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Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog
Infrequent But Delicious - The Mike Blog
The Road to the Kram Palexpo
About this event: World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Phase Two

Translations available in: English (original) | French | Spanish | Italian | German | Portuguese | Swedish | Russian | Dutch | Arabic

I was crouched down in the back of a tractor, one hand holding onto the side of the flat-bed trailer being pulled behind it, clutching bags with the other hand. As the tractor sped quickly towards the Kram, it was stopped at a police check-point, where we were yelled at to get off and take our bags. I couldn't make out too much of what one of the security guys was saying, but it seemed to be in the order of "This is not a taxi or a bus!"

But why wasn't I on a bus? After picking up the final bags from Hugh and Luke upon their arrive, Mhamed really wanted to take them to the expo: at 2 AM. He convinced me pretty easily since it meant I wouldn't have to lug them via bus in the morning, and we headed to the security checkpoint at the Parking spot. After about 20 minutes of negotiation, they told us a bus would come to pick us up. You see, the closest you can get is about 2 KM to the Kram Centre -- then you have to park your car or disembark from your taxi, and take a shuttle bus with your things to the Kram.

It got to about 2:45, and I was getting tired of playing the "is that a bus coming towards us from a distance?" game with Mhamad, and joking about walking to Kram with our bags. Mhamad went back to speak to them, and came back and told me we were walking. Seeing a police SUV at the checkpoint, I thought this was a joke of course, and loaded up the bags to walk over.

But we walked past them. And kept going... after about 1 KM, a tractor carrying cleaners came by us headed to Kram, and Mhamad managed to convince them to give us a ride. Although the attempt was quickly thwarted, we did save a good 10 minutes of walking.

Around 3:15 AM, we finally arrived to the ICT4All security check, and after getting 3 rounds of "NO WAY" (I think the arabic translation is about 5 minutes of arguing!) someone senior enough to allow us in finally arrived, and after a quick x-ray, we dropped the things off in the Youth Hub. The president visited to expo this morning, so you can imagine security was tight - checkpoints at every corner, flak-jacketed police with shotgun or rifle in hand crouching in bushes along the way.

But we had made it, and by 4:30 AM I was alseep. Today, the summit begins. And now that I've had time to eat breakfast, and post this blog, I'm headed there -- by bus I hope!

November 15, 2005 | 5:01 AM Comments  3 comments

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Comments

Jarra Jarra McGrath
November 15, 2005 | 11:57 AM

you're covert champions.
cherrie Cherrie
November 17, 2005 | 4:36 AM

good on ya, mate.
marouen Marouen
February 17, 2006 | 4:14 PM

Yes, and we did the same to take the big boxes out a day before the end of the summit .... by bus this time :)
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