|
16 May: Main Team Sets Off For Suriname |
|
|
|
|
Sunday, 14 May 2006 |
Early this morning the Main Team set off for Suriname and Nigel and Toby continue map production in the UNOSOCC in Paramaribo.
The Main Party finished preparations, principally selecting and packing
kit and doing much GIS work, until midnight on Sunday. After three
hours sleep, Sylvie, Chris Phillips, Hamish and David travelled to
Heathrow and caught the 6.30 flight to Amsterdam. Sylvie and
Chris then went together to obtain the visas from the Suriname embassy,
while Hamish and David parked the heavy kit into an overnight storage
container at the airport. With the important visas obtained they
spent the afternoon and evening downloading data and other GIS tasks
before an early bed, ready for the flight on Wednesday to Suriname.
Nigel and Toby meanwhile were located in the UN OSOCC that has now been
established in the MoD and in fact they have a separate air conditioned
office away from the noise and heat. This is a much better
environment to produce maps (no more soggy map paper) and they have a
map board installed in the OSOCC lobby to display maps. It has
been a busy day and plans to get around the desks in the NCCR fell by
the wayside but the OSOCC is now becoming well organised.
They spent the morning with virtually no internet access but a friendly
Suriname ministry official in the next office arranged a connection to
a wireless network. Map production and update continued
throughout the day fairly relentlessly. The only deadline missed
was a sub-regional map for the ECHO Rep and he was happy to wait.
The tightest deadline met involved producing two completely new maps
for a press briefing at 1pm, with 35 minutes notice.
So as usual they are in good spirits and looking forward to the
arrival of the rest of the team to further boost productivity.
|
Deployment Diary 
