Today was another day of standby. Once we were certain we weren’t working, a co-worker and I decided to go for a hike. This wasn’t any hike, after Google Mapping the route, it was a 21.8 km hike in the 38’C sun up a mountain. Juba while on very flat ground, has a number of mountains off in the distance. These mountains are 1700-1800 feet higher than the plains.
The walk out took us through many typical neighborhoods on the way to the mountain. People live in mud/dung walled huts with straw grass roofs. These huts are roughly 15 ft in diameter and will often have many people living in them. It is so fascinating walking through a neighborhood that people don’t see white people in often. The children would run to stare at us, as many have never seen a white man before. These kids were fascinated by us as we were with them. They would yell out to their friends and family “Kawaja”, which in local dialect means white man. Many would run up and wish us a “good morning kawaja”. One thing I have noticed is it doesn’t matter what time of day it is people always wish you a good morning.
As we neared the mountain, we came into the part of Juba referred to as “Rock City”. Rock City is an area that people make a living crushing large boulders into gravel. What happens is workers climb the mountains and roll large boulders down the mountain. These boulders eventually are split into many pieces and hand carried down to Rock City where mostly women sit and hammer away at these rocks chipping off gravel size fragments. They hammer with mallets, an old axel, pieces of rock or anything they can get their hands on. These women often have many children running around, while the men are up the mountains getting rocks. All around their mud huts are piles of gravel they have broken up. The piles are extremely neat, all divided up by type of rock and gravel size. Each pile is of identical size for sale on the market.
No comments:
Post a Comment