Every now and again, I get absorbed in satellite images of the world. I am mesmerized by the fact that I can zoom in on my actual house in Rwanda or Liberia. I can see the little white rectangle of aluminum roof next to the lake in Rwanda, or just in from the ocean in Liberia. Both of those are actually pretty easy - in Rwanda, I just go straight west from Kigali to Lake Kivu and then find where the road hits the lake: Kibuye. In fact, I can see the shape of the peninsulas more clearly on the satellite than I ever did when I lived among those hills. In Liberia, I follow the coast down from Monrovia and then backtrack a little north of Buchanan.
I cannot, for love or money, find that Tiny Little Town in Sudan, and today I finally figured out why: what looked to me, on location, like one river (the White Nile) actually splits into a million little bits in the Sudd north of Juba. I learned this thanks to wikimapia.org, which has little rectangles around places that people have marked as various landmarks. I found on there Bigger Town Three Hours Away, and the Airstrip in the Middle of Nowhere, and some other oil fields, which pointed me to a road, which then disappeared, but I followed the biggest of the bits of river until I found the road that intersects with it here:
I cannot, for love or money, find that Tiny Little Town in Sudan, and today I finally figured out why: what looked to me, on location, like one river (the White Nile) actually splits into a million little bits in the Sudd north of Juba. I learned this thanks to wikimapia.org, which has little rectangles around places that people have marked as various landmarks. I found on there Bigger Town Three Hours Away, and the Airstrip in the Middle of Nowhere, and some other oil fields, which pointed me to a road, which then disappeared, but I followed the biggest of the bits of river until I found the road that intersects with it here:
I can't really follow that road back to Tiny Little Town, though, for two reasons. First, the map doesn't have enough detail (silly map. doesn't everyone want to see detail in the middle of the Sudd?). Second, the road disappears into a patch of sand. Hmph. Not that I would be able to see much of the town, anyway, being that most of it is made up of thatched huts that aren't very visible from the air, but I am curious. I do know that it is somewhere at the intersection of that road coming west from the Nile and a road coming south from one of the oil fields.
It's quite satisfying to have nailed down the location of the town more precisely. I used to just scroll aimlessly through a huge section of Southern Sudan, hoping to happen upon something I recognized, but now I (sort of) know where things are. It's actually much further west than I had been looking.
Here is an illustration of why I had so much trouble finding it:
It's quite satisfying to have nailed down the location of the town more precisely. I used to just scroll aimlessly through a huge section of Southern Sudan, hoping to happen upon something I recognized, but now I (sort of) know where things are. It's actually much further west than I had been looking.
Here is an illustration of why I had so much trouble finding it:
Go ahead. You try finding towns that look like that on a satellite image. And that's in rainy season, when things are green. In dry season, everything is the color of, oh wait! the roofs of the houses.
...
(If you are easily grossed out by hygiene issues, please look away now. Thank you.)
When I was in Southern Sudan, I didn't wash my hair every day. Okay, I never wash my hair every day. Generally, here in the US, I wash my hair every three days, but in Southern Sudan, due to water shortages, I washed it about every five or six days. By the fifth day, it's getting a little bit gross, so I tried to keep it to five unless there was a serious water problem.
And... it's been five days since I washed my hair. I don't know why. I just wasn't doing anything exciting this weekend, and it seemed like a waste to wash my hair when there is no reason for it. I acknowledge, though, that this is slightly distasteful and culturally inappropriate, and I have spent the whole weekend paranoid about people standing close to me because of it.
(Now you are wondering: why wasn't I paranoid about people standing close in Southern Sudan? The answer is AIR FLOW. We didn't live all cooped up inside buildings in Southern Sudan. Also, everyone had to carry their water from bore holes, so everyone was much more understanding about the water issues. People here... not so much.)
...
(If you are easily grossed out by hygiene issues, please look away now. Thank you.)
When I was in Southern Sudan, I didn't wash my hair every day. Okay, I never wash my hair every day. Generally, here in the US, I wash my hair every three days, but in Southern Sudan, due to water shortages, I washed it about every five or six days. By the fifth day, it's getting a little bit gross, so I tried to keep it to five unless there was a serious water problem.
And... it's been five days since I washed my hair. I don't know why. I just wasn't doing anything exciting this weekend, and it seemed like a waste to wash my hair when there is no reason for it. I acknowledge, though, that this is slightly distasteful and culturally inappropriate, and I have spent the whole weekend paranoid about people standing close to me because of it.
(Now you are wondering: why wasn't I paranoid about people standing close in Southern Sudan? The answer is AIR FLOW. We didn't live all cooped up inside buildings in Southern Sudan. Also, everyone had to carry their water from bore holes, so everyone was much more understanding about the water issues. People here... not so much.)
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