Juba Central Prison

We're not in Kansas any more Toto... This the main entrance to Juba Central Prison (me and the lads). On the other side of the metal door are 660 men who are bored out of their minds. No programs, games, training, education. The group shot of the men in the back of the pick-up with the armed police officer are prisoners heading off to remand court.

The showers are in the women's prison, as is the dorm building with the two doors, and handwritten sign (just inside the prison yard) showing the count for the day (note the six children). It's a truly different world. I'm not posting any picture of the women or children, including the two condemned women in shackles. The woman in pink, standing inside the gate by the "kitchen" and daily count board is staff. Not sure why she's not in uniform.

Feeling "safe" in Juba

So, there were two alarms last night (we have our own little air raid siren with a panic button just inside the front gate). First was when four armed men tried to breach the gate sometime between 3:00 and 4:00 am and a guard hit the panic button. Management rushed to the gate to support the two security guards and the two armed “special forces” police contracted to guard our little slice of heaven. They repelled the bandits, who apparently then leftto hit two other camps that weren't guarded as well. Half hour later the guard hits the siren again, but really held onto the button this time. Scared the crap out me. I’ve watched too many war movies! Second time was a false alarm. Guard panicked. He wasn’t the only one! I was busy trying to crawl under my bed and hide. Hard to do when it’s a box spring sitting on the floor. Still, I made a valiant effort. I don’t think anyone in camp slept after that. It was all the buzz at breakfast.

Nile River cruise

The Nile boat cruise on Sunday was nice. Great to get out of camp. We booked it for an hour, but the guy took us for two, no extra charge. There are in fact two Nile Rivers - the White and the Blue Nile. Juba is on the White Nile, and the two meet far north in Khartoum (not at all an exciting view where they meet).

We saw lots of Kingfishers, plenty of other really colourful birds I’d never seen before also. Mango trees like weeds by the river. Lots with fruit hanging over the water. We brought the boat right up under them and picked lots of fruit. Massive trees. The only wildlife we saw was one tiny crocodile on the bank. It quickly went into the water. Lots of people bathing in the river. Went by an island that was across the river from a village, and kids were swimming across (see picture), floating their cloths on banana leaves ahead of them. All going over to eat fruit.

Remember Bogart and Hepburn in "The African Queen"? Well, that's NOT Bogart in the silly hat at the front of the boat...

The other picture is all the water tanker trucks loading up from the Nile (yes, it looks like some sort of post-apocalyptic vision of hell) to deliver around town as there is no city water system. Obviously, given all the bacteria, microbes and parasites in the water, living in a camp that filters their water is a good idea… Still wouldn’t drink it from the tap.

So, yet one more thing to worry about here… We had been warned NOT to go swimming in the Nile as there are parasites that can enter through the skin. Turns out south Sudan has 50% of the world’s reported cases of Guinea Worm Disease. I had heard of it before, and it’s apparently been eradicated in some Saharan countries. I did a quick Google check and here’s what I found: “Inside the human body, the larvae mature, growing as long as 3 feet. After a year, the worm emerges through a painful blister in the skin, causing long-term suffering and sometimes crippling after-effects.” YIKES!.

Critters come visting in Juba

The compound where we're doing the training this trip has two tame mouse deer grazing by the patio bar. While this has no relation at all the rest of this post, they're amazing little critters. But then, so are the following critters...

Woke up this morning and had a bit of a surprise. I had kept the bathroom door closed to keep the septic tank gases (a tad unpleasant…) confined to the bathroom. When I opened the door (no glasses on yet) I thought something was amiss as I didn’t remember massive patches of mould or peeling paint on the walls. With my glasses, I was confronted by the sight of colonies of millions of tiny ants. Ceiling, walls, on my towel, sink, toilet. You know you’re a seasoned traveler when you seriously contemplate if you really can take a shower, or should you opt for the communal washroom, instead of just walking out in disgust and horror.

The ants all over the toilet seat, towel, toothbrush and my hairbrush convinced me to choose option two. I’m assuming it’s the AC in my bedroom that kept them out, although they were starting to enter there. Are we having fun yet?

Another day in Juba, southern Sudan

Sunday morning in Juba

Day 3 in Juba and it’s sunny, hot, and promising to get hotter. Intermittent thunder & lightening yesterday. Incredible downpours Friday & Saturday in between incredible sunshine. Hot and humid, high 30’s C. The ground is so hard, and the rain so heavy that the water is not absorbed. Large lakes form and mud everywhere. As on the last trip, roads are amazing. Actually, few are roads. Most are incredibly rutted goat paths. High speed in the SUV is 15 kmh, usually slower and you’re bounced around all over the seat continuously. The picture of the road is taken outside the front gate of our camp.

We are staying in the RA International “Mango Camp”. That’s me at the front gate. They are an international supply, logistics and services company. One of their contracts is feeding the UN mission here in the south.

Our “camp” is a large walled compound with rolls of razor wire atop the perimeter, two young lads with machine guns inside the front gate and uniformed guards patrolling about. The compound is about half a city block, if that, and consists of a series of shipping container style rooms, some with individual bathrooms, others relying on communal facilities. The restaurant is a large tent, which doubles as the bar and TV lounge. No TV or phones in the rooms, but there is a mosquito net, tiny bed, even smaller wardrobe and a very dirty bathroom.

One picture is of my little container/room. As bad as it is, on the other side of the razor-wire topped wall right behind where I stood to take this picture there are people sleeping on the ground, goats rummaging for food in piles of garbage, and children playing naked in the dirt. The camp is the height of luxury in comparison.

Wildlife in Nairobi - playing tourist

Elephants fart. Loudly and often. And a giraffe’s tongue is purple, very rough, and slimy. The things one learns in life as an international consultant…

We took off for the morning (afternoon is work in the hotel) and went Sheldrick elephant sanctuary where they raise orphaned / abandoned baby elephants. The youngest is about 6 months and the oldest is almost 3 years. All are eventually returned to the wild in a national park 150 km away. Amazing work done here. Check the web site at http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/ Lots of great images, stories, and you can even “adopt” an elephant. There are also two orphaned rhino’s there, but they’re not let out as they like to charge people, and sharpen their horns on cars. Lots of wildebeests running about too. The elephants are brought out in two batches (older and younger) for only 1 hour precisely each day for tourists. Other than that, no visiting. Each elephant has a personal trainer, who actually sleeps with them until they get too large. Very playful, and loved rolling in the dirt and mud, not to mention the elephant version of dog piling on each other.

From there, we went to the nearby Giraffe Centre (also has a high-end boutique hotel where you can feed the giraffes from your room window) which is also a preserve for the endangered Rothschild Giraffe. The staff give you handfuls of pellets to feed the animals and help pose you for pictures. If you’re adventuresome, you can hold a pellet in your lips and get a “giraffe kiss”. I passed. Go to http://www.giraffecenter.org/ for more.

Off to Juba, southern Sudan, tomorrow morning. No more nice bed, good food, paved roads, infrastructure…but, lots of mud, goat stew, rain and mosquitoes to look forward to!
As one example of how different this part of the world is from my normal frame of reference, 15 elderly men and women were murdered in a rural village in Kenya this week. There were accused of being witches who had cast a spell that made the bright children stupid. I think it was the villagers themselves who were stupid.

Nairobi, Kenya

Thursday, May 22, 2008

So, we arrived here in Nairobi (Kenya) at 6:00 am yesterday via London, just in time for morning rush hour. Fascinating place. Lots of traffic, most vehicles with absolutely no emission control at all. Horrible air pollution. We are just south of the equator.

We’re a couple of hours east of the Rift Valley, the origin of human kind, and fours north of Mount Kilimanjaro. Nairobi was originally a rail stop over point between Kampala in Uganda, and Mombassa on the Indian Ocean. Lots of Brits still, and English is the common language, with Swahili being the back-up. This is home to the Masai people, and if you ever saw Meryl Streep and Robert Redford in “Out of Africa”, well, this is the place. The movie was based on Karen Blixen’s autobiography, and her home http://www.museums.or.ke/karen is now a museum on the outskirts of town (the neighbourhood is officially known as “Karen” now). The Ngong Hills are in the distance.

The pictures are of downtown Nairobi, but does not show Kibera, the second largest slum in Africa (Soweto is the largest, outside Johannesburg). Another is of traffic gridlock downtown. I lifted the Kibera picture from the Web, and the scenic shot is from the elephant sanctuary showing the distant savannah.

The scenic shot of the plains is taken from the elephant sanctuary (see next posting) on the outskirts of Nairobi.

Yesterday was mostly taken up with running around trying to arrange visas for our entry into Sudan tomorrow. It was mostly an exercise in patience, filling out forms, and waiting for clerks to appear an hour after the appointed time. We did manage to fit in a quick taxi tour of downtown, then crashed. We’d been up by this point around 50 hours, with maybe four hours of naps on the flights. Slept through dinner and most of the night.