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Angola Diary
7th - 11th January 2002
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7th January
Camota got up at 07:00, had breakfast and cleaned the accomodation. Camota did not deploy the minefield because the team had not yet arrived from Huambo where other team members had gone for Christmas and new year. At 12:30 Camota had lunch and rested, awaiting the team arrival in Cubal on a World Food Programme passengers flight. While he waited for the team to arrive, he played cheess with a friend of his. He then was informed that the his colleagues from Huambo were not arriving that day because WFP had cancelled the filght to Cubal. However, the flight was re-scheduled for the next day.
At 17:30, Camota went home, read a book and listened to the music. At 20:00, Camota had supper and went to bed.
8th January
Camota got up at 07:00, showered and had breakfast, at 08:30 Camota when to Cubal airstrip to meet the team that was flight from Huambo to Cubal, The team arrived around lunchtime and drove to HALO accomodation where the team was briefed on the secutiry situation, health facilities, suspect mined areas, water facilities and mineclearance work being conducted by HALO in Cubal. Also helped his colleges that had gone to Huambo to spend Christmas with their families, organising the accommodation and their personal effects. Aditionally, because Camota had stayed in Cubal during Christmas, at this point he handed over some of the keys of the accomodation that he had to the supervisor. Late in the afternoon he discussed various working matters with his colleagues until before they went to bed.
9th January
Camota got up at 05:30 had a shower. At 6:00, the team had breakfast and after that each member of the staff was issued with the adequate equipment.
HALO Angola operations manager (Joao Baptista) order the team to parade for a roll call before they deployed to the training site where they were going to have a one day refresher training before the restart of the operations.
The team drove for about 15 minutes to the training area. At 07:00, the refresher training started. All aspects of a deminers training course were covered and exemplified by the operations manager. The operations manager also instructed Cubal deminers on the usage and metal signal isolation of with the new ebinger 420 GC mine locators as this new equipment was never used in Cubal before.
The refresher training finished at 13:30. The team returned to the camp and had lunch at 14:00. In the afternoon the team prepared sticks for minefield marking for the next day.
Work stopped at 17:30 when everybody when to the accommodation. Camota had a shower and played chess with his colleagues and went to bed at about 20:00.
10th January
Camota got up at 05:30 had a shower. At 6:00, the team had breakfast and after that each member of the staff was issued with the adequate equipment.
At 06:30, the rain started and the team could not be deployed to the task because the raining conditions would not allow the team to work. Rain continued until 15:00. Then, Camota helped the survey officer who was visiting Cubal to draw minefield maps for most of the day.
11th January
Camota got up at 05:30 had a shower. At 6:00, the team had breakfast and after that each member of the staff was issued with the adequate equipment.
The team was deployed to the minefield right after breakfast and work started at 07:00. While most of the team restarted demining in areas where the minefield marking was good, Camota was tasked the remarking of the areas where the sticks were missing. This activity kept him very busy until 13:30 when the team stopped working. Because it was a friday, the team conducted equipment basic maintenance before they returned to the accommodations at 14:00.
At 15:00 they had lunch and most of the team members went for a stroll after that.
Julio Camota
Deminer
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