Juba: Random Observations

(I wrote this a couple of months back and did not get the time to complete it and publish it… here is the post as rough as it was..) 

Complaining about the heat in Juba these last few days, I was told there are t-shirts in the market with the text ”Juba sukon, lakin top!” (Juba is hot, but it’s nice).

Juba is filled with contradictions… you can love it in the morning and by the evening, you’d hate it so much you’d promise to go the airport in the morning and just fly out of this place… when you wake up the next day, the circle would start all over again!

 

 pics: driving to Juba and the presidents popular reception in Juba

Driving or being driven in Juba…
 If a car has seat belts, I make sure I put mine on whenever I am seated in a car. In Juba, driving or being driven can be scarely to say the least. If you are driving, you have to navigate the potholes, dodge the kids on motorbikes, give priority to the dogs and goats criss-crossing the road, mind the semi-blind and deaf pedallers, beware of SPLA trucks and stay on your side of the road…. When everyone does that simultanously, you can imagine how the traffic would flow!

Almost everyone I know who has had a car in the last 6 months or so has either hit something or was hit. In most cases, after an accident the drivers will get out and pick up a physical fight….

If you think this is nothing, try been riden on a ’senke’ (motorbike).

Domestic Violence…
Very first week in Juba and our neighbour to the left has already been beaten 4 times. The first day I felt bad because I thought there was something I could do like call the police or something, but I did not want to look stupid again for suggesting or stating what I pressume is the ordinary or the obvious.

By the second day, I kinda came to the conclusion the woman wanted a good whopping. I swear to Jah she asked for it as she went on for hours pushing this poor guy’s buttons. She was loud and every neighbour could hear her go on and on insulting her husband in ways that could only hurt best if said in Arabi-Juba and Bari language. The man was silent for the most of it, probably foaming with anger…. when he exploded, I don’t know what happened but she was screaming and I don’t know what…

The next day, I saw a women whose left side of the face was kinda thicker than the other and I guess it was her… I don’t see her these days.. I believe the husband did not kill her, but I guess she has been sent back to her mums to get some manners and learn how to still have a big month and not get beaten because of it!

(by the way, I am opposed to violence against women)

Juba is expensive…
There is a place, a business center to be precies called Home and Away. It’s so expensive! A glass of wine cost 20 SDPounds (10USD). A pakket of Benson (cigarettes) costs double the normal rate ie 10SDPounds. It’s situation close to where most ministers and the big guys stay… an area in Juba called Hai Amarat. This place has been closed down because the ministers complain they can’t sleep in the weekends when the disco happens…

   

Da Vinci (hotel, bar and resturant) and goats on my friends car

There are other places like Da Vinci, a very beautiful place close to the River Nile. A plate of Spagetti would cost you 54 SDPounds (that’s 27 USD). Next time I’ll scan the receipts and the excharge rate that day for you to believe…

Killing positive ideas

Yesterday, we had a family meeting to organize some family event. It was great to see some of my uncles and nephews that I had not seen for around 20 years.

The meeting, as is now customary in Southern Sudan, started with prayers. Our family head is a ‘born again’ Christian and he tries to convert the whole family whenever he gets the chance. Of course he opened the meeting asking someone ”who has been touched by the Holy Spirit” to pray open the meeting with prayers. You should know that these Christians who call themselves ‘born again’ don’t consider the other Christians, Catholics and Prostestians, as full Christians. I know I have been touched, but I’m not too sure if that was the Holy Spirit, so I did not volunteer to pray for the group.

Anyways, the meeting started 3 hours later than the agreed time, but it went well. When it was over, a brother of mine who I saw there for the first time in around 20 years requested to say something to the family members.

He did not stand up or anything, the group was not the big. Some years ago during the war, he fled Sudan through Darfur and ended up in some West African country where he spent 4 long and miserable years. Somehow, he relocated and went to Egypt where again he spent some 6 even longer years. He is now back home trying to pick up from where he can… and I have great admiration for him.

Okay, the post is about killing positive ideas…

This guy, of course still a new returnee, is full of positive ideas to help his country, his people, his family and his self. He told the gathered about a situation that he believes the family can help. One of our family sisters stays close to where he puts up and he is not at all pleased with the way our sister lives. She has two kids, a second wife to some jerk who beats her for a hobby. She does not live with the husband anymore but they are not really separated. The husband does not support her and she has to brew alcohol, which does not always get its market, to make ends meet. Sometimes she works at a local school where she cooks for the kids and gets 30 Sudanese Pounds per month (15 USD). She can not apply for other jobs with the government because she does not have the money to process her nationality card and birth certificate(!). Life, if you can call it that, is really hard for her. Yes, she is illiterate.

So, this new returnee asks the family members to help this sister to atleast get her papers and/or help her get a better paying job. Logical, right!

Before the guy could even end his appeal, some family members started asking very negative questions. The lady is already in deep shit, but they cared less… Some asked:
- why didn’t she stay in the village with the husband? (dah.. the 3rd wife and husband beat her up everytime)
- what type of work can she even do?
- she does listen, we told her to leave that husband after the first kid. Now she has 3 and wants help?
- aahh.. there is nothing we can do to her, she better just go back to the village…

And so on! I was dumbfounded to listen all that negativity! Maybe the new returnee was even more shocked than I was. He did not say much after that. The rest just went on with listing all classic excuses of the impossible, killing this new returnee’s positive ideas in the process.

When I sat in a bar some hours later downing some cold Henieken, I discussed with another older returnee and I came to believe that I was like that new returnee not too long ago. In Juba, or Sudan in general, you see things that you know can be improved. Most of the time you know how to improve the situation because you have seen it somewhere else. You’d want to help every begger in the street, ask every kid in the street why they are not going to school, give a lift to every sick person dragging themselve to the hospital, buy medicine for that mother who can not avoid and so on. Life can be very complicated!

In Juba, some people would think you are mad if you keep sharing positive ideas.

I still have to meet and talk to the new returnee and share notes. I will do want I can to help this sister, but I have also come to learn that there are those who want to be helped, and others who have given up. I’ll keep you posted…