Lightning

Over the last few weeks our excuses for failing to carry out head office demands have ranged from food poisoning to scorpion stings.  We came up with a doozie a few Fridays ago though – our radio mast was struck by lightning, frying our internet machine and plunging us all into e-silence.

The lightning strike came out of nowhere – no thunder storm, no wind, no rain.  Our friends at Oxfam and Solidarites, 200 yards north and south of us, all reported an explosion of terrifying loudness, with the most seasoned field operatives jumping out of their skins.  Most of us in the office assumed the war was getting going again – imagine tossing a hand grenade out of the window and you have some idea.  Embarrassingly, my reaction was to throw myself on to my desk, as if to protect my laptop; our education advisor was reported to be crawling under her desk when news came that there was no bomb.

Everybody in the office who was touching their computer received an electric shock, and some were reporting headaches and backache hours later.  I am slightly embarrassed to report that none of my team were affected, which suggests that while other departments were all hunched over their computers mine had other pursuits to occupy their time.

So no one has email at the moment, prompting thoughts of what the hell did anyone do before email was invented.  Presumably they got on with their programmes without constant monitoring from head office, which was probably quite a good way of operating.  Field operatives desperate to update their fantasy football teams before the weekend had a different view.

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.

Return

Apologies for the long silence; bad internet connections follow me like avenging furies.

I'm back in Juba after three weeks in the UK, where I attended four weddings and gave the impression to the happy couple at each one that I made a special trip back for theirs.

As noted before in this blog, a rapid nosedive in the security environment means we all go into hibernation, where we are locked in our guest houses for the necessary days and survive on Rice Krispies and jelly (or whatever) from the hibernation kit, a locked trunk in the guest house kitchen.  Some experienced aid workers are reputedly able to sleep for weeks straight in these situations, like rodents.  When I got back I realized that I went away with the key to the hibernation kit for my guest house, so it was lucky there were no security incidents in my absence or our next house meeting would have been a frosty affair.

Speaking of hibernation, if we have an overnight guest, they now have to sign a waiver confirming that they will not be entitled to any of our emergency food, although on the plus side the waiver doesn’t yet go as far as saying that they will become the emergency food in the event of hibernation.

The rules of the guest house also now say that we all have to be inside five minutes before curfew – on the basis that curfew means the time by which you have to be inside, the rule is therefore that curfew is now five minutes before itself.

For a dreadful few weeks around independence time, curfew was 11pm, so now that it has been put back to 1am the nights seem to stretch ahead of one infinitely.  One of my colleagues recently returned home from his deployment and was found on his first night back standing on a bench on Blackfriars Bridge at 3am, arms aloft and bawling “no f---- curfew!” at the sleeping city.

Life in an independent nation

Things are much as they were before we got all independent.  For some reason there are a lot more road blocks, which usually aren't too much of a problem if you don't look like a gun-runner.  It's worth not copying the example of someone I know who was sick out of one car door while the driver was questioned in another.  Some other friends also got stopped by a policeman, who asked them why they were laughing as they drove, apparently an unpardonable offence.

Huge progress was made on the international airport in the weeks before independence day, but this appeared to stop on independence morning and presumably the airport will now be half finished for the next 20 years.  There are solar powered street lights which oddly enough do actually get light after dark and not just while they are being powered by the sun.

We have a new stock of bank notes emblazoned with the face of emancipation hero John Garang and traditional South Sudanese scenes.  If you're wondering where in South Sudan you can see a lion lying before a magnificent waterfall, just take a look at the new 100 pound note.  There is also a 25 pound note, which I am predicting will lead to all manner of confusion.  Estranged sibling (North) Sudan is also issuing new banknotes, leading to all and sundry scrambling to rid themselves of old Sudanese pounds which will soon be about as useful as an electric blanket in a Juba guesthouse.  This is called the Currency War and so far has been a lot more civilised than the Civil War.

Independence day

Last night at midnight South Sudan did what is has been fighting to do for half a century and stuck it to the Man by becoming its own nation.

Today the government has organised a hilariously-timed programme of celebrations, including speeches from ten major world figures in an hour and thirty five minutes.  The speakers will include the Secretary General of the United Nations, the President of South Sudan and everyone's favourite pantomime villain, the President of (North) Sudan.  I expect the speeches to be over some time around Monday lunchtime.

Last night the people held their own celebration by driving overflowing cars, troop-carriers and motorbikes in a ragged procession around the streets of Juba.  Hazard lights flashed permanently, horns honked pretty much permanently, hands were slapped and fists punched in every passing vehicle.  The shouts were "new nation!", "SPLA oyay" in recognition of the Sudan People's Liberation Army, and a general all-purpose howling.  We joined in the procession in an NGO land-cruiser, and had six people on the roof and two hanging off the side within a few minutes.

We saw one man manage to drive despite having most of his body out the window and on the roof of his car, one daredevil lying on his motorbike like Superman and swooping between cars and pedestrians, and one fellow pushing his broken-down car to the side of the road but still blowing lustily on a vuvuzela trumpet.  There were plenty of home-made flame throwers fashioned from lighters and bug spray, and people seemed to be chucking fireworks about.  By the side of the road lay some who had evidently began their celebrations in the morning, but there seemed little time for drinking.

Road safety is never high on the agenda around here, and you feared for some of the car roof gymnasts.  As we approached the countdown clock tower on the stroke of midnight we saw a limp body being dragged from the road and tossed in the back of a pickup.

The clock tower was the focus of the midnight celebrations, and traffic approaching the roundabout found itself entering a melee of dancers with shields and spears, embracing families, jerry-can drummers and BBC news crews.

I have no idea what freedom feels like as I have never known anything else.  From what I saw last night, it's not so much a state of mind as a physical feeling.  It was possibly the coolest thing I've ever seen.

Independence minus 10 days

 On 9th July South Sudan becomes the world's newest baby nation, and Juba is preparing.  The airport is currently a one-storey hut with one room for leaving and one for arriving; luggage is tossed through a hole in the wall.  The skeleton of a huge new terminal building has been slowly growing over the last three years but work is now going on round the clock to transform it into a shimmering temple to aviation that will no doubt collapse on top of the thirty heads of state due to arrive for the party.

The shabby countdown to referendum clock tower has been replaced by a swish countdown to independence clock tower donated by the Chinese, who I'm sure don't want anything in return for the $9bn they've donated to the baby shower.  I believe this money has been earmarked for several enormous guns which will be taken to the border and pointed at North Sudan.  Anything left over may go on ministerial stretch Hummers, or perhaps a monorail.

You'll have noticed that North Sudan, upset to be losing a good chunk of itself, isn't playing ball with the independence celebrations and has been bombing the hell out of selected Southern towns.  At the moment it is refusing to hand over the region of Abyei, like a jilted lover who won't face facts and refuses to return a favourite borrowed sweater.

A consequence of Khartoum's moodiness is that there are dire shortages of fuel, food and premium-strength European lager.  The fuel problem is hitting Juba hardest, and hoarders are filling up spare bins, washing up bowls and wellington boots in the belief that it will get worse.  Some petrol stations are refusing to allow you to fill jerry cans, but this isn't a problem as no one will notice if you get your driver to make several trips and spend half his day lying under the car syphoning petrol into empty baked bean tins.

5 things I've learned so far from 7 months in South Sudan

Putting your hand in a ceiling fan will lead to a broken finger.  It will also lead to embarrassment when done during a meeting at which the entire management team is present.

Tiny bugs can get into unopened packets of nuts and breed within.  The chances of you noticing before eating any of the nuts is around 50%.

You can't really play football in the rain in Sudan.  It poured with about 10 minutes to go in one of our games and within seconds the clay in the pitch had turned into glue, the hail was in everyone's eyes and we were staggering around like blind men wearing deep sea diving boots.

If you accidentally swig from a bottle of kerosene in the belief that it is water, lighting a cigarette immediately afterwards to calm you after your ordeal will not make you explode.

You can swim in the Nile if you watch out for crocodiles and don't swallow too much water, but you don't want to stray too far from the bank or the current will take you to Khartoum.  Seeing as virtually no expat in Juba has a Sudanese visa, a watery arrival in Khartoum is unlikely to go down well with the authorities there, who assume that most movements that Westerners make are an attempt on the President's life.