Life in Juba is tiring, hot and dirty, so there's nothing like a visit to a swimming pool to take the edge off.
Your choice is limited to two. The Acacia Hotel offers a 15 metre long pool filled with a liquid the colour of lemon squash, a mostly Western clientele and a tame Dik-Dik that sniffs around your bag and eats the apple you were saving for after your swim. The pool is busy but can usually be emptied by some vigorous bombing and ducking. If you have a ball you can throw at people then so much the better.
The Jebel Lodge pool is more of an African hangout and is usually filled half with lemon squash and half with people. None of the tactics that served us well at Acacia worked here and it was a hazardous place as most of the swimmers were doing the backstroke, swimming underwater or with their eyes shut. We did witness some of the worst diving imaginable; in this photo I demonstrate how it's done.
The greatest pleasure from the pool is derived not from the exercise but from the temperature of the water. In fact, a paddling pool is a serviceable alternative, and people with those in their back gardens are popular people. I would imagine that the key demographics for their manufacturers are five year olds and aid workers.
The other good thing about going to the pool is that it can make you forget you are in Juba, a necessary state every now and then (swallow enough water and you can forget more or less everything). Having said that, one of my colleagues returned to London from his deployment and showed his photos to his friends, who remarked that it looked more like he'd been on a boozy holiday than on a life-saving mission to a fragile state.
Your choice is limited to two. The Acacia Hotel offers a 15 metre long pool filled with a liquid the colour of lemon squash, a mostly Western clientele and a tame Dik-Dik that sniffs around your bag and eats the apple you were saving for after your swim. The pool is busy but can usually be emptied by some vigorous bombing and ducking. If you have a ball you can throw at people then so much the better.
The Jebel Lodge pool is more of an African hangout and is usually filled half with lemon squash and half with people. None of the tactics that served us well at Acacia worked here and it was a hazardous place as most of the swimmers were doing the backstroke, swimming underwater or with their eyes shut. We did witness some of the worst diving imaginable; in this photo I demonstrate how it's done.
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The other good thing about going to the pool is that it can make you forget you are in Juba, a necessary state every now and then (swallow enough water and you can forget more or less everything). Having said that, one of my colleagues returned to London from his deployment and showed his photos to his friends, who remarked that it looked more like he'd been on a boozy holiday than on a life-saving mission to a fragile state.
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