Out of the Desert, Over the Savannah and into the Jungle

I've had quite a diverse week. It has already become a patchwork of memories all stitched together hicklety-picklety. Nothing dramatic happened: no dive-rolling from the Lords Resistance Army, no fighting off rapists, no chasing after thieves... I had listened to so much scary information I had started to believe it was going to be a battle of violence and chaos all the way. Yes, there pockets of violence and chaos, but mostly it is everyday people doing their everyday things.

John was an inspiration. In Dilling we climbed up a stone hill and watched the sunset. High enough to see 360 degrees of horizon and low enough to watch the people in the town do what they had to do before the light fades and before the town's electricity starts. I made the comment that it was going to be hard getting down the hill (me barefooted and in a skirt), he said "Not hard: fun." By golly, he's right. Isn't that what fun is, Doing something difficult enough that you enjoy the challenge. How boring life would be if everything was easy.

I caught a bus to the next town 4 hours south, It is a UN centre so it had 24 hour electricity. I was met by John's friend's cousin and stayed with her and her lovely family in a little mud-hut village only 10 minutes walk out of the town. They were the best, most chilled out, coolest people ever. It was awesome staying with them. I can't speak Arabic but I can say things like "may I please use the shower" and "where is the toilet" ... ok, I can say "Possible wash?" and "toilet where?" but it's all in the hand gestures and intonation. The father could speak English which helped. I maybe should have stayed longer. I really enjoyed the mud-hut lifestyle and they really were the coolest people.

After that I was on my own, I got a Lorie, a bus packed with 40 people and a truck down to the next town called Bentiu, it took about 24 hours, including a 3 hour wait at a bus stop and a 4 hour sleep on a hired bed in a truck stop. I did this simply by asking people where they were going, I found an unarmed silent soldier who was going to the same place as me... and followed him. For the whole 24 hours I was like his pet, where he went I followed. He didn't say much, but seemed to understand English, he nodded or shook his head in response to my incessant questioning.

The land changed from desert to savannah, the white robes on the men started to meld into bright shirts and trousers. Camels turned into goats and donkeys, Clear sky filled with hawks, storks and clouds. Orange turned to green. Women's hair and shoulders became visable.

Bentiu was expensive, It is the result of all the NGOs that have come in. Normally a guest house is 3USD, but here they were asking 63USD and they would settle for no less than 30USD, and that was after some hard bargaining. I left Khartoum with about 400USD in Sudanese currency, I though it would be more than enough, If the other stops were anything like this I wasn't going to make it... there are no international cash machines in Sudan, and no money exchanges where I was.

Bentiu was also Hot (Hot with a capital letter). I knew what to do to sleep; I poured water over my purple flowery moo-moo (I bought it in Dilling, Sudanese sleep wear comes in bright, bold and flowery or brighter bolder and more flowery... they have yet to release a line in ethno-punk-sophista-goth yet) . In Khartoum the water would evaporate into the dry air and be all lovely and cooling. In Bentiu the water became hot, so I was just lying in a hot wet moo-moo.

I was hot, tired, exhausted in fact. My motivation, determination, keenness, tenacity and the general will to experience this as fun had left me. I could get more trucks south and carry on. But I decided not to. If I was travelling with someone I we would have probably encouraged each other to keep going, But I wasn't really up for encouraging myself, so I wandered over to the airport (a big falling-apart barn in a field) and got a (200USD) ticket to Juba. A wee 12 seater plane took me there over stunning scenery and through a bumpy storm.

In Juba I went straight to the bus stop and book a ticket on the next transport heading south. It was a bus going straight to Kampala, the capital of Uganda, leaving the next morning. The little guest house behind the bus station was only 20USD (much cheaper than I had anticipated) but it cleared me out of all my Sudanese cash, I changed some US dollars to have dinner. South Sudan is like another country, I was served by a waitress wearing a tiny strappy top and tight cut-off jeans with hair like Macy Grey, in a cafe/bar. I ate beef and chips on a flat plate with a fork... stuff I haven't seen for months.

I had spoken so much about my wonderful husband waiting ever so patiently for me in Juba that I was a bit disappointed when I got there to remember that he didn't exist. Darn

The Bus to Kampala was an uneventful 12 hours with no toilet stops (well for a lady wearing trousers anyway), a man with a cowboy hat and bad breath sitting next to me delighted in telling me how dangerous the road was and how we could be stopped by rebels or bandits on the way. The presence five solders with AK47s on the bus that made me nervous when they first got on, then made me more comfortable.

I'm in Uganda, shared a room with 2 Kenyan guys who were on my bus, now I'm in a dorm room in a shabby little guest house in the city. There are cash machines here... unfortunately my bank card expired in December. Hopefully My mother (who is in Hungary or somewhere) will be able to pick up the new one when she stops by Edinburgh, she'll be here next week.

If my I had a working camera you would be seeing photos of all those typically beautiful and fascinating sites associated with Africa: boy with stick and tyre; huge orange sun low in a red sky silhouetting black trees; flocks of birds in elegant formation; chickens pecking at my feet on the bus; lorry packed to the hilt with people, furniture, bags and children; skinny old lady with a long stick standing on one leg, her face covered in patterned scarification staring at me like I was the strangest thing she had ever seen; fields of little round mud brick houses with thatched roofs; and some of the most interesting toilets I have ever used. But my camera is still broken so you'll just have to imagine it.