Malualkon

I'm writing in the village of Malualkon, not far from the border with the North and in the heart of Dinkaland.  Yesterday some tiny clouds appeared in the sky and were greeted like long-lost friends by the team here, desperate for some rain to cool the nights and wash the cars, buildings and children.

When the rains come they will long for the dry season, as most of the compound will turn into a lake, the tukuls will flood and the snakes will increase in number and curiosity.  At the moment the most notable thing about the compound is the group of huge predatory birds (kites maybe) that sit patiently on the trees, waiting to swoop at us at mealtimes and go for bits of meat on forks.  I'm pleased to report that the bald head of the area programme manager is an even more tempting target, so when he's around it acts as something of a lightning conductor, keeping the rest of us attack-free.

Today we are confined to barracks as the Joint Integrated Unit of the North and South armies is demobilising in this area so no one is allowed out as huts are searched for weapons.  This was where the second civil war ignited in the early eighties, as Arab raiding parties took half of what was in the villages and burnt the rest.  Yesterday I met a guy who was abducted from here as a small child and brought up in Khartoum; he returned two months ago and was reunited with his mother.  They couldn't chat though as he didn't speak a word of Dinka.

We have some excellent education and livelihoods programmes here.  We are running teacher training at the moment, and yesterday I handed out per diem payments to the 150 trainees.  They stand in line for an hour, sign their name and take their money, although a lot of them seemed happy to stand in line, sign their name and then try and walk off without taking their payment.  One lady didn't show up, and after 6 weeks of perfect attendance she has missed the whole of this week.  Her excuse?  Turns out she had a baby at the weekend.  Maybe there is hope for South Sudan after all.

Queueing for per diems

Fruit

Juba is an expensive place to live.  This is mostly because it runs on a sort of emergency economy; industry has never been able to develop, and if it did it got shelled in the war, so if you buy something it came from Khartoum or Uganda.

Even fruit gets imported, which is a ridiculous situation in a country that is incredibly hot and wet - lovely weather if you're a pineapple you'd imagine.  Agriculture here stopped to allow the war to go on, and people have never got out of the subsistence mentality.

I discussed this with Anuol, our lawyer and coincidentally a friend of a friend in London.  (He went to law school in Newcastle and his accent has to be heard to be believed; he is the only Sudanese I know who says 'aye' instead of 'yes').

Anyway, we discussed the lack of entrepreneurship in South Sudan, and the fact that planning ahead, even in the fairly short term, is mostly absent from the national psyche.  I wondered if it was due to the war, living each day as it comes as it may be your last. He said no man, it's a lack of education.  People who have been to university plan ahead better due to the experience of spending their whole loan in fresher's week and surviving on super noodles for the next 10 weeks.

That's a valuable lesson, even if it's the only one you get.

I recently met a Dutch guy in Addis who was on his way to Juba.  Being Dutch, his two passions were irrigation and volleyball (I'm not making this up).  He was being contracted to teach modern commercial farming methods to a group of Juba farmers.  If they understood his accent then they are set to make a killing because as far as I can see the most sophisticated farming method employed in these parts is kicking a mango tree until something falls out of it.

The view from my bedroom in Juba: worth kicking