First off hello to everyone and thank you for the emails!

The internet here is sporadic and very slow, but hey at least it’s a gateway to the world and more importantly home. I will try and update you from our arrival in Khartoum on the 16th of May. We arrived in the late afternoon and man was it hot. The thing that struck me getting off the aircraft was the heat which was like a wall as you stepped out into the air. We were processed by Customs and Immigration without major incident aside from quite a few forms and the like. Next was arranging and collecting all of our kit. Out of 20 members all but one got their two big blue bags and two barracks boxes. Fortunately his kit arrived the next day so all was good.

By the time we walked out of the terminal it was dusk with the sun just starting to go down. The Amman's in the mosques were calling the people to their evening prayers and their chants/prayers could be heard as we exited. Immediately in front of us were an absolute a wall of people and behind them taxis, tuk tuks, and vans. The UN contact spotted us and we began to load our kit into the buses. Trust me no easy feat given the heat and the shear weight of the kit itself.

From the airport it was a 20 minute through the street of Khartoum including a lap around what we now call the "Traffic Circle of Death". Driving in Khartoum if not the whole of Sudan is something to be experienced! To us as North Americans our brains have been schooled to think along linear lines. Not so here. Lane markings, intersections and 'orderly' traffic flow do not exist to our unaccustomed eyes. People navigate through the flow of traffic like dancers in a ballroom of old. There is order and there is reason however when you first are in the middle of this maelstrom of metal and engines the impression you have is of absolute pandemonium... Now is all fairness and as a testament to the human ability to encounter, adapt and accept radical changes in an unfamiliar environment I am pleased to say that after near a month, all of this seems rather common place!

We were dropped off at the unofficial Canada House where we quickly split up the twenty members to two apartments, VERY tight quarters to say the least. But no one squawked and everyone did their best to give the other guy or gal their space. Brenda our unofficial Canadian contact at the UN was fabulous helping us get set up, not to mention the Canadian Military who could not do enough for us! While Brenda took a couple of us to a store for water the military guys supplied cots and got us squared away. By the second night we all had a cot to sleep and cold water to drink. Oh and drink you did!! I think the first week each of us on average drank between 8 and ten liters a day. The thing was you weren't passing it in the usual manner no not at all in fact we noticed how we should have been running to the toilet but weren't. Instead we were sweating it out!