Sudan

Where to start? My Information Systems Department (Zach) has advised me to keep blog posts "bite sized", because that's what the typical blog reader expects. I promise to do that with subsequent entries, but there's just too much to say about Sudan.

I left Dulles on Friday, January 20. From Washington to Khartoum my employer allowed me to fly business class because my total flying time was over 14 hours. I think flying business class is something everyone should do if they don't mind a 500% increase in ticket price. After 21 hours of being to made to feel you're special and important and worthy of the cloth napkins and real cutlery, you actually start to believe it.

My entire Saturday was spent in transit. The flight between Frankfurt and Khartoum was on an Airbus A330-300. This plane had the fanciest craftmatic adjustable seats I've ever seen. You had a little remote control that could make your seat adjust in every direction, including completely horizontal. The funny part about that was that to get to horizontal, the seat had to go through all of its available positions, which included being raised about 4 inches higher than your neighbor and then lying about 4 inches off the ground. I felt a little self-conscious playing with all this when my neighbor was quietly reading in a stationary position.

I arrived at Khartoum International Airport a little after 11:00 PM local time. I was a little nervous when we arrived in Khartoum, because I didn't know what to expect with the immigration process. I waited in line for a few minutes until a guy in a white turban and djellabia asked if I was Stephanie and introduced himself as Mohammed. Mohammed was the expediter. He pulled me out of line and had me wait off to the side while he proceeded to the front of the line with my passport and other documents and got me into the country. Such service! Mohammed also helped us when we left Khartoum, disappearing for a while with all our documents, and coming back with the appropriate stamps and things. He was the perfect expediter, because aside from being a local fluent in Arabic, he was also extremely friendly and seemed to be friends with all of the airport employees. I saw him at the office a couple times that week, but I think most of his job is getting people in and out of the airport.

There were no hotel rooms available in Khartoum that week because the African Union summit was taking place at the same time. I guess Qaddafi's contingent of 500 people and camels took up most of the rooms. Another woman (who arrived the next day) and I stayed with a Khartoum employee, Dianna, in her big three-bedroom apartment. Dianna is a civil engineer from Houston, and her daughter goes to t.u., so we had some things in common. The three men on our trip (who also arrived the next day) stayed in a vacant furnished apartment that we called the “frat house”. It was nice to stay with other people, rather than in a lonely hotel room. I think Dianna was glad to have us there too, because she said it gets kinda lonely. Khartoum is considered hazardous duty, so people are generally there for only a year and without their families.

Khartoum is the capital of Sudan and located in the northern portion of the country. Unlike the southern portion of Sudan, the north is very much Arab, and Islam is the official religion. When I got up at 6:00AM on Sunday (Sunday is a normal workday in Arab countries) , I was just in time to hear the morning call to prayer being broadcast across the city. The wailing-quality of the call contrasted with the otherwise perfect stillness of the morning was extremely eerie.

At lunch I bit my tongue really hard while chewing a particularly tough piece of lamb. I was a trooper though--I think I effectively hid my pain from my colleagues. Not much blood, but the end of my tongue was sore all the rest of the week. I had no idea that tongues could bruise—guess I proved that they can! Later that evening, we had a beer at one guy's apartment (nice to have a beer, since you can't buy it in Khartoum) and then a group of people played volleyball at an American recreation facility. I was invited to play, but I was really tired, so I opted watch and fall asleep in a lawn chair instead.

The rest of our team arrived on Monday. Most of the week was taken up with meetings. We ate at a Turkish restaurant in the Afra Mall a couple nights in a row. The Afra Mall is one of the pricier/better malls in Khartoum, but it's much much smaller than a standard American mall. They also had a grocery store in the mall. This was great for buying plenty of bottled water (something I carried around with me all the time, because it was so hot and dry). Something I've learned in my (two) developing-nation trips: never go to bed without making sure you'll have bottled water to brush your teeth with in the morning. One coworker said at some point in the past he'd brushed his teeth with beer rather than get some disease from the water!

I was supposed to be able to “sleep in” on Tuesday until 3:30AM, but I woke up at 2:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. We had to be at the airport at 5:00 for our charter flight to Juba. Our plane was very small, and the AC had a hard time until you were up at high altitudes (i.e., it was very stuffy). After 3 hours of discomfort (and a small meal that included 3 chicken fingers, a hardboiled egg, some olives, 2 kinds of rolls, and a soft drink) we arrived in sunny Juba! It was probably 10 degrees hotter in Juba than Khartoum (about 100 degrees F). We toured Juba and had some meetings. Juba is very remote, and it's like going 150 years back in time. There's only 1 paved road, most residents live in mud and thatch "Tukul" huts, and people get water from centrally-located wells with hand-pumps. We also stopped in a camp where people from around the world stay when they come to Juba to do aid work. I heard it's $120 a night for a tent...but meals are included. We took a couple pictures of the Nile from their cantina. Beer is available in the south, but we didn't have any.

The people of southern Sudan have had such a sad history of repression by the North and violence during the civil war. With the Comprehensive Peace Agreement has come an end to much of the violence, but it's still a bleak picture for southern Sudan with no real sources of revenue to help their people obtain basic services we in America take for granted (water, electricity, sanitation). There are many international and non-governmental agencies with a presence in Juba; hopefully some progress can be made with their help.

I was surprised at how friendly the people, especially the children, were. Everyone waved at us as we drove by. One man waved to us while riding his bike along the side of the road. When he did, he lost his balance and fell over into the ditch. I felt so horrible, but there wasn't much I could do. I saw a woman who was approximately 6-months pregnant carrying a giant bunch of fruit on her head—showing that just because a woman is pregnant, she's not an invalid (and this further reinforces my disdain of the "mother-to-be" parking spaces you sometimes see next to the handicap spaces)! Everyone (and by everyone, I mean women--I never saw a man carrying anything) carried things on their heads--there must be a benefit to putting all the weight over your center of gravity, although it seems like it would be hard on your neck. We stopped by the tomb of Dr. John Garang, leader of the SPLM (Sudanese People's Liberation Movement), 1st vice president of Sudan and popular national figure until his tragic death in a plane crash only months after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed last year. His death has been a real blow to the southern people's hopes for representation and eventual equality or freedom.

Our plane had no bathroom, so a couple other ladies and I decided we should hit the restroom at the airport before we took off. The restroom in the Juba airport is the nastiest bathroom I've ever encountered. The only words I could find to describe it when I saw it were “Oh, Jeebus!” It was my first experience with a public squat toilet. There was no toilet paper or running water (but we brought our own toilet paper and hand sanitizer). It's basically the same concept as going in the woods when you're camping, except that we were going in a filthy little cubicle. I was really worried about keeping my pants out of the line of fire, if you will. Rolling your pants up to your knees is a good tactic, as is trying to control the flow, um, velocity so you don't get a lot of splash. Anyway, TMI. This picture shows a squat toilet like the one we used, but the one in the picture is much cleaner. After a 3-hour flight back to Khartoum, we all stopped and got take-out pizza before heading home to shower our sweaty, nasty selves. The pizza was great, even if they did put the toppings under the cheese instead of on top.

We went to a party at someone's house on Wednesday night, the last night we were in town. It's funny how middle class Americans are actually quite affluent in a lot of countries—it was a fairly simple party, but it was catered and had waitstaff and a guy playing the keyboard (he was pretty good).

We left Khartoum on Thursday night. The Khartoum airport was noisy and hectic. Fortunately we had Mohammed to expedite things. I had to tip the guy who weighed my suitcase at the check-in desk, which was a first. I also got frisked by a security woman when I set off the metal detector. She totally missed my calves. I could've had a boot-knife for all she knew! I was flying coach becaue my flight to Paris was shorter than the rest of the team's flight to Washington, and I didn't qualify for business class. One coworker got me an invitation to wait in the VIP lounge, which was nice, because the alternative was uncomfortable plastic chairs in the non-air conditioned terminal. In the VIP lounge, there was a nice bathroom, air conditioning, couches galore, and free beverages. They never actually called our flight—It's kind of up to you to watch out for yourself and make your way toward some gate around the time you think you might board. Gates aren't posted or announced either—word of mouth is how they like it! The shuttle from the gate to the plane was comical, because the plane was only about 100 yards away--it would've been easier to walk, but we had to get on the shuttle that had the heat on (making it feel like 110 degrees) and drive the 100 yards.

Sadly, once on the plane I was relegated to coach class. My seat was only 3 rows from business class, and I wanted to be like Elaine on Seinfeld and try to sneak up into business class, with hilarious results. At least it was better than the charter plane. There were a lot of families with babies seated around me (never a good sign). The kids were actually pretty quiet--It was the parents who annoyed me. When we landed in Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) to take on more passengers, the plane ended up really full. I think 3 of the families who had embarked in Khartoum hadn't paid for an extra seat for their small child, and balked at having to hold a 30-pound kid in their lap for the next 8 hours. One father even had the flight attendant try to get a couple in front of me to give up their coveted bulkhead seat (I guess so they could put the kid on the ground in front of them?). I felt a little victorious that the couple wouldn't move for the people who didn't have the forethought to purchase enough seats. Much drama ensued. Loud drama that kept me from sleeping (it was around 11:00PM local time). I only slept about an hour on that flight. The rest of my journey will be a part of my Paris blog entry, so I'll end here.

I never actually got a photography permit, so I didn't take a lot of pictures of Khartoum. I guess I wasn't supposed to take pictures in Juba either, but since we were out of the north and away from police presence, we were a little less worried. You can see them all on Flickr here and here.

Check back in a day or two for an entry about my Paris trip and pictures--I should have this whole posting thing figured out by then.