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.