Kapoeta

I write from Kapoeta North, way out East of Juba near Ethiopia and so remote that you can't even get to the airstrip when it's been raining as a river appears and blocks the road.  I think the local tribe might have been put here by National Geographic; every day our water arrives on the heads of five ladies wearing goat skins, beads and bits of metal, none of which covers their breasts.  After they put the water down they sit down and smoke a pipe - you weren't expecting that were you.

Nakedness is popular around here, and plenty of men wander around wearing nothing but a jacket and an AK47.  A friend of mine ran a health workshop here a while back.  Halfway through one of the participants, clearly feeling the heat, removed his shirt and pants with the noncholance of taking off a sweater.  My friend said that she was very sorry but it actually made her feel a little uncomfortable, and the gentleman nobly covered his nakedness by putting his shirt back on.

We run health and nutrition programmes here, which are fantastic and actually seem to make children healthy and nourished.  I visited a stabilisation centre today, where babies who are deemed too size zero to be much of a prospect in life are incarcerated until they show a bit of gumption and gain some flab.  No doubt the picture of tasty vegetables on the wall is inspiring, but I'm not sure of the purpose of the giant rabbit.  I can't help thinking that the idea of a domestic pet overfed to the point of morbid obesity is a bit insulting to a two-year-old trying to make a dent in the scales.

Stabilisers

Tasty veg, an espresso and a piece of coal

Unhelpful

There are something like six billion gazillion insects on Earth, and around half of them live in our compound here.  They like to hang out in the office after dark, and divide their time between orbiting the lights, bumping their heads on my computer screen and trying to explore interesting looking parts of my body.  I'd hoped to get plenty done this evening, but you try developing a 2012 master budget when there's a flying centipede hurrying its way up your nostril.