March 10, 2012

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Malakal! I am back in the hot and dusty little city, or big town, whichever way a person chooses to look at it.

The possibilities for mishaps on the way back yesterday were multiple. All things considered I made it back with a very small amount of drama. I do have a deep realization that one of the wounds in South Sudan from the many decades of civil war is that there is not an innate sense of being civil among the South Sudanese and certainly not with foreigners. When disembarking from the plane in Juba, which we must do due to a lack of coordination on the part of immigration officials (those who are going to Malkal should be able to have passports stamped in Malakal and not Juba) the passengers just kept going in the line, never stopping to ask if another person wanted to get out. It was better going to Malakal, there was more courtesy extended at the end of the long route.

Even though I had a valid visa and was making my single entry on that visa I was required to purchase another visa. $100. for one month. Very, very expensive. To give a comparison, Ethiopia is $20. for one month. I always have a feeling of pressure inside of me at immigration in Juba. There are no lines per se, it is a pushing match and people all sticking their passports at the ill equipped people working behind the counters. I am fully aware that I have less than an hour to get the visa stamped, pay the money, and have my luggage and person checked manually at two points before reboarding the airplane. It always feels like, and is, a race against time.

I got into Malkal during the daylight for which I was very thankful. Upon first sight of the new house I thought, oh dear Lord can I really do this for another three years? Do I really want to? After spending over two weeks in a nice house in Addis Ababa, a house with a proper bathroom and a kitchen that has a sink, running water and a stove I looked around at the cracked cement floors and ripped plastic shades on the veranda mosquito netting -- the area where light and air comes in can’t really be called windows, but it does sort of serve that function. I looked at it all and nearly wept.

Fortunately since my initial shock my sense of adventure has begun to return. The house is not good as houses go. However, it is a fine camping house for a church camp site, and it is also a good cabin in the woods.....so I just have to put my imagination cap on and the view becomes very much better!

The new Western toilet works, more or less, meaning some local adjustments have needed to be made on it but it does work. The shower is in place and today workers came and began work on getting a storage tank on top of the shower room. They will come back tomorrow and, I sincerely hope, finish the project. I am going to have to miss church which is a pity.

I have discovered that just about my first priority is finding someone to help me clean the house and do laundry. When the house is dusty I can’t think clearly to organize it.

I can’t access internet for the time being, so this post will be posted later. When I loan my modem to other people it doesn’t work for me again until an Apple expert has reinstalled the system. I was able to get on once yesterday in the early evening and all subsequent attempts have failed.

I’ve got to get charcoal very soon as I have realized that is one of the things that I left at the old house and must retrieve shortly...right now I have no way to cook anything....although in 41C weather the water is generally hot enough to do some good. The tough part is having nothing cold. At the old house there was a freezer and for me there was nothing better on God’s green earth than that very cold water. Sigh.
Blessings,
Debbie