Juba, Southern Sudan to Nairobi, Kenya

By the time my alarm went off, the sun was up, the roosters were crowing, and the poor goat’s who were going to be slaughtered crying all the way out the gate. I hastily freshened up, packed, and made my way to the VEGA office, bag in hand, ready to finalise the project and head back to Nairobi.

As the flight was scheduled for 12:30pm, we left the office at 11:00am for the short trip to the airport. Sungura dropped me at the front of the little building (I have seen bigger living rooms, I swear), only to be hassled my a parking attendant in full military dress; we managed to convince him to take a picture of the two of us and the car in front of the airport, which seemed to please him and he quickly forgot about our vehicle and the ensuing havoc it was causing at the tiny airport.

I made my way inside to the check-in line, which was typical of Africa – three people working behind a desk, yet only one able to check passengers in. I finally made my way to the front after 15 minutes, at which point the let my choose my seat by showing me a photocopy of the plane’s layout and allowing me to point to a seat, which they promptly marked with a big, fat ‘X’. Ah, the good, old fashioned way. For some reason, the check-in process once I was at the desk seemed to be faster then the computers used elsewhere – perhaps something airlines should thing about adopting instead of their complicated seat pre-allocation systems.

While waiting in this relatively long queue, I learnt that I would also have to go through immigration and customs, which involved filling in one form and getting a series of stamps and having my bag looked over by some too-old-for-real-work military man. Sungura was completing my forms while I was in the check-in line, after which I proceeded to have my bag glanced over by the Inspector-General of Luggage (as I aptly named him, not his official title). He glanced at my bag, my passport, and put little security stickers on my two pieces of luggage. On closer inspection, I noticed that the two numbers on the stickers on my bags were the same, which was odd as it said ‘Serial Number’ above each number my definition of ‘Serial Number’ is that each one is unique, and hence, has identifying characteristics. Upon further inspection of other people’s luggage, I noticed that each one had the same serial number, which just made me laugh out loud; thankfully the airport was noisy at this point, otherwise I am sure people would have though I was insane.

I eventually got through all the formalities, and plopped down on a nice leather settee and waited for the flight. In fact, despite just being the regular seats in the airport, they were much nicer than those found in many airline lounges in the US and Europe – perhaps another thing airlines should learn from the people here. The final event before my much anticipated departure was the arrival of the Vice President, which resulted in the airport being shut down, a huge military presence, and a delayed flight by an hour. This didn’t annoy me the way it would have if I had a meeting to run to somewhere on the Continent, especially as I got to watch the pomp and pageantry unfold in front of my eyes: Military escorts, village elders, police officers, etc. - all lined-up to meet and greet the VP. The only thing lacking was a band from a local school playing ‘Hail to the (Deputy) Chief’. Oh wait, I forgot – the schools here don’t even have books, so instruments are out of the question. Anyway, he got a 7 gun salute (yes I counted – I figure the other 13 were somewhere drinking their mid-morning beer), which is funny as they fired live rounds at the airport – in any developed country, this would have led to a number of planes falling out of the sky, but thankfully the air traffic around Juba was non-existent tat this point, so everyone was fine.

We eventually made it on the plane, and as I snuggled into my seat, I thought about what a a wonderful and eye-opening two weeks I had, all the things I have seen and people I have met. Although I was ready to go home and eat real food, I hope that the work we did here will benefit the local community, and the thoughts I shared with you have got you thinking about a world far away from your own.