I’ve flown over Sudan a dozen times in the last few years, and every time I looked down and thought, “What’s down there?” From so far up, you see so little – some green (it’s surprising how far north it stays green), some mountains, some scrubland. At night, there are more lights than I had expected, and sometimes a wide circle of burning land, for crops, I guess. This time, flying up from Nairobi, I looked with more interest, noticing the crisscrossing dark green lines that, as we descended, resolved themselves into rivers overhung by trees. My perspective was all mixed up – I had no idea how high we were – and I couldn’t tell if the bushy things were huge trees or tiny tufts of grass. The area between them looked smooth and green, like a well-watered and trimmed lawn.
Down at ground level, that smooth green became tall grass waving about at waist height. The bushes became trees, and the houses rose round and thatch-roofed. It is hot in Juba, and I’m relieved that I learned (oh, about three months ago, finally) to appreciate sunglasses.
…
In the morning, before the flight, I had one last mocha milkshake at Java House in the Nairobi airport. It cost me almost $5, but some things are worth it. It’s not that I drink things like milkshakes all that often, so “last” is kind of a misnomer, and I’m not really going to be deprived; it’s just that it will be months before I once again have even the option of an espresso drink or a milkshake.
Then I got on a plane Juba-bound.
So here I am, in South Sudan. I’m still not in the Tiny Little Town (hereinafter to be known as TLT) where I’ll be working, but I’m looking forward to it. This is, after all, real Africa again. None of this Nairobi-Africa, with new shiny buildings going up. I think I had more culture shock arriving in Nairobi than at any point since, on my departure from Liberia last year, I got to the Brussels airport, where everything was TOO SHINY. I felt a bit that way about Nairobi. Nairobi has block after block of shiny new apartment buildings going up to house a middle class that is simply lacking in most African cities I’ve been in. I wanted, strangely (because I just came from the US), the whole time I was in Nairobi, to close my eyes and say, “Shiny! Make it go away!” and open them when real Africa had come back.
Don’t get me wrong – I think it’s great that there is a growing middle class and that Java House (again! I know! Will I never shut up about this place? It’s my EXAMPLE, people) is filled with Kenyans on a Sunday afternoon (way more Kenyans than wazungu, when I was there). It’s just that I had Liberia in my head, it being the last place I’d been in Africa, and I forgot how different war-battered Monrovia is from a big city in East Africa. I felt dazzled and overwhelmed driving from Jomo Kenyatta International Airport into Nairobi town last week.
Okay, enough about Nairobi. That’s over. On to South Sudan.
Except all I’ve seen so far is a road (unpaved, except for a section that I think ONCE was paved, under the potholes), and a restaurant, and one roundabout. So… more on South Sudan will have to come later.
…
Every few, I don’t know, SECONDS, my internet goes out and I have to reenter the key that allows me to get on it. For some reason, regardless of what wireless network I’m using and how many times I try to save the key, my computer always reverts to an old key that my apartmentmate and I were going to use for a wireless connection that we never got all the way set up. Last summer, my computer was wiped completely clean when I thought I had killed it in Liberia, and still it has saved that stupid, non-functional key. It’s making me crazy.
No, really. It’s making me COMPLETELY INSANE. I cannot, right now, even open one email before I have to reconnect. It goes like this: connect, sign into email, disconnect, enter key, reconnect, click on email, disconnect, enter key, reconnect, hit reload on the page, email opens, read email/disconnect simultaneously, enter key, reconnect, hit reply, disconnect…
It’s the fault of my law school, for requiring that I have a PC for exams. Otherwise I would have bought a Mac, and all would be well.
…
The house where I’m staying has all these little steps up into the hallway, the bedrooms, the bathroom. Given that the toenail that I severely damaged back in March is starting to get wigglier and wigglier and will probably soon fall off, these are quite a hazard. One little stub of the toe against one of those suckers and I’m going to rip my toenail right off and be weeping in pain for quite some time.
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