Journey to Sudan, July-August 2007
After our romantic honeymoon in Kenya we headed to Sudan, where Matthew did research for his PhD studying landmine clearance. We spent the majority of our stay in Juba, the capital of the now autonomous region of Southern Sudan and worked part time with a humanitarian agency, Counterpart International, in return for lodging. We helped them with a few logistical arrangements, including preparations for a container of medical supplies, worth about $2 million, and wrote a report about what we saw as the main issues in the program
Juba was an extremely interesting, though difficult, place to live. It is a boom town, thanks to the massive influx of humanitarian assistance and the arrival of UN troops following the 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement between the North and Sudan of the country. However, it is one of most expensive places we have worked in the developing world as everything has to be imported. A box of cereal cost $11. A meal in a restaurant could run to $15-20. A night in a 'tented camp' costs between $120-150 a night. We had few comforts, sleeping on a hard bed, picking our way through the trash in the muddy roads, washing with brown Nile water every day and having a toilet that wouldn't flush.
Our stay in Juba happened to coincide with the second anniversary of the untimely death of John Garang, former leader of the Sudanese People's Liberation Army in a helicopter accident. A charismatic, if autocratic, guerilla leader, he had led the SPLA, the main rebel faction representing the marginalized southern people of Sudan, for over 20 years. Everybody was dressed to the nines, banners fluttered in the air, soldiers milled around smoking cigarettes and drinking soda. Around a central podium Southern Sudanese dignitaries roused the crowd with speeches. At the edges, people danced in circles, singing and playing drums.
We also visited Yei, a more rural town close to the Ugandan border. We found Yei to be a less crowded and overwhelming place but unfortunately every time we ate we got food poisoning. This made the bumpy six hours it takes to travel the 100 miles from Yei to Juba a less than pleasant experience.
Toward the end of our stay we visited Khartoum, Sudan's capital. With an eight-lane highway, fast-food restaurants, fancy hotels and running water, what a world it was from Juba. One could scarcely believe it is in the same country. While Juba, the capital of the southern part of Sudan, is marked significantly by deprivation and has been one of the hardest places I have worked, Khartoum epitomizes rapid and aggressive economic growth fueled by a booming oil market. Our week-long stay in Khartoum felt a bit indulgent. We enjoyed having a proper mattress on our bed, showers in the morning, good food, espresso and wandering around a bona fide shopping mall.
We also had a very bizarre afternoon visiting a Sufi order, where we chatted with some mystics, watched them dance and had a conversation with a Sheikh -- not something you do every day.
Apart from the blistering heat - temperatures averaged well into the hundreds - in Khartoum we felt like we were living in the lap of luxury. However, that sense of relaxation has been tinged with a slight sense of guilt. We know that at least part of Khartoum's prosperity is predicated on the poverty in Sudan's more marginalized areas, such as the south.
Continuing policies dating back to the colonial era, Sudan's economic and social policies have consistently favored Khartoum and its surrounding area over the needs of the people in the country's peripheries. While Khartoum boasts beautifully paved highways, some roads in the south are so overgrown they exist only on a map. While Khartoum's streets are largely safe from crime, the people of Darfur live in fear of raiding by militias. So it was hard to completely relax, to feel like we deserved the comparative luxury. While the wealth in many places is related to poverty elsewhere, visiting Juba and Khartoum in the same week made that connection much more noticeable.
This was brought home all the more clearly when we tried to leave Khartoum. We were stopped at the airport and prevented from boarding the plane. After much misunderstanding, we finally found out that the Khartoum government has decided to require travel permits of all foreigners traveling from the north to southern Sudan. This is a major development, as these permits, which the government uses to control access to areas like Darfur, have not been required for some time.
Returning to our friend's house, we were pretty shaken by the whole experience, and it didn't get any better. It took us three days of anxious room pacing, endless bureaucratic run-arounds, hours stuck in Khartoum traffic and lectures from government officials before we finally got our permits.
In a moment of desperation, we had even gone to the U.S. Embassy for help, only to find that they would not even let us through the gate - handing us a phone through the fence to talk to a consular officer who told us she could not and did not know how to help.
When we returned to the airport a few days later, we were thus understandably nervous. However, this time, when an agent came asking for "information," we had photocopies of our permits to hand over with a smile. As the plane rose into the air, and we saw Khartoum grow smaller below us, we breathed a sigh of relief. Exiting the airport in Juba, we were surprised at how happy we were to be in a town that is normally a pretty difficult place to be. Juba, funnily enough, felt like home.
To read Matthew's Examiner columns on Sudan click on their titles below:
"Celebration offers hope, but conflict remains close."
"Country brutalized by war enjoys a momentary peace."