Juba, S Sudan
Friday, April 27 Evening
I'm happy with my position. My boss looks like george clooney - they call him Raja ... =))
Some of us from the office packed into the SUVs and he started driving. When we pulled through a wooden gate with the sign Mango Camp, I thought we might be visiting some camp that I was to see for the first time. But somehow, the mood in the car was upbeat, so I refrained from asking questions. There's a Japanese dude here, Kazuhiro who seem to be taking all the jokes today.
As we got off the car, Raja asked me to not expect this every day ... which thoroughly added to my confusion.
As we walked into the shaded compound I realized what it was. A restaurant! With a bar! O goodness - a bar around a mango tree! And right that second a mango fell in front of me. I looked up. It was a mangrove cluster. That was the entire restaurant. The outdoor seating was shaded by mango trees that were laden with ripe mangoes that you have to pray don't fall on your clothes. And then Raja exclaimed ... drinks by the Nile! ... and right he was! The non-existent fence of the restaurant was the bank of the Nile. Flowing river, cool shade, smell of mangoes, light breeze and heat without humidity. I swear it was like our aam-baagan (mangrove forest) in Rajshahi. It was ultimate bliss.
As they all ordered drinks, I kept jumping as mangoes kept falling all around me. Grrr ... first those damn matatus and now these mangoes!
:)
The dinner was scrumplicious! Western style buffet from salad to dessert. The Japanese officer was treating. We sat there in the dark and talked until no one could eat anymore. I'm happy with all the 4000 calories that I stuffed myself with.
They told me if I go touch the Nile water, then luck would keep bringing me back to it for the rest of my life.
At this point, I wouldn't mind.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
Arrival: Juba, S Sudan
I Came, I Saw and I Stared
Friday, April 27
How this plane 'cruised' at 31000 ft, is not a story for the weak of heart. But they fed us well. Like sacrificial goats. Despite a maddening urge, I did not feel the bottom of my seat to find out if the flotation device was there. Ignorance can be bliss.
It was all worth it when the Nile came into view. I'm not a romantic, but I think I must've choked. All those years of reading books about how it flows northwards ... and how Alexandria is on its delta ... ok, so I don't remember much more about it, but its still time-stopping. It was narrow, silvery and flows like any other river, but I craned to keep it in sight literally until we landed.
I have to write my mother. Juba feels, looks and smells like Rajshahi - the red earth, the mud walls, and the lack of development. Its dry and dusty. The UNHCR vehicle that came to receive me has an antenna stuck up its front that I'm sure could pick up radio signals at Gliese 581 c!
Driving back, I realized. This is it. I am here. Its my life and not someone else's. The air-con inside the jeep removes you from the reality outside. Everything about the bumpy ride felt like an expedition ... an African man was driving me to a camp. How bizarre is that? I mean that felt completely bizarre to me. Except that everything around me didn't look so much like Dicaprio's Sierra Leone ... but more like Rajshahi. I suppose I was trying to process my surroundings in a framework that was known, familiar.
The only four-wheeled vehicles here are also 4W drive, and stamped with the name of the agency that they belong to. Everyone walks. We only saw a few one-storeyed brick buildings on the way. (oh wait, I think I saw a matatu ... I must be hallucinating). There are some wicker fences, and huts behind them, which could be anything from housing, to school, to NGO or clinic.
Life's very basic here. There's nothing here that you don't need ... but also some things that you do. It seemed so simple and ... undisturbed. I realized peaceful was the wrong word when a simply-written sign by the roadside read "War Child -->"
Friday, April 27
How this plane 'cruised' at 31000 ft, is not a story for the weak of heart. But they fed us well. Like sacrificial goats. Despite a maddening urge, I did not feel the bottom of my seat to find out if the flotation device was there. Ignorance can be bliss.
It was all worth it when the Nile came into view. I'm not a romantic, but I think I must've choked. All those years of reading books about how it flows northwards ... and how Alexandria is on its delta ... ok, so I don't remember much more about it, but its still time-stopping. It was narrow, silvery and flows like any other river, but I craned to keep it in sight literally until we landed.
I have to write my mother. Juba feels, looks and smells like Rajshahi - the red earth, the mud walls, and the lack of development. Its dry and dusty. The UNHCR vehicle that came to receive me has an antenna stuck up its front that I'm sure could pick up radio signals at Gliese 581 c!
Driving back, I realized. This is it. I am here. Its my life and not someone else's. The air-con inside the jeep removes you from the reality outside. Everything about the bumpy ride felt like an expedition ... an African man was driving me to a camp. How bizarre is that? I mean that felt completely bizarre to me. Except that everything around me didn't look so much like Dicaprio's Sierra Leone ... but more like Rajshahi. I suppose I was trying to process my surroundings in a framework that was known, familiar.
The only four-wheeled vehicles here are also 4W drive, and stamped with the name of the agency that they belong to. Everyone walks. We only saw a few one-storeyed brick buildings on the way. (oh wait, I think I saw a matatu ... I must be hallucinating). There are some wicker fences, and huts behind them, which could be anything from housing, to school, to NGO or clinic.
Life's very basic here. There's nothing here that you don't need ... but also some things that you do. It seemed so simple and ... undisturbed. I realized peaceful was the wrong word when a simply-written sign by the roadside read "War Child -->"
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