Crazy Kampala

While Sudan had it’s moments I’m excited to be back in Uganda.
The temperature is hot, but not reaching the almost unbearable levels of Juba, the language I can speak, a little, the people I know and I am free to move around and take public transit.
In some way it feels like nothing has changed, but then I look around to all the new development and the success of my friends and feel like everything has.
And all of a sudden I am back ... crazy Kampala

The view from above

The drive between Juba and Kajo Keji is sketchy to say the least.

So to avoid the 12-hour, death defying drive back, we took to the sky.

The air strip was a fenced off field and the pilot prayed before take off, but it was a smooth journey and took a fraction of the ground time – 35 minutes from take off to landing.

Seen from above, Southern Sudan in the rainy season is beautiful.

Our pilot

Thunderstorms

There are some pretty amazing thunderstorms in this part of Southern Sudan. You can always tell when they are coming by watching the clouds gather.

Spiders

My room is starting to look like a scene from the movie Arachnophobia.
Let me rephrase that, my room is starting to look like what I would imagine a scene in Arachnophobia to look like – I would not actually be able to sit through that movie.
Point being it started with a rather larger spider on the floor under my bed, who was too fast for me to catch and too big for me to kill.
Now I’ve got two other ones hanging out on the wall just outside my mosquito net and there is at least one near my roommates bed.
I’m not even going to mention the number in the bathroom.
Blah.
Spiders, I hate spiders. Why did it have to be spiders.
I’m very glad for my mosquito net, hopefully it will continue to keep the spiders at bay and there will be no more.

…. Update.
One has disappeared.
The only thing worse than seeing several spiders is knowing they are around, but not seeing them.

A nice cup of tea...ish

I have a new addiction, actually it’s an old addiction that is back to haunt me. Tea. African Tea with lots of powered milk, called Nido, and sugar.
I start every day with two cups of the sugary stuff, have at least one during the day and have one with dinner.
The hot water is served in these massive thermoses, the very sight of them make me thrill.
There are side effects of the addiction. I’m almost constantly bouncing off the walls and at night I have to make several trips to the bathroom.

The kids

There are kids everywhere at the school and they are more than delighted to see all of us.

They scream and run close for a chance to shake hands then pose to get their picture taken.

I can’t resist. They are so cute.

Don't talk and drive

So apparently Saskatchewan police aren’t the only ones looking out for people’s cell phone use while they drive.
I was in a car with the pair that had been assigned to help me track down my press credentials.
The driver, Charles, was on the phone, but he was doing a fabulous job driving in the jammed Juba streets, so I wasn’t so worried about it.
Suddenly he started talking louder, so I looked over at him and realized he was holding the phone in his lap.
I looked around to see that we were driving past some police officers directing traffic.
They don’t like it, he said as he skilfully turned the phone off and slid it into the glove box.
So it’s not illegal, but it seems better to not do things the police don’t like.

Frogs?

A distinct feature of our little prefab is frogs.

And no, that’s not slang for something else.

I mean little, well not so little some cases, green-spotted, jumpy frogs.

The first run in came when I was in the shower on the first day. I wasn’t wearing my glasses and something moved across the floor to hide behind the toilet. My first thought was it was the largest cockroach I had ever seen. I almost died. I finished my shower in record time.

With my glasses on, I could see that the intruder was far cuter than a bug.

I coaxed the frog into our garbage container and left him outside.

But, we’ve had more. It must have partially to do with the rainy season and partially to do with my luck, but we’ve had three pet frogs since our arrival.

Two were released, but the third hiding beneath the bed and that’s where he’ll stay, at least until the housekeepers find him.

Pre-fab

There is a distinct lack of permanence to the structures in Juba town. Driving from the airport to our accommodation the driver was pointing out the hotels, known as camps, as we drove past.
“They’re all pre-fab,” he said knowingly.
The pre-fab, short for prefabricated material is a big part of the construction in and around Juba.
They are shipped into the country pre-made and ready to go.
Basically they are like staying in a shipping container, thin metal walls and laminate flooring – but fortunately ours comes with an air conditioner and shower so I’m not complaining.
As one UN worker mentioned to me, no one thinks much past next year.

Our pre-fab hotel

Leg room..

I must have gained some bad flight karma laughing about flights on my way to Calgary, Thursday.
The plane between London and Addis Ababa, Ethiopia had about 6 inches of leg room from the end of one seat to the back of the next. I've never felt so crammed into a plan in my life and of course we were delayed for 45 minutes on the ground in London allowing me to discover the number of uncomfortable positions I'd be able to wedge myself in for the flight.

.. six hours later, I was so desperate for leg space I'd give away someone else's first born for it. I've had my legs cramp and had the flight attendant hit them with the dinner cart, the duty free cart, the breakfast cart, the drink cart...

Apparently the plane to Juba is smaller. Oh, good.