First day at Camp

I was awoke at 5 AM by the sound of a cargo plane coming in for a landing at the airport, the first of many to come in today. The sun wasn’t up yet and the cool of the night made me pull my sleeping bag up. When I had fallen asleep last night I was exhausted and had barely noticed the noise, the lights, or the still warm temperatures. My tent is placed between two shipping containers along with about 15 others, more crop up everyday in places that you didn’t think a tent would fit but there it is. There is a camp manger for our UNICEF area, he is in charge of logistics for all of us and making sure we all get along. Some of the more long term staff have been moved to dorm style tents on another base nearby. The rest of us short termers are in the tents.

When I got out of my tent at 6 AM the camp was still pretty quiet. I walked the kilometer or so to the other side of camp for the nice showers. The UNICEF tents are at the end of the runway, the rest of the camp stretches down to the other end. The tent city is fairly sustainably at UNICEF there are 2 large working tents with tables, fans, lights, and extension cords running every which way. There is never enough room at the tables for everyone but you make do. Since everyone is off to some coordination meeting or other at any given time you usually have a spot. I was in the work tent by 7 this morning and I wasn’t the first to arrive. I did get to stake out a pretty good spot which I help most of the day. I sit with the Child Protection Cluster at the end of the tent. In out tent you will find the Health, Water and Sanitation, and Communications. Slowly teams are being moved into container offices, which have the distinct advantage of being air conditioned. The tent gets very hot between 10 and 2, even with the small breeze from the fans you just feel like you are sticky all the time.

The sun rises and sets more or less exactly 6 to 6. But office hours seem to be more like 7 to 9. There isn’t much else to do on the base besides work and there is a lot of work to be done. My team doesn’t seem to eat, ever. I can’t function like that so did make it to the canteen for lunch today, where I found some steamed broccoli and air conditioning, both welcome treats. Tonight I met some folks from the child nutrition team as I headed to dinner, they apparently know to eat dinner. So I think they will be my new dinner buddies.

Tomorrow I will be getting my office ID badge which lets me buy things at the base store and just generally be “official”. I am exhausted so am going to bed, tomorrow is another long day!