Malaria is not fun

I am now on my third day of malaria.  It is not fun.  I feel like I might be starting to get better, but my job and employees are getting in the way of a quicker recovery!  At night, the fever, aches and pains makes it hard to sleep.  I also have caught a head cold along with the nasty parasite.  This just compounds the discomfort!  My driver didn't feel well, so I sent him to the clinic to get checked and treated.  I told him I would pay for it because he makes a very low wage and I need to keep him healthy.  He came back with a receipt, and diagnosis for malaria, cholera and mild typhoid fever.  It cost approximately $50 USD to cure him and he is taking 12 pills a day!  I went out and out of my own pocket bought him a proper bug net because he didn't have one.  At least that will decrease the likely hood of the malaria.

And I thought I felt like crap!!!

Fingers crossed tomorrow will be a better day!!

The Multi purpose street

3The streets in South Sudan are used for many other purposes than driving on.  Driving on the streets tends to be the least desirable thing one can do on the streets due to them being in such disrepair!  Here are some observations of things I have seen the streets used for in Juba:

• a garbage dump (any refuse tends to end out in the streets and ground into the dirt, anything from old shoes, clothing, rotten food, bones, paper and the worst offender plastic water bottles)
• business (much business is done on the streets.  Selling cheap jewelry, phone cards etc)
• play ground (children play in the streets, run around traffic and it is no big deal here!)
• social spot (many conversations, social meetings occur on the streets, neighbors meet and greet and catch up on the day)
• sewer (most areas of Juba do not have sewage systems, so it is either us a holding tank or just drain sewage to the streets.  If it has not rained don’t step in the wet areas!)
• dog breeding area (there are no abundance of wild dogs on the streets of Juba.  Many nights you can hear them barking or howling)
• a laundry room (the streets are very dusty here.  But people have no place to do laundry.  Often they are seen scrubbing their clothing in buckets then hanging it to dry.  Did you know conserteen wire is a great clothing hangar!)
• In rare cases a Cemetery (in one case on our way into a restaurant we frequent, the cemetery intrudes on to the road.  While driving on the road, you are actually driving over some of the grave sites.  It makes for some interesting smells and a VERY bumpy ride!)

The true African Experience!

The last 24 hours I started to feel a head cold coming on.  I am extremely busy at work the past few day as my job has almost doubled with some company restructuring.  As I do at home, I just sucked it up and continued to work through it.  This afternoon rolls around and I started to feel the fever, aches and pains come on.  One of my coworkers thought I should go to the clinic, to get checked out for malaria.

For malaria, it is best to find a local clean clinic for a test.  They see so many tests and can spot it when North American doctors can’t.  My co-worker, who has spent more time in Africa than out in the past 3 years came for a test also as he is leaving in 2 days.  

Of course the newbie (me the big white dinka) comes back with a positive test for the nasty blood born parasite!  The test took seconds, the wait for results, 10 minutes and the cost was 30 Pounds or approx. $10USD.  The medication to cure it was 10 pounds or $3.30 USD!  I expect in a day or two to feel back to normal!

The man in the clinic told me, “Hey man, you haven’t been to Africa till you get malaria”!

My new African Nickname!

I have been fascinated with our security guard at the apartment complex since I arrived.  He is about the most un-intimidating person I could put as a security guard.  He always has a great big smile and a goofy wave as I come and go.  Even when he has his gun on his lap, I still find him un-intimidating (don’t tell him that though!) and kinda goofy looking.

Picture this, he is 6 foot 8 inches tall, the blackest complexion I have ever seen, feet larger than big foot, hair shaved down to the scalp and is built like a bean pole.  In fact soaking wet he might weigh 100 lbs!  Yet he is healthy looking and does not appear to be underfeed or malnourished.

Today on my way in, I stopped and had a talk with him and formally introduced myself.  He demanded I sit, so he handed me his AK47, and ran around the corner to get a chair.  So their I am, a Kawaja standing on a busy street corner with a fully loaded AK-47, in a third world country waiting for the bean pole to fetch me a folding lawn chair with one arm broken off.  He sets it up beside his milk crate and demands I sit.  I hand him his gun back and take a seat.  I already knew this was going to be interesting!!!

Rahunie, (I had to get him to write it down) is the youngest of 5 siblings, he is the runt of the men in his family.  Believe it or not his father is 7 foot 2 inches!!!  He is a Dinka, which is a traditional tribe in Sudan.  They are people who have fought hard for their land and way of living.  Rahunie fought his first war when he was 7 years old!  He lives in a traditional round mud hut with a grass roof on the out skirts of Juba.  I asked him if he was excited about the separation, and Independence of his country.  He stressed to me he and his people have suffered for decades and have had to pick up arms to fight for their rights.  The government of the north didn’t care about them and they were forced to fight in a revolution that ended with a peace treaty in 2005.  He felt with the change of governments and a new beginning in the south the country was going to change for the good.

Rahunie was fascinated with where I was from.  I tried to explain the concept of a society where we don’t need to protect buildings of expats with guns.  Where the gun, he casually had leaning on his leg had more fire power than what our police generally carry.  He asked me how old I was when I first fought a war, and I explained I have never been in a war and have never been this close to a semi-automatic weapon.  He was absolutely fascinated.  He wondered how my child would learn to fire a weapon and defend their self with me not having these skills.  (He kind of made me feel like a bad dad, that I hand’t taught my 6 year old how to fire a AK47!).  I explained how we in Canada had a revolution not unlike what Southern Sudan went through, ours ended close to 150 years ago and since then we have lived in peace.  While we may not agree with our government all the time, they don’t anger us to the point of picking up arms.  

We continued our conversation for many more minutes and he started to understand our Canadian, peaceful way of thinking.  Just before we said good bye, he really wanted to tell me something, but did not want to offend me.  I exclaimed, nothing offends me!  Rahunie thought I was one of the tallest Kawaja’s he ever saw.  I reminded him of a Dinka Warrior, due to my tall, skinny build.

Due to this, he now calls me the “Big White Dinka”.  Yes it is true I have a African nick name!!

The pride of their new country - Patriotism on a whole new level!!

Today was the first day I really saw visible celebrations of South Sudan’s Independence.  The business I am in is full out or total boredom, and today was one of full out and I didn’t have any spare time on my hands to enjoy.  But during my travels around town, I saw many pickups, driving around town with the new flag of South Sudan flying off it, music blaring, and many people in the back of the trucks hooting and hollering.  Citizens are wearing teeshirts with their new flag on.  

While in the bank standing in line for an hour, I was touched when the many of the locals broke out into corse of the new national anthem because they heard a passing by truck with playing it.  By the way it was obviously payday for SPLA soldiers because the bank was chuck full of them!

The funniest sight I saw was a guy running around town with a pair of small flag poles some how strapped to his back flying his countries new flag.  His hat was a flag wrapped around his head.  The most comical was he wrapped himself in the flag, but one very crucial piece of his anatomy was not wrapped!!!  It was at full mast with its own flag flying!!

The party is over but a country is just starting

It is late afternoon.  I am sitting on my balcony watching a massive equatorial thunderstorm blast its way across the countryside.  Everyone is just returning from the Independence Day celebrations.  I could hear the loud speakers and the crowd cheer from here.  If it was up to me I would have been there to witness history in the making.

Everyone on the streets has a national flag and is proudly waving and cheering.  The mood is of great excitement.  I went for a walk this afternoon, everyone is extremely excited and friendly.  The military are everywhere with their guns today, but they are smiling and waving at people rather than stern faced and harassing.   I hope people remain this jubilant and try to make South Sudan work.  

Independence Day is here!

July 9th, Independence Day is here for South Sudan.  It is a birth of a new nation!!  I write my blog 5 or 6 days before you actually read it so I Independence Day isn’t actually here yet, and I am sure I’ll have some good stories about the day.  The company will sent all our employees to another location in South Sudan, but I'll remain alone in Juba.

In the days leading up to the big day I am noticing more troop movements, guns are again visible with soldiers, and anti-aircraft guns are being moved and positioned around town.  With that said, people are painting buildings, sweeping the streets, picking up garbage, putting up signs, and driving in the streets blasting music with their new flag flying off the vehicle.  Many citizens are proud to have a new country, but are also skeptical of the politics.  

There are many possibilities and rumors floating around how this day is going to go off.  I hope for the sake of South Sudan (and myself), it is a peaceful day of celebration.  But as one of the  billboards on a round about near us says “It took a combination of bullets and ballots to earn our hard earned independence.”.  

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Edit:  The above I actually wrote days ago, but as I sit on my balcony watching the sun set behind the mountains of South Sudan this is what I felt.

July 8th, 2011

I am sitting in my apartment in Juba.  The sun has set.  The next time the sun rises, Juba will be in a new country of South Sudan.  With the crack of dawn, is literally a birth of a new country.  The struggles that these people in South Sudan have gone through have been massive.  They have been engaged for many years in civil war, rebellions, and dishonest government rule.  Many of their friends, families and neighbors have suffered or perished.  Only time will tell weather the people of this new country can organize, prosper, and create a society that will shame the people from the North, who once ignored and degraded them.  

With the sun rise I hope comes a new day in history for this new country they call South Sudan and the end of poverty, suffering and war.