My home, my private space, my identity

Just now, I am writting from this little place, I have, and where I can spend time: sleeping and relaxing, thinking and writting, listening to music, getting away from everything and anyone.... its the place where I only spend so little time, but where I enjoy so much freedom. Of course, im talking about my compartement (bed) in the common tent shared by about 20 other people.

We have those beautiful separations which only isolate you from the other regards, I say, "from the look" because, you still can hear, can smell..etc everything. After all, it is only a thick sheet separation between the neightbourgh and yourself. Itimacy isnt the best thing here, but where your mind goes is pure freedom. Regardless of the noise and smells, when I travel there I then can allow myself all the fantasy and dreams I ever wish to have, I can rewind parts of my life and revisit my experiences, be it pain, be it love, be it anything, its always with an amazing pleasure that meet You in my thought, You, My people, the Ones I have shared something with at any time in my life. Be it Love, be it Friendship or just a random minute, it has been part of my thoughts many times. This is how I feel when isolate from all, and sometimes lonely. It is of course not all green like it looks. For sure I love my work, I love life, but most of all, I love you. you who read my web, my email, or make my journey through life such an extraordinary trip. . And in all this Green, there is the Other Side, this one even Greener, where sometimes I wish I would be, with you my people.

Houses of the world

Tonight, starts a new type of post. I thought it would be interesting to compare peoples homes and living conditions from different countries. I shall hope to keep this updated on a regular bases with new pictures. The first pic will go to Sudan! Since is a place where I have spent my first 8 month on this mission's job, it was needed to honor it! In sudan, these houses are called "Tukels", they are built of dried mud and dried grass/weat? they aren't water proof, and very vulnerable to fire! Inside, you usualy find the most modest furnishement with one/two bed(s) (usualy made of colorful strings) , a large pot , and that is pretty much it! the surrounding is for most made of a little perimeter, in which you might find more beds, a donkey, kids, or plastic bags in a lots of cases! Plastic bags, at least in Darfur states are given with almost anything you may buy. They are extremely thin, and fragile. Unfortunately, also very light, as a result, since litters are not available anywhere, the streets and villages usualy hold a huge population of the plastic bags which migrates along with the wind and eventualy die on one of these houses perimeter.... The "tucool" is a rather popular house, but it may be unaccessible to some who then live under 4 wooden sticks and a roof of dried herbs/grass!

Voila, see you next time for an other house of the world.

Lightray sunset!

Beautiful Sunset on Bagh (Kasmir).

Thanks the welders!

There I am waiting for the brackets to be done. Indeed, despite the tremendous amount of equipment, you still have to make your own stuff sometimes!! In thie case I had to get some brackets and tube welding done! It took a solid 3 hours to get all the parts togethers around town, then i brought them all to the welders for welding (confection of the beautiful brackets).

But here I am with my brand new beautiful red brackets!!! It was worth the wait, after 1 day and an half, I managed to get the very well hand built brackets! The red painting is mine tho! :) An other few hours later and the antenna was up! This made my day and happy day. Thanks to that antenna the NGO's in the district can from now on use our network to get the logistics or what ever needs coordination going! yiiipeee...

Beaten my fears, got the job done!

The climbing of telecom towers is a rather usual task I have to do in this work, up to now I had climbed up to 30 meters at the most, and it had been a real mission at the time. Yesterday, I had o face a new challenging situation and overcome some serious fear. Unfortunately, I am the only person on the camp which is suppose to get up there, and if i dont do it, they would have to send an other technician specificaly for the task!

It took me a few days of thinking before i felt able to get up there. Then, yesterday early morning, I decided that it was the time to go for it and just beat the adrenaline rush! I made the first 25 meters with no big problems, but past that stage, I started sweating a lot and feeling the moves of the tower. It wasn't like properly moving as a tree would do, but it was twisting on it self and all the way through down to the ground! The most interesting part in this is that you should have no reasons to fear anything! The tower is usually well maintained by iron wires on all side, and is designed to support such an event! However, it is the mind which is not design at this stage to just walk up there like on the sandy beach! It took me such an effort to get through this "what about if...... is it going to hold..... am I really abe to......" questions. Eventually I found the motivations to make it up the top and install the required stuff up there! The reward: an absolutely stunning panoramic view on the whole camp and its surrounding which you would not guess from the ground! when you are up there you feel like you are invisible to all, and that you can observe a whole world of activities. Since you have a fairly long distance view, you can choose to live in the view down the tower, or just about over there in the mountains near by! Then, just like it this wasnt enough, once you are down the tower, you feel happy, very happy and it is not because you have been up there watching the view, but it is because you have managed to do something you thought you would not be able to do! This is what I think is the important thing to keep from this! I will always remember this experience and carry it with me as much as I can! Sometimes, its worth a try to fight with yourself to grow!

Who said, oh! you have cold feets baby! 8=)

I'm sure that this man has an extraodinary blood pressure, and a perfect health! I dont know how old is this man, but he is surely well over 50 years old, and yet, he shows an absolutely stunning profile! He shares a house further up on the mountain cliff, with an other douzen of people. The house is small, but surely it can be shared, in the snow, in the cold nights, one would have to be a criminal not to give a home to anyone passing by! I wonder how is a life living away from my world (the world I grew up in anyway). Surely there is a lot to discover living a life like this. Through, you dont choose where you're born, or in which world you will grow... You might be lucky, or you might be very unlucky... the most important is to remember that you are not better or worst than an other, and try to just be humble and good. I cannot avoid thinking how his wife must be emjoying his cold feets when in bed, they surely reach below zero temps!! ;-)

Welcome to Kasmir

K asmir, This is now where I am. I should stay here for another 2 weeks. I arrived yesterday and started my stay here with a strong head pain du to the altitude. I went to sleep all day to try and get it sorted which worked after a solid 6 hours nap! So basically it has been a day for nothing in terms of work! Today, it is raining, and there it makes work a lot more difficult, I am supposed to install antennas on a 45 m mast, and trust me, its not what I like to do the most. Through, its part of the work, so I ll have to challenge myself with this one! At least the view from up there should be even more beautiful than where I am now. Tonight, at 16h00 I wanted to go trekking with a couple of local pakistanese collegues, but I guess I wont have the time for it. Its already 14:45 and I have not yet installed a bolt up there! Thought I would wait a little that the rain stops to get there, meanwhile started writting this little bit. Pakistan keeps on amazing by its amazing beauty! Maybe its the contrast with Sudan which hits me the most, but these high mountains with snow and mist in the morning are just breath taking... Maybe it is also to do with the legend saying that if you get to the highest mountain pic around here, and if the weather is clear! you could see the Hymalaya! I dont beleive yet in this "legend" since the distance between here and there is of about 1400Km!! A hell of a view if you can see it from here. At my current position the altitude is of about 2500m above sea level, which is not that high, but already the breathing is different! No smoking makes it a lot easy and it is good that I have stopped!
Anyway, as things goes, I hope I will have more pictures like the one below to offer you! Until then, I m going back to work. ;-)

MI26: This things is just unreal!

MI-26 I saw this one in Sudan before, but only from far, on the ground on in the Air. But yesterday, before flying out toIslamabad, I decided that I had to go and check it out closely! Indeed, this is the MI26, the largest helicopter ever built! It can carry cargos of up to 20 tonnes! Jumped in the car, headed to the secondlanding field, and there is was! The monster Heli on standby! Tosee the gigantique sizeof it, you have to compare with something! if you look before the Helico, there is a big guy there standing! look at the size of the helico... should give some idea of how huge is the thing!

Media's stupidity vs Protests abuses.

How long to wait before journalists and Protesters grow up to become rational? I wonder if it is only me, or if this is just one of theses ugly things Media's and Politicals like to "play" with. Its been going for far to long, and if you ask me, this is what revolts and frustates me the most at the moment. Im of course talking about these stupid cartoons and those violent protests. This picture is from Peshawar North East of Islamabad. Due to this inccident on a daily basis, we have been mobilised for days, it is seriously irritating to be affected by this "bullshit" from the western world, while being out there trying save lifes. On one side, protests should be peaceful and honest, on the other, imature idiots re-publishing theses cartoons, firing more and more anger from nearly half of the world population, should put to an end there easy scandalous sells.

This would not affect my life I wouldn't give a damn, but unfortunately, it puts the life of a lots of people out here to danger.... Grow up stop selling shit articles for money, it shouldn't be the point for Press & Media's, rather focus on how American democracy suck the world under its control....

Wasting lifes to exterminate other's one?

AK47 for the school bag, eyes full of concerns, on the defencive, ready to kill, very simply! While the teacher sends the donkey hat to the corner of the classroom, the Warrior Child hides in the corner to hide from his enemy, or, for when the time's right, launch an assault and kill a brother, who's like him, ended up in this useless fight for a Genocide he does not even understand...

How come that there are so many inequalities and power abuse around the world right now. I don't understand this useless violence which appears to be the essential reason of life on earth! Fill the human engine with "Money, Religions, Colorants and Power" to get the worst Natural self-destructive animal..

Zanzibar paradise Isl

An other 6 weeks in Zanzibar, and here I am on R&R again, this time I decided to go for the sure value: Zanzibar Isld, its an located North West of the Tanzanian cost, right above Comores Isld. It is not very visited by the regular tourist, and have a lots of charme! The only expates you will find there are the one whom works in Africa (for most). From Darfur, I flew to Khartoum, a little stop for 4 hours, then off to Nairobi, Kenya. Another hours passes by and this is the last flight for Zanzibar! Of course as for all my travels I was alone, and didnot know anything as to where are the right places to go. I just decided that for this late arrival I would spend a day in the capital of the island "Stone Town". It looked very tropical with all the Zing roofs and all the palm trees surrounding the town. People there from the begining appeared to be very attracted by travelers, of course like in every other beautiful places, when the landscape and nature is so rich, the people are the opposite! Travelers means money to them, and there is hundreds of people running after you to offer you service provision, they offer everything, Bike rental, boat trips, drugs, hotels... you name it! After some wondering around town, I found a hotel and decided to drop the bags and start the holidays with a drink and a nice dinner. Alone, in the town, it feels a little bit sad, and lonely, but hey, there is nothing I can do about that.

I was already thinking about the next day for which I had the plan of getting a motorbike and drive around the entire island. Fortunately for me, and for him, I met one of the business seekers in the restaurant where I was having this dinner. He offered me all sorts of things, but somehow, I felt he was an honest and nice person. I gave it a go, and booked a motorbike with him for the next day. That times the feelings were right, he presented me all his family, which all had one business or an other, and I got my bike sorted presto the next day. I should mention that with the bike i received a Tanzanian Driving license signed and approved by the local authorities :-) hihi! There I was off on the bike, and crossing villages and palm forest across the island. I soon reached the South of the island where I was hoping to settle for a while. Though, when I arrived there, it was desert, and none was present. Only the local people were there, I should also say that in April is the start of the rainy season and that tourist, the few there is arent so kind to take showers!

Since there was nobody and that I was seeking for a minimum of a social context, I decided to head off directly up north where it is suppose to be the nicest part of the Island. It took me nearly two hours to reach the place, but when I arrived, I was reward generously by an astonishing sunset, and a beautiful chill out place where i already knew I would settle for the rest of my trip! The perfect spot. just about enough travelers around with who talking about nothing and everything, and an amazing scenary!
I stood there for the 4 following days, and returned to the sand and problems of Darfur :)

After the Calm the storm!

After Cyprus, I went back to my beloved Western Darfur were a lots of work was waiting for me, and I was also looking forward to it. Since I have started this job, it has become a real pleasure to get to "work". Through it has ver rough time, I do love it. The day this picture was taken was a Friday, which in Sudan (like most of the muslim countries) is equivalent to the Saturday in Christian countries. Geneina, the small capital of West Darfur, we use to organise BBQ parties for the Humanitarian workers around the area, and this day was no exception. Me and a good friend of mine, Brian, had already started drinking a few beers while sitting on my prefab balcony. Finding beer is a real challenge, and it is not often that we get them, so when there is, it never last for long. We were already half drunk and talking a lot, when we suddenly saw coming this huge cloud of dust called "Haboub" (sandstorm)! He had the time to finish the beer and clear the BBQ setup before this huge monster swallow the camp into a thick and blinding curten of sand! All inhouse!!!!!

Egypt: A tourist passing by...

Heard so much about it, seen so much about it, would have been a shame not to pass by this track of the ancient world! Impressive, huge, unthinkable, theses pyramides are real monsters of architecture!

I spent two days in Cairo while heading to Cyprus, I did not get see so much, but at least I managed to check out this, like a proper tourist that I am! I also passed by there to visit a friend which I use to hang with in Rome, it was nice meeting there! Cairo looked messy to me, and over-crowded, a lot of cars, gaz, and buildings! Gigantic is what is the word coming to my mind, with a population of about 15M people (including Greater city), you can imagine the diversity there is out there, which makes it very interesting to see.Two days for me there were enough tho, as it wanted a chill and quite place! Cairo was far from it (probably like would have been any major city). Through its worst checking out these pyramides, it brings a lots of questions as to who where these ancestors!!!!