More on my Sudan Holiday!

Part 2 of my Sudan documentary...

I am staying in the capital city of Southern Sudan, Juba. There is no electricity, unless you have a generator, no sewerage, no running water, and no refuse collection. Instead little tanker trucks shuttle busily around town delivering water and emptying cess pits. Different trucks that is! Sadly, rubbish is dumped just out of town, in the bush, anywhere. Litter litters the streests.

This is a simple town, probably covering an area of about 15 or 20 square kilometres. A town at the very beginning of its development. On its eastern side flows a river that has been around forever; the might Nile!

Roads here are simply not meant for cars. Instead they are great as hiking trails and goat paths. Juba has probably less than 15km of tarred road in total. The cars that attempt to navigate these roads are generally brand new government issued gangster tinted Landcruisers. The rest are probably owned by all of the aid agencies in town. Despite the roads, trucks still manage to move good around this country. That is until the rainy season. Four months of rain that turns all dirt into a quagmire. Not even six wheel drive trucks are any use then! And trust me, there are such things!
Accommodation for visitors is an interesting mix of prefabricated rooms or tented camps. Somehow I have found myself in a luxury log cabin, which is basic and clean, and absolutely perfect. It does have two air conditioners which together battle to deal with the heat of the day. Just as well, I spend that time visiting all sorts of corners of this town and meeting the most interesting people.

Yesterday I met a potential Distributor from Uganda. We parked deep in a residential area and then followed a 3 metre wide road between a mixture of tin houses and shops. Goats mewed like kittens, an old woman screamed at an old man, and a radio crackled local tunes. After about 70 metres of interested stares, we turned left into another alley and then quickly right. I found myself in a little grass square bordered on all sides by the backs of tin shacks. Steve headed across the square and entered a dingy looking place. Inside was a ramshackle bar built out of scraps of wood. Scarred and lopsided it provided space for two televisions tuned to different stations. A generator blared, just out of sight, providing the power. A third television rested on a plastic chair, where two brothers wrestled with the dilemmas involved with breaking out of prison for about the sixth time! After meeting all of the patrons, it was down to business.

With business done, it was back to finding the rollercoaster between the potholes while we navigated back to the office.

I like this town. It is simple. People are friendly and peaceful. And there is a fun hill that I get to run on every day, but more of that later!