Malakal - port on the White Nile

Jacob was kind enough on Saturday morning to take me down to the river and walk me about. Going up river, against the current, it can be up to 14 days to Juba, and only 4 or 5 down river to Khartoum. Amazingly busy place. Absolutely fascinating to watch. Everything imaginable being off-loaded from motorized river barges - tractors, mattresses, sacks of food from the UN World Food Programme. We went to a sidewalk coffee place afterwards. Total opposite from the sanitized, cookie-cutter sameness of Starbucks. Water boiling over charcoal, a wooden bench for the customers, broken plastic chair for the woman making the coffee, bucket of river water to rinse glasses in, hose to fill the kettle, and a small table to work on. That's it. She wouldn't let me take her picture, so Jacob sat in. Coffee like I've never had before. Incredibly hot/spicy.