UNDAC Day 1

Goddamn it. Never been so sick in my life. Certainly worse than the dodgy prawn curry at Palm Court in Georgetown, Guyana five years ago.

The UNDAC refresher course went well; I left from the UK well prepared and rested and arrived at Karlstadt (via Copenhagen) and a chap from the UN's Reform Department in Geneva. A Brit/Zimmer/Argentinian. I tell ya, these UN types have no idea what country they belong to....

Anyways, the camp at Karlstadt was well set up by the Swedish Rescue Services Agency (SRSA) with big ten man canvas tents and hot air blowers warming the interior. I arrived just as Jonathan was in the middle of his presentation. He did a fine job. I scanned the crowd and recognised a fair few faces from TRIPLEX 2006 and other courses. I was pleased to see Trevor Glass there as well and James Brown.

The remaining three days was spent on running assessment exercises, field exercise (4x4), Groove software and comms. All quite interesting and MA, as a first was not there as an integral part of the trainers but an active participant in all the exercises. Jesper felt it was necessary and possibly useful for MA to see how the assessment teams were run from the sharp end. Maybe we could help them sharpen their focus as well as offer some practical advice on using the GPS perhaps?

That was a first to be honest.