Traveling to South Sudan
Trip Start
Oct 12, 2005
1
2
Trip End
Jan 10, 2006
South Sudan,
Sudan
Thursday, October 20, 2005
So lets begin from where I left off. I worked on a couple of contracts for ARC. One was a tiny proposal I wrote for funding for activities in Northern Uganda. The second turned out to be more important - Writing a business plan for the creation of a microfinance institution in South Sudan. For the assessment, I traveled to four different towns within South Sudan and managed to check out Khartoum, where I spent Thanksgiving at a Chinese Restaurant that served "special tea" or beer. Hold on -need to kill a mosquito that keeps flying into my computer screen. Ok so it wasn't the best Thanksgiving but at least I was with some American friends.
The trips to these towns were quite interesting- ranging from a flight on an old Russian Antonov plane with no windows to riding in a car that used a coke liter bottle with an extended hose as a gas tank. Each place told a different story - one place told the story of 21 yrs of civil war with no infrastructure whatsoever and very poor people from the South, while another located further North was completely controlled by Arab traders from Khartoum. Regardless every place is severely underdeveloped and lacks EVERYTHING - no running water, no electricity, no transportation, no communication. Electricity and communications are slowly being introduced which will help tremendously. Lets juts say I got use to eating roasted meat?!@ in the dark , drinking soft drinks because water was not always available, squatting in a hole and taking bucket baths. And of course there are more funny stories like staying at the Islamic Relief Compound and opening the door to the toilet/showers -practically walking in on a man just so I could find my bra I had left hanging on the hook after my shower.
So the assessment ended, the plan was written and I was on my way to the USA.
Because of security reasons, I chose not to take my camera so sorry no good pictures :-(
Comments
That's about Sudan
I agree that they really need a lot of help in this. The fact that you mentioned that they lack infrastructure means that there is quite a difference in the lack of something from them compared to where you live means that it is significant enough to comment on this lack. I have found a site http://emmaacademyproject.com that fills in that lack of education there. I know that a lot of knowledge will stem from education. With education, we will not only be filling in the simple things that these people lack but we will also be saving their lives