The world according to Wig

Yesterday, Sunday 29 Nov 09, I arrived in Africa, Nairobi to be precise, for the second time of my life. The red-brown sunset from the plane was the same. But everything else is different, not least me.

This time rather than being ferried between 5 star luxury hotels I am going to visit the operations of MAG landmine charity clearance charity I now work for. Rather than seeing the Big 5, I will be visiting the little thousands - my own species ignored by safari trucks.

Today I arrived in Juba, southern Sudan, and was immediately struck by how many UN helicopters / planes / vehicles there were..... On the short drive to MAG's compound (this is me on the base, I am very sweaty and there's just been a huge thunderstorm) I saw a dozen or more white vans adorned with the logos of about every single NGO you could possibly imagine. The rusty 4x4s of the aid agency world are like the white blood cells running through the veins of south Sudan's orange-red dust roads.

MAG here has about 200 members of Sudanese staff and turns over about £4.25million a year in funding - a sign of the scale of both the problem and the sheer immensity of the land it covers. But, staff tell me, its a challenging place to work. January 2010 marks 5 years since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed and Africa's longest civil war ended, officially. The much heralded referendum on whether the south should be allowed to secede from the north is due to be held in 2011, and that, most aid agencies say, could be a flashpoint for violence to start again. That said, some agencies' reports suggest more people have been killed in south Sudan this year than in Darfur, so it would be foolish to say that peace is complete. Sighs all round.

Tomorrow I'm off to Yei, MAG's forward base close to the Congolese border. Excited to see how our teams are mobilised for massive long drives out to communities affected by landmines or other unexploded ordnance, UXO as its known in the trade, and hopefully will be able to hitch a ride with one of them. Excited......