On the road, yet again...

It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out where I’m off to next by this picture (taken on the trip last August). LONG damn trip via LA, Taipei, Singapore to Yangon. Time to charge the iPod batteries!

I spend a few days in downtown Yangon for meetings (formerly known as Rangoon) first, then fly to the newly built capital Nay Pyi Taw for two days, then over to a former colonial hill station called Pyin Oo Lwin for a week of meetings, then a few days in Yangon, then back home.

Pyin Oo Lwin, in colonial days, was called Maymyo by the British and is about 70 km from Mandalay. It’s quite a garden spot, and famous for silk production and strawberry fields.

Have a look at www.pyinoolwin.info/aboutpol.htm to see the area and the old British cottages, and I’m staying at www.pyinoolwin.info/RoyalParkView.htm

New addition to the family

Just before I got home from Vienna, we added a new member to our family - Paco, a twelve week-old Havanese. He has attitude, confidence, curiosity and a never ending desire to wrestle with one of the cats (Hillary), who also plays 'hide and seek' in the back yard with him!

Don't let the bow on the head distract you. It was an unappreciated souvenir of his first hair cut.

Another day in Juba, southern Sudan...

The pictures are the training site, the outside of the prison, inside the classroom, and a partial class picture (the group was too big – 56!).

The good news today is that we have our travel passes from the UN and we’re booked for the Friday UN plane to Khartoum. However, nobody is quite sure what time it leaves!

Something you don’t see every day - - - tribal scarring around the head. And the kids on Granville Mall think they’re tough with piercings! It’s common here to see men with several parallel rows of scars running the length of their skull, on either side. Rite of passage and puberty. If you flinch, it’s visible to the world for the rest of your life. People are tough here.

Found out that it’s illegal to take pictures in southern Sudan. Anywhere. Oops.

Had a fascinating conversation about marriage. Remember, I’m in central Africa, which is very tribal. Religion is a blend of animism and Christianity, but flexible enough to meet local customs and traditions. Multiple wives is OK. Men fooling around is OK. Women who have sex, any sex – which includes rape, is guilty of adultery and goes to prison. If a man dies, his eldest brother inherits his wives. If no brother, the eldest son of the first wife inherits the other wives, and also must support all the children. Women, and their chastity, are items to be purchased. Here, the going price for a wife is 150 cattle. I asked what happens if I fall in love with a local women (love is a foreign concept) and don’t have 150 cows. No problem. The entire class offered to chip in and each man give me a few cows. What are friends for? They can’t understand that I’m in a marriage with no children and have only one child by my first marriage. Too strange to them. They wanted to know if this was ordered by the government. With only one wife and one child, I’m a pauper by their standards. I, on the other hand, think I did damn good with a great wife and daughter.

Forgot to mention the good news! I was told over lunch I don’t really have to pay 150 cows for a wife. Apparently I can pick up a good “used” wife for 30 to 40 cows. I was tempted to ask if there was low mileage and she’d only been driven to church on Sundays. A “used” wife is a widow here. Is this kind of like the concept of a “starter” home?

Did I mention the story of the 7 year old boy who at the request of his parents took the place of his younger 4 year old brother in prison? Not sure why the younger one was locked up, but he was sick, so the prison agreed to a surrogate serving his sentence. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto.

Sunday afternoon in Juba, southern Sudan

Two of the many extremes in Juba – mounds of garbage in the street that pile up around burned out abandoned cars, and a foreigner drinking imported beers by the Nile.

The foreigners largely move about cocooned in their air conditioned SUV’s while most of the locals move about on foot, choking on the dust kicked up by the people sent to help them. The people we speak to who’ve been here a year or two (most from African Union countries) all agree there have been lots of positive improvements – roads are being put in, hospitals built, etc. but all admit there is a long way to go yet. Lots and lots of tents occupied by people displaced by the war, abject poverty all about. Yet the market is bustling, many people are moving about with purpose and the new Government of Southern Sudan (GoSS) is getting itself organized.

Another day in southern Sudan

The pictures show the Nile River (beers there yesterday afternoon watching the kids play in the river, and colourful lizards run about), a typical Juba street (abnormally absent of ruts and goats, but with the famous red dust), the UNMIS compound entrance, and the back of the UNMIS canteen where I had lunch Friday. Not too surprisingly, $4 goes a long way.

It turns out the official language of southern Sudan is Dinka, which is what the sole TV channel broadcasts in (with restricted hours). Although, the other night there was a third rate English language vampire movie on, with Arabic subtitles, shot in Russia and featuring Japanese gangsters. I was captivated as I sat there eating Pringles and sipping single malt scotch. What else is there to do?

I asked our UNMIS contact if there were any good carvings, masks, etc. to bring home as souvenirs. After he stopped laughing, he suggested I take a bag of dirt home. Apparently I’m lucky if I can find a clean T-shirt with the picture of the President on it. He’s the one of TV with the beard and fedora. Anything and everything you buy here came from either Kenya, Uganda or China. NOTHING is locally made.

So, I did the prison tour and visited the police holding cells two days ago. No pictures allowed inside or outside.

When we passed through the gate into the prison courtyard we were confronted by 620 prisoners sitting in two columns on the ground. They clapped for the Director General, who introduced us. I was asked if I wanted to say a few words. What do you say in the circumstance? I passed. They sat there through our entire tour. None of our escorts were armed, as you don’t take a weapon inside. I felt quite safe. My second third world prison tour now.

We started with the condemned prisoner area. They’re all shackled (ankle cuffs and short chain, to a chain around the waste) 24X7, three or four to a small concrete cell. Some had thin mats to sleep on, others didn’t. Come the rainy season, pneumonia is an issue. The cells open onto a small dirt courtyard. Solid metal doors. The other prisoners are in dorms. The juveniles (mixed in with the adults during the day) have thin mattresses and blankets at least. The youngest prisoner is 8.

There are several prisoners who are mentally ill and housed in the prison (no real separation or treatment) because there is simply nowhere else to house them) and are referred to as “lunatics”. I won’t even describe their conditions, other than heartbreaking and hopeless. The ones considered violent are kept in tiny individual cells 24X7.

There are no recreation facilities, etc. in the prison at all. A few prisoners have books delivered by their family, or extra blankets, bowls from family. Visits are allowed once a month. The women’s side is similar, except this is where all the cooking takes place, so at least there is something to do. 4 toddlers are in with their mothers. If there is no family, the child stays with the mother. No toys of course, just dirt. Enough said. I’ll spare you all the other details of the prison. And this is the most developed prison in the south of the country. The police “station” and cells were a whole other story.

Lologo Prison Service Training Centre

Off to Lologo Prison Service Training Center this morning. 8 of us crammed into one Japanese SUV, over amazingly bumpy roads to the outskirts of town. Through miles of communities of grass huts and roadside stands, scavenging goats, women and children carrying firewood and buckets of water on their heads.

Went by a store front shack that had the most incredible sign out front: Juba Safe Life Pharmacy and Laboratory Services. Open sewer in front, no bigger than twelve feet by twelve feet, filthy, no electricity, goats in front. Couldn’t stop to take a picture. Too bad. And we complain about health care in Canada!

The training centre is situated on a slight rise (the breeze is nice) on the site of a former juvenile facility (youth are now in the main prison with the adults). The buildings are bombed out after the war. No doors, no glass in the windows. Bare, dirty, scarred concrete with graffiti, and the only four classrooms are inside this building. The UN is building new facilities on site, but until then, students use classrooms with no electricity and live in tents. Pit toilets.

The women and children in the pictures are family of students. All students are former soldiers and the course is four weeks. The picture of the cooking is the “kitchen”. There are 750 students on site, divided into 8 groups. Half drill in the morning outside while the others are in the four classrooms. They switch after lunch. No workbooks as literacy is a massive issue. The only instructional aid is a blackboard.

Beijing Juba Hotel

This is something of a Wild West boomtown. Prices jumping through the roof as more aid workers pile in, shortages of housing for the workers, and tent “camps” surrounded by high walls, barbed wire and armed guards sprouting up all over. UN staff live in a camp made of metal shipping containers. Lots of bars down by the Nile. Prices are also impacted by the current unrest in Kenya as all supplies here come in by road from Uganda, originating at the port in Kenya. There were gasoline shortages for the past two weeks.

I’m at the Beijing Juba Hotel (3 guesses who owns the hotel) and am in one of three newly constructed pre-fab units, each of which has 60 rooms along one long corridor that gradually does down hill. You come in from the brilliant sunshine outside and have to move cautiously as you can’t see the steps down every few yards. They’re building more of these wings now, and everything comes by container from China to Kenya, then by truck through Uganda.

My room is basic – one bare fluorescent tube on the ceiling, no bedside lamp, a TV that has only one channel (broadcasting in Dinka, the local language in daytime only), AC, and a bathroom that is also the shower (allowing for multi-tasking) with only one water temp. You stand beside the toilet as the shower head is wall mounted. Of course, this also means you track water all over the place, but in this climate is evaporates quickly. To shower, you take the towel and toilet paper out of the room when you turn the water on. The power usually cuts out in the middle of the night, meaning the AC also cuts out.

The hotel lobby, which opens into the bar/restaurant is classic Asian – cavernous (think high school gym) and largely unadorned. There is a massive wall mural behind the front desk of the Great Wall. The bar/restaurant is several steps down on a tile floor (no hand rails, uneven steps, some are a drop of 18”) and then it’s terraced down from there, again cavernous and dimly lit. The servers have poor English, are barely literate and have no service skills. I’m sure they see all the foreigners as bizarre creatures from another world and totally alien to their experience. However, the beer (Ugandan) is cold, as sometimes is the food.

Buffet breakfast in the hotel – instant coffee, plate of hard boiled eggs, sausages deep fried to death, plain dry white bread, tub or margarine, two plates of fresh fruit, two jugs of juice, bottled water. Very thankful I brought lots of snack/protein bars in my suitcase.

Check the hotel URL. Makes no mention of living in trailers. Also notice that the URL is registered in China. http://www.beijingjubahotel.cn/ We joke that the Chinese government is reading our e-mail as we use the hotel WiFi. Maybe it’s not a joke?

Oh, you know how some hotels have a “hotel dog” in the lobby? Not in Juba. We’re in Africa after all. There is a semi-tame monkey running around the lobby, loose, this morning. Fair size too. Likely a non-union staff person working for peanuts. Sorry, couldn’t resist that line! I’ll have to get a picture. (Note to Kimpton Hotels – top that!).

The pictures show the hotel front, the cabin wing, and the grounds. Dusty everywhere. A few lizards, no insects so far other than all the damn mosquitoes.

Juba, southern Sudan

You notice the differences between home and here as the plane lands in Juba and people are standing beside the runway waiting for the plane to get out of the way so they can walk across the runway or drive their motor bike across. Grass and twig shacks are a few yards from the tarmac. The arrivals area is one large dirty, falling apart dimly lit room, and very crowded. Red dirt everywhere. Goats everywhere grazing in piles of garbage, which is also everywhere.

So, depending on who you listen to, there are 100,000 or 500,000 people in the Juba area. And for all those people, there are less than 3 kilometres of paved road (it’s only on one street) and the other roads usually let you do off road driving in town. On the way back from dinner tonight (convoy of two vehicles so we didn’t get lost – no lights, no street signs, no maps, and lots of temporary road closures) the SUV in front of us actually got stuck in one series of ruts and pot holes that would literally kill any car. Truly amazing ruts and potholes. You really have to hang on. Never seen anything like it. Lucky we’re here in the dry season – no mud and fewer mosquitoes. Our SUV bottomed out several times on the ruts, throwing everyone inside all about.

A couple of our guys were off to a meeting this afternoon with a newly hired Ugandan driver. The vehicle stopped suddenly on the road. He’d run out of gas. No word to his passengers or explanation, he just steps out of the vehicle, flags down a passing motorbike, hops on and disappears. 20 minutes later he comes back on a different motorbike with a Pepsi bottle of gas in his hand. You can also buy gas by the plastic bag – different sizes of course for different needs. If you look at the picture with the grass hut in the background and that small wooden table by the road, you’ll see that it’s a makeshift gas station with 2 bottles to choose from. Welcome to Africa.

Khartoum, Sudan

Khartoum, Republic of the Sudan

You know you’re in a Muslim country when: there is a red arrow on the ceiling of your hotel room pointing to Mecca, there is a prayer rug and large copy of the Qur’an (bilingual) in your room, the mini bar is full of non-alcoholic beer, and the man in the minaret awakens you at 5:00 with amplified calls of “Allah akhbar” (God is great) as part of the morning call to prayer.

To be fair, only the north of Sudan is Muslim. Tomorrow I’ll be in the Christian south where I doubt there will be as many mosques with loud speakers. Still, it’s a pretty exotic sound. E (the human rights lawyer I’m traveling with) and I were outside on what is called the "patio" of the hotel (Moony Hotel is a cheap four story walk up) late last night sharing a shisha (water pipe, aka “hubbly bubbly”, apple spice flavoured) and heard the last call of the day to prayer. Exotic is the appropriate term.

Other oddities here – at the tiny patch of grass out front of our hotel that passes for the “patio” the waitress (Muslim headscarf, skin tight jeans) offered coffee. No Turkish coffee available, but she’d be happy to make “chocolate coffee”. OK, sounds good. We got a tea pot of boiling water, two packets of Nescafe instant coffee, a very large bowl of sugar and an equally large bowl of chocolate powder. Truth in advertising. We heard something rustling on the other side of the hedge, but thought maybe a dog or rat. It wasn’t until the next morning that I looked out my patio and discovered what it was. Read on…

To see our hotel, go to http://travel.webshots.com/photo/1207541473059488675ifkdpJ It’s claim to fame is that it is right beside the huge UN Mission compound, where we have a briefing meeting this morning. Due to its proximity to the UN, it's not a cheap hotel.

We arrived early last evening from Frankfurt (lovely night stay at the airport Sheraton) after a flight over the Mediterranean, Libya and then hours over the Sahara. Khartoum goes on forever. Everything is reddish brown from the blowing fine sand. Few buildings are over 4 or 5 stories. This is where the Blue and White Nile meet to flow towards the Mediterranean.

Long delay at the airport as we were shunted from line to line to pick up our visas ($110 US each, and a further $50 US today for some second visa/permit. Who knows. They ask, we hand over dollars and ask for a receipt. It’s all in Arabic). Brusque functionaries. My suitcase was marked with a chalk X, meaning secondary inspection, so off we go to that counter. Our UN escort talks to the customs guy who waves us off ten feet (no search) to the guy at the exit (who has observed all this) without opening my bag. The exit guy won’t let us pass without a sticker saying the bag has been inspected. Back to the first guy who makes a show of opening one zipper of the suitcase 12 inches (it’s now been officially inspected) and then putting the inspection sticker on it. The second guy is happy now as there is an official sticker. Rules to be followed. Welcome to Africa.

I’m traveling with a woman who is an international human rights lawyer and also does work for Doctors Without Borders (can’t spell the actual French name) and spent four months here in Khartoum when the civil war was still on. E has been in quite a few places I have no desire to see. Lots of experience with prolonged stays in tents and refugee camps. Admirable, but not for me.

Just before heading upstairs to breakfast, I went out on my second floor balcony to get a picture of the sunrise. Major road out front, UNMIS (UN Mission in Sudan) compound to my left, and to my right are several herds of sheep having breakfast right beside the hotel, being shooed about by men in turbans and flowing white robes. We’re not in Kansas any more Toto. (See picture)

Turns out the sheep are for roadside sale (dinner on the hoof). You buy and slaughter a sheep for any notable event/feast – somebody had a child, got out of hospital, etc. Prices double during the holy Muslim festivals.

Right behind the roadside "sheep to go" market is a hut made of tree branches, scrap, burlap and plastic. There are people living in it, and ones similar to it further back from the road. Remember, this is right beside our hotel, with the massive UN compound on the other side of the hotel. Incredible disparity. (see picture)

After our UN briefing, we were taken for a tour of Khartoum, and to pick up our flight tickets for Juba tomorrow morning (driver will pick us up at 5:30 am). Drove over the Nile a couple of times, saw where the Blue Nile and White Nile meet, went to the market (see pictures – the pyramid shaped nut dealer is neat), go stuck in lots of traffic, had a fabulous outdoor lunch.

Lots of red dust/sand covering everything, lots of chaotic traffic, massive numbers of vehicles (lots new), construction, more dust, donkey carts, tricycle taxis, litter. Reminds me of lots of other places I’ve been. Fascinating, maddening, wild, but sensory overload, especially with the jet lag.

Not all sure what, if any, Internet access I'll have in Juba, so don't expect new pictures until after I get home...