Southern Sudan - a desciption

With one million square miles of territory, Sudan always was more like a vast continent than an individual country, and of all its remote regions – western Darfur included – none seemed as remote as the jungles and savannas of the equatorial south. Even by African standards, the south was in the middle of nowhere, cut off from the rest of Sudan by the Sudd, the world’s most formidable swamp, and bordering such dangerous, disease-ridden, and underdeveloped places as the Central African Republic, Zaire, war-racked northern Uganda, and Kenya’s Turkana desert. A netherworld of violence and chaos, roamed by armed bandits and disaffected Ugandan soldiers, the south was a heartland of unreported atrocities as well as a breeding ground of leprosy, elephantiasis, and Green Monkey disease. Just the lost and vacant ring of the towns in the region (Yei, Tarakaka, Pibor Post) evoked distant planets and gave one the feeling that the south really was in deep space. It had no roads to speak of, and because of the civil war, planes flying into the region always were shot at and occasionally were shot down. On every trip to the south, Western relief workers literally took their lives in their hands. When I asked a U.S. diplomat how to get to a certain area of the south near the Ethiopian border, he gave me a mad look and said, “Parachute, I guess.” Admitted an official of Sudan’s Ministry of Information, “Nobody ever really knows what’s happening down there.” Surrender or Starve: Travels in Ethiopia, Sudan, Somalia, and Eritrea – R.D. Kaplan (1988)

The situation has vastly improved since then. There are now a few roads, planes aren’t falling out of the sky and the civil war is over. Altho given the rising tensions re the coming referendum on January 9th when the south will decide to secede from the north, all that could change. I will be watching with interest, from afar.

Happy Thanksgiving

I lost interest in eating today.

Every weekend I set out with enthusiasm to find a new place to eat and pass time with a book. Today I decided I would go to the “Juba Bridge Hotel, as its name implies, is located in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan. It is placed adjacent to Juba Bridge, which is the only Nile Crossing in all Southern Sudan.” 

Luckily it is also adjacent to Davinci's, also on the Nile. I couldn't really find a table at the JBH that was to my liking so I strolled over to Davinci's where I have been countless times cuz it has a more inviting seating area from where you can also see the Juba Bridge crossing the Nile. The JB is not an engineering wonder but it is a bridge. You could be arrested if caught taking a picture of it so I can't post a photo. But I did take pics of a couple of the laughable menu pages at Davinci's. Altho the menu items all have sumptuous, creamy, etc. etc. descriptions, you know damn well that nothing of the sort will land at the table. I took a chance on the calamari salad with herb vinaigrette and a plate of fries. The lower salad was diced tomato and cucumber soaking in a watery bed of lettuce all topped by rubbery calamari rings drowning in a thick thousand-island like dressing. The dark oily fries must have been soaking in the frying vat for days and then just recently heated up for my benefit. I ate about half from each plate... and I still feel ok. 

I then realized that I am actually quite sick and tired of tomatoes. I have probably eaten more green peppers and tomatoes here in Juba than most people eat in a lifetime. While I was feeling pretty good about eating tons of veggies and fruits, the only veggies that I am now eating are tomatoes and small shriveled green peppers... everyday in a giant salad, maybe with a tin of corn thrown in for fun (although yesterday I found 2 very robust yellow peppers at an expensive fancy store). The carrots from the market are always limp, the cukes are 80% seeds and lettuce is just too .. well.. dodgy. I am not inspired enuf here to jazz up my meals and it won’t be long before I am onto to the next adventure anyway.

Enjoy your turkey and pumpkin pie!

Grocery shopping in Juba

Just got back from a trip to VAMP, a grocery store near the US Consulate.  Obviously this is not a store where everyone shops.  I spent $20 for these items:

2 small english cucumbers             $7.50
2 yellow peppers                           $9.00
1 tin of strawberries                     $3.50

This purchase entitled me to a small glass of fresh carrot juice.