I've had complaints that this blog makes South Sudan sound like a bit of a lark and that it's all swimming in the river and playing with kittens. A while ago a well-respected commentator wrote that 'there are so many twenty-something Americans working at places like Save the Children that Juba feels like a giant frat party.' I will not confirm or deny this - I will however write a bit about disease in the hope of garnering some sympathy for my situation.
It is not easy staying healthy here. The bugs and the bacteria bask in the hot, wet climate, and all of the sane doctors left years ago to work somewhere they would get paid, leaving the other kind of doctors. If we get ill we head to one of the small private clinics which are expensive but preferable to the state-run Juba Teaching Hospital. I passed an unpleasant hour there on an errand and saw the biggest rat I have ever seen in one of the wards (it may have been a squirrel). I heard of a boy who was hit by a car, taken to JTH and given an official report of his condition that said 'he has a fever, and a headache in the buttocks'.
We are pretty used to our colleagues turning strange colours and missing days of work. Malaria is endemic - at any one time at least one of my colleagues is usually struggling with it. Generally you can zap it with drugs in a couple of days, but it's a good excuse to be miserable in the office. Typhoid is another favourite; so many people come back with it from one of our field bases that they must hand it out at the door.
Another health hazard is the Nairobi Fly. This is a small red and black thing that behaves like a fly in all respects, but if you swat it then it explodes in a shower of acid that leaves horrific blisters on your skin for days. This is what would have happened if someone had swatted the Alien in that film, and I can confirm that the terror that greets a swarm of Nairobi flies is comparable to that experienced by the crew of that space ship.
About two years ago we had a visit from the internal audit department in London. One of the auditors had a miserable week in middle-of-nowhere Waat, struck down by various ailments. While waiting for the plane to take him back to health and civilisation he had to dash to the loo, and the plane landed and took off while he was there so he had to wait a week for the next one. South Sudan has become a bogey land to people at HQ, something like a cross between Timbuktu and the Bermuda Triangle, and stories abound of giant fire-breathing snakes, flesh-eating diseases contracted from public transport and murderous bacteria that creep into kitchens and lie quietly among the breakfast things. When I was last visiting the office in London I did nothing to dispel these rumours.
It is not easy staying healthy here. The bugs and the bacteria bask in the hot, wet climate, and all of the sane doctors left years ago to work somewhere they would get paid, leaving the other kind of doctors. If we get ill we head to one of the small private clinics which are expensive but preferable to the state-run Juba Teaching Hospital. I passed an unpleasant hour there on an errand and saw the biggest rat I have ever seen in one of the wards (it may have been a squirrel). I heard of a boy who was hit by a car, taken to JTH and given an official report of his condition that said 'he has a fever, and a headache in the buttocks'.
We are pretty used to our colleagues turning strange colours and missing days of work. Malaria is endemic - at any one time at least one of my colleagues is usually struggling with it. Generally you can zap it with drugs in a couple of days, but it's a good excuse to be miserable in the office. Typhoid is another favourite; so many people come back with it from one of our field bases that they must hand it out at the door.
Another health hazard is the Nairobi Fly. This is a small red and black thing that behaves like a fly in all respects, but if you swat it then it explodes in a shower of acid that leaves horrific blisters on your skin for days. This is what would have happened if someone had swatted the Alien in that film, and I can confirm that the terror that greets a swarm of Nairobi flies is comparable to that experienced by the crew of that space ship.
About two years ago we had a visit from the internal audit department in London. One of the auditors had a miserable week in middle-of-nowhere Waat, struck down by various ailments. While waiting for the plane to take him back to health and civilisation he had to dash to the loo, and the plane landed and took off while he was there so he had to wait a week for the next one. South Sudan has become a bogey land to people at HQ, something like a cross between Timbuktu and the Bermuda Triangle, and stories abound of giant fire-breathing snakes, flesh-eating diseases contracted from public transport and murderous bacteria that creep into kitchens and lie quietly among the breakfast things. When I was last visiting the office in London I did nothing to dispel these rumours.
