We finally got out of Khartoum on Thursday, rather three of the four of us did, even though they were supposed to use the same list of confirmed passengers from Wed. when our flight was cancelled. Unfortunately, when we got to the airport Jas’ name wasn’t on the confirmed list so he couldn’t come, he had to go back to Movement Control (Movcon) and get his name added to the list for Friday’s flight.
Our flight was delayed about an hour and then we finally got away at 10:00. The plane wasn’t full but is only allowed to carry fifty UN personnel at a time because of insurance restrictions. Another waste in a land full of waste. Unfortunatley it is the UN that is doing most of the wasting. We don’t set a very good example.
Juba is not what I expected it to be. It is a village of dirt roads (with lots of potholes), shacks, huts, the odd modern building, lots of fenced compounds and one of the only three paved runways in all of Sudan I’m told. I was expecting another city like Khartoum, dusty and dirty with lots of trash on the streets etc. but modern (!?) buildings, paved roads etc. I feel like I’m in Africa now. I’m staying at the MSA camp (Somehting that starts with an M, Subsistence Allowance, in other words the camp the UN built for its employees to live in. They deduct $21 a day US from our living allowance to stay in a 3 metre wide by 7 meter long by 3 meter high container or trailer. The one I’m staying in belongs to a retired RCMP named Bill Kelly, he’s back in Nova Scotia on leave and he said we could use his container while he’s gone. Jas and I are on the waiting list for our own containers, right now we’re 23 and 24. We have to wait till other people leave to go elsewhere or finish their missions; there aren’t enough containers to go around. Rory and Wayne P. are staying in tents in another camp about half a kilometer away.
Right after I put my things in things in the container I'm staying in, I went to the PX (a store on a military base) and bought some beer of course, a bottle of red wine, a can of corned beef and a can of Heinz baked beans. I had half the cans of Corned beef and beans for lunch on Thursday and the other halves for breakfast yesterday monring.
For dinner on Thursday night, a nice American named Chad, from Texas originally, took us to a restaurant on the Nile called the Oasis. It was a lovley evening, cool enough to enjoy being outside, the local beers Bell and Nile are quite good, the Curried Mutton was very good (as was the Curried Chicken accoring to Wayne P), the staff were very friendly and helpful, smiled constantly. A good evening butr we got tired very quickly because of getting up early yesterday morning (4:00) to catch our flight and being in the heat all day. And the beer.
One of the things I’ve been very impressed with here in Sudan is the entreprenurial spirit of the Sudanese. There aren’t many beggars, not as many as I expected, but there are thousands of people trying to sell you stuff (useful stuff like phone calling cards, vegetables and fruit at roadside stands, in Khartoum there were thousands of these annoying little taxis call tuktuks that are just a motor scooter with a back seat and a canopy, they sound like a lawn mower) people with donkeys hitched to carts hauling stuff around. They want to work and earn their living, they don’t want charity, if we can just get their leaders to stop fighting they’ll make something of this country.
In what I considetr a bad sign, I've finished my fourth 300 page plus novel and I’ve only left Canda less than a month ago. I brought 16 novels with me and thought that would be enough!!
I should have regular Internet access tomorrow so I can post more regularly and respond to some individual emails.
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