Dear friends, colleagues and suscribers of JFDinfo Google group, One of the mails I sent this morning has the No 27,001. This is the number of messages/news I shared with all of you since October 2005 when Ben Parker showed me how to use the newly created Google groups system; I had started sharing information with colleagues and friends by the end of 1998 until September 2005 when Unicef, my employer, asked me kindly to stop sending messages to over 400 names as the Unicef server could not take it anymore (I was then entering names one by one, such an ignorant).
Today you are 869 (so you were this morning). On Wednesday 30th of June, next week, my consultancy with UNMIS will be completed. The 1rst of July I'll be unemployed (some would say "free"). I will go back to Kenya were I live happily far enough from noisy Nairobi. I will have to look for another job, as one of my two daughters is starting university this coming September and, as you all know, it is far from free. All these years, working with WFP, Unicef and then UNMIS, I have always been able to carry on with my group as it was deemed useful. So I am very grateful to the OLS coordinators before the CPA, and to David Gressly, as the UN DRHC first and then the UNMIS RC, for having supported this work that I was doing in addition to the work I was/am paid for. Depending on the workload, the quality of the network, and the situation/events in South Sudan, it takes between 2 and 5 hours to dig out, copy and paste each one of the mails/news I am sharing with you. Before I retired from the UN, in March 2009, I was running the JFDinfo thing mainly from 3 to 7 in the morning. Since April 2009, when I am not in South Sudan (in fact I will have spent only 100 days in South Sudan between October 2010 and the 30th of June 2011), as I explained in a message to all of you some months ago, I travel several times a week, daily for the past 2 months due to the security/political situation, to Naivasha (what a symbol !) to keep JFDinfo on tracks. It is very likely, almost certain, that my new job (if I get one) will not enable me to continue with my JFDinfo google group. And, while I don't have a job and/or without income, I cannot continue. For this mail, I decided to calculate the money I have spent since April 2009 to run JFDinfo, that I never did before. To my surprise, I found out that I spent over 1000 US$ per month when in Kenya and that I have spent over 20,000 US$. If I had calcultated the cost earlier I would have stopped JFDinfo as my retirement money was for my kids. Now I know where the money I could not account for went. So somehow it's good I did not check earlier. Definetly, I'll not work in accountancy business. Money spent every month for the past 27 months had become a lot ! The same way, I calculated, as a game, that if each and everyone of the 869 suscribers was to sent 40 US$ for a year, I'd be able to carry on with JFDinfo without other income, and since I spend very little myself, I could even help with the university. It is very healthy to dream, but the reality is that I will have to stop filling your in-tray or your jfd folder rather soon. Meanwhile, let us smile at the coming of the 9th of July, when the southern Sudanese will have their own country, and when anything that will follow, be it good, be it bad, will be of their making. I came to southern Sudan in 1986, never left since, and would never have believed that it would happen during my lifetime (I have to live few more days). Cheers to all, jfd -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "JFD info" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/jfdinfo?hl=en.
