weeks of hell for me. I hate cold weather, I hate being cold and wet especially. One of those dark nights again I could not sleep with things flying through my mind.

I was cursing the situation so many times I even forgot the count. Then suddenly one night I just had enough. Not that I could do anything to get out of there but at least I could occupy my mind with something else. For some reason I just said to myself -Next winter I will be as far away from cold Sweden as I possibly can get. I will be on the opposite side of the world for the whole winter. The thought was as simple as that.

From that moment my mind was fully occupied with just that idea. We continued our exercises but I was in another world all together. The idea of being on the other side of the world consumed every moment in the misery :-)

From Sweden that would mean a place like Australia and maybe New Zealand. My mind was already made up and nothing would be able to change me from going. I just started thinking of every detail I would have to plan and get ready to do what I had set out to do. Money, VISA, Itinerary... the list was endless but the more I thought about it the more real it became and the more interesting it became.

After the camping trip we were back in the barracks and got some free time in the evenings. I immediately started to check all sources I had in regards to flights and travel magazines. I found a book called the pacific Handbook which was like a bible on how to travel in the pacific by air or by boat, everything was covered. Much like the Lonely planetbooks do today but they are for my taste missing the original target these days. (later I found anothe ruse for it, being my pillow in some places ;-)

Hmm why only go to Australia and New Zealand I thought after reading a bit. I could by a ticket for about 1000 USD from Copenhagen via Los Angeles to Hawaii, Fiji, Australia, New Zealand, Cook islands, and Tahiti. For an additional 200 USD I could add in Tonga and Samoa islands. There was so many options but it was clear that I could do more than just got to one place. Living costs in pacific could be very cheap if I wanted to so even a budget of 2000 USD for living costs for 6 months would do it.

I told my parents the idea and they simply said. - You must be crazy. Go to pacific backpacking alone and you have never even travelled in Europe let alone in Sweden nor anywhere. hmm for me that seemed such a minor detail that it was dismissed immediately :-)

September 17 , 1998 I flew out as planned. I returned back from my pacific back packing trip in end February 1989. When I flew out of Tahiti towards Los Angeles I was already planning the second trip. A trip which lasted 8 month.

This was the simple start of something that I would never have imagined. On the return back from my trips I just new I would not be able to work and live in Sweden. The world was too interesting to see and with so many countries to visit I just had to find a way to see more of it.

Little did I know then that 10 years later I would find a job were I could get to explore the world as I now keep doing.

My daughter was born in 1997, the same year I joined UN. I am just sitting here at Sydney airport being sad having left her behind in Fiji were she lives with her mom. But at the same time I'm happy. My daughter lives in paradise on Taveuni Island. The island were the dateline goes right through and they see every day first in the world. The same place were the Blue Lagoon film was partially filmed years back. The first time I saw Fiji and Australia is exactly 20 years ago. Since then I have flown numerous times around the globe. I have had the top frequent flyer cards with Emirates 5 years in a row, KLM another 5, Sabena another 5 years and even SAS Eurobonus another 3 years. Looking at the miles I have flown it is way above a Million miles. I have seen paradise places, been in hell on earth and everything between during the 20 years that has followed that initial Backpacking trip to Pacific.

Above is a map that shows the flight paths I have taken in red and either boat or car ride in blue.

People say you are getting old when you start looking back at memories. Maybe it is but for me it rather feels like there has been so little time to actually really think about what I have seen and done over the years. The few times I can relax and actually think back it takes time to just even try sort the mind out.

I just got another mail from my boss. He wants me to go to West Africa to investigate a potential place for us to open up a new office. This year I also have to move out of Dubai as we normally change posting every 4 years and I have overstayed almost two years. Can only wonder, were will I go this time and what part of the world can I then explore further.