The Refugee Experience

I’m just back from Maban County, Upper Nile state.  Things in Blue Nile state of Sudan are even worse than they are in Greece, with rather more bombing of civilians, so people are crossing the border.

Our compound is just outside Doro camp, which has 35,000 refugees.  20,000 are children and all of them managed to get themselves in a photo I took at the airstrip this morning.  Just up the road is Yusuf Batil camp, which has about 15,000 refugees and space for 20,000 more before the hot tubs get too crowded.  Every day 3,000 fresh refugees get brought down from the border by the UN in trucks that look disturbingly like they transported cattle in a previous life.

The Refugee Bus

7,000 of the new arrivals at Yusuf Batil are without shelter, but don’t worry – I spent most of yesterday building a tent warehouse (Rubhall) where we will store 1,000 tents for these folk.  We flew over the camp this morning and I was amazed to see the Rubhall still standing.

Yusuf Batil camp from the air - our Rubhall is the white building furthest right

In fact the most overcrowded, barbaric living conditions for anyone in Maban is in the compound we share with the Danish Refugee Council, who are doing marvellous work in refugee health and in lending us their vehicles.  Every inch of the compound is covered by a tent, each housing at least two people.  I slept on a mattress on the floor of the office, and was awoken every four minutes by assorted flying rodents alighting on my face.

My quarters

We are hiring vehicles and drivers from a Kenyan company, and last week they sent our next driver up from Nairobi.  This poor fellow was put on a plane in this vague direction, and found himself with 20,000 refugees in Jammam camp, a long way from Doro.  He spent three days there for some reason, and eventually managed to cadge a ride to our place on the back of a motorbike, which took four hours.  It appeared that his only worldly possessions were a box of spare parts and a shovel; needless to say he wasn’t impressed by his commute to work.

Yesterday was World Refugee Day, which seems a strange sort of thing to celebrate.  They had dancing and football and goat-murder and the usual festive things.  The parties continued well into the night, although I may have confused the end of the celebrations with a wedding.  At any rate the cacophony outside our compound was ludicrous – singing, howling, ululating, drums.  The pack of wild dogs needed no excuse to join in, along with a single psychotic donkey.  Someone even seemed to be playing the didgeridoo; heaven only knows what possessed him to grab this as he fled his house with only the bare essentials, but I wish he hadn’t.



Thailand and Kenya

In my last blog before going on holiday to Thailand I promised you jokes about Thai prostitutes, but I can’t make any jokes because I didn’t see any prostitutes.  On the plus side I found myself to be very popular with the ladies in Bangkok, especially the ones with Adam’s apples.

We spent a few days in Bangkok swimming in people’s rooftop pools and generally being fabulous.  We devoted a day to the visual arts, and I can report that the new ‘Avengers Assemble’ film is excellent.   Also interesting is a visit to the Khao San Road to look at the backpackers, although you have to make sure you wash your hands if you touch any.

The Grand Palace is amazing, with its Temple of the Emerald Buddha, where a little green Buddha the size of a hamster sits on an enormous pile of golden and bejewelled paraphernalia.  There is also a sign saying ‘Beware of your Valuables’, which is good advice if you are worried your camera is going to bite you.  The lavatories are divided into Men, Women and Monk.

We went to the paradise beach locations of Koh Phi Phi and Railay, where we adopted the traditional Thai beach diet of prawn curry and Sangsom buckets.  When you arrive in Phi Phi you are herded by cattle prod into a boat to visit Maya Bay, which is every bit as underwhelming as the location for disappointing Hollywood blockbuster The Beach sounds, although they have cool urinals cut into the cliffs.  Phi Phi used to be a trashy resort with nothing but cheap hostels and sleazy bars, but the 2004 tsunami devastated it, enabling it to be rebuilt as a trashy resort with nothing but cheap hostels and sleazy bars.

I had a weekend in Kenya before returning to Juba, and a trip to Hell’s Gate national park was just the thing.  You can hire bikes and ride past antelopes, zebras and giraffes; if they all run in the same direction then it’s best to follow them.  Quite a good joke is to ride past another tourist at top speed, screaming “LION!!!!!!!!”, to see if they take the bait.

Another good thing to do in Nairobi on a Sunday is to visit the Karen Blixen house.  The traffic was light so we covered the 5 mile journey in under a day, and it turns out that an NGO ID from South Sudan is enough to prove one’s Kenyan residence and qualify for reduced admission.  In the gift shop they have a series of books about living with clinical depression and terminal disease, for some reason.