An Earlier Entry that is now being put into the blog....

Dear Friends,
Greeings, at long last, from the new Republic of South Sudan in Africa!

Today is Thursday, the first of September, 2011. I arrived after a long journey in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, yesterday, Wednesday, the last day of August in 2011.

It was a long journey indeed. This statement of course has multiple meanings and multiple layers. The particular meaning I am addressing here is that the flight from Washington D.C., once safely on board the aircraft, lasts for 13 hours. That is long time to be stuck in a small space with very little wiggle room and no access to one's regular routine.

I had the extreme luxury of three seat sot myself! I put all of the armrests up and spent most of the 13 hours prone and covered with blankets. It made the passage of time more bearsble.

I had dreamt of shopping at the Ethiopian Airport upon arrival in Ethiopia, our first port of entry into Africa. Shopping and finding a Diet Coke. Instead we were ushered off of the plane and directed into a small space that had no water, let alone Diet Coke and no restroom in sight. The choice to leave for shopping, etc., would have meant going back through security and I declined that. So by the time I got to Juba I was overwhelmed by the heat and the crowding in the tiny airport there. The Danish woman whom I met in the airport in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) said that the hardest part of the return journey for her from Denmark is always the arriving at the Juba airport. I did feel better after knowing I was not alone in my emotions.

Thankfully I was able to get a six month extension for my Travel Permit issued on the spot. I am grateful for the friends who told me to have $100. US available for that purpose and two passport pictures as well. I got the passport photos taken on the way to the airport in Louisville on Sunday! All was in hand.

The pastor and his wife who picked me up at the airport helped with the permit process and then with gathering my eleven bags. This was no small feat. I believe that there were four men and at least three flatbed carts that hauled my moving-to-Malakal load out to their vehicle. I was so thankful to see that it was an SUV type and not a small car.

They managed to get everything in and we directly to the Mission Aviation Fellowship to drop the 11 bags off for transport to Malakal as space allows. While I did prioritze the bags you might well imagine that with each bag containing some books for teaching that in reality all of the books are actually equally important...I am praying for quick success in recieving my bags at my new home in Malakal.

The next stop was the Ethiopian Airlines office for my round trip ticket to return to Addis Ababa and pick up things like my two burner stovetop and my teaching materials for the coming semester which were left in Addis when I returned to the states in March. The office was so crowded that we left and I am hoping someone at the Episcopal Guest House where I am currently staying in Juba will be able to help me with that endeavor today.

The Guest House was the next and last stop. As I expected it is a far cry from the Embassy Suites or the Hilton in Arlington, Virginia. Too much of those hotels in the D.C. area can take the edge off of a person, and that edge is necessary for surviving in Afrtica. It is a fine line however. I discovered on my extra day in D.C. (due to a Hurricane Katrina related glitch as related to you in a previous blog) that I really am going to have to take vacations. I need to have time to not be stressed about anything. The only way to do that is to truly get away from my daily activities. Part of what doing that will mean is that some of the edge will soften and I have to be aware that my return to life in Africa will be more difficult in the beginning as a result.

The Guest House is clean and, as I have a room to myself, has plenty of room for sorting through my two carryons that I kept with me and regrouping myself in order to get organized for the days ahead. I must prepare myself for the preparations to finally leave for Malakal so that I can set up house and be ready to start teaching at the end of September. That is a rather interesting paradox I suppose. I have to get organized in order to get organized. But, there you have it....

Juba is a pleasant little city, at least so far. It reminds me of Nairobi more than it reminds me of Addis Ababa. And it does not remind me of Khartoum at all. Khartoum is definitely an Arab city and it is a major urban metropolis of several million people. Juba is definitely an African city as is Nairobi. I keep reminding myself not to get too accustomed to, for instance, the paved streets in Juba, becasue it will make Malakal all the more difficult if I do. I am so grateful for the fact that because South Sudan is considered a hardship post each of us who works and lives here is given a "time-out" every three months to leave South Sudan for a time of renewal and I think probably shopping for things that cannot be found here as well.

Praise God for power as well! Another multi-layered word, power. I had carried my African cell phone with me across the world and back (anything I needed immediately upon my return to Africa had to stay with me and thus to travel to the states and back) and last night was able to find someone here at the Guest House to help me get the SIM card in. I remembered the code, I made it easy, put it in and got it charged! I was able to call the Principle of the Nile Theological College to let him know that I am here at the Guest House and will be in Malakal next week, God willing. Not surprisingly, he already knew I was here and that my bags had gone to MAF.

I have learned that it is best for me to get my UBS modem for the internet on my computer once I am in Malakal. There is a chance that when I move around South Sudan that the modem will not work, that it will be finely tuned for Malakal. This does made working on line a challenge in this new country.

So, I have arrived. I had also traveled to the states and back with one of my African adaptors, being that my computer is dual voltage it is no plugged into the adaptor and is charging away....again, I am thankful for electricity here in Juba. It will not be as plentiful in Malakal. In caes you are curious, I am typing this blog into a Word Document. When I am able to get on-line with my own computer again, and this may not be until net week in Malakal, then I will cut and paste this document into the blog. This is assuming that the blog is not blocked. If it is then this will hopefully go into an email. Once has to be creative when technology is still developing in different parts of the world!
Blessings,
Debbie