day three: beer please...

Only a hat-trick of days under my belt and I can feel the warmth of welcome from my colleagues almost as much as the heat on my locks.  Like each other, both are probably forecasted to increase in the coming weeks!

Took my first steps onto the street after work today, around 30 – 40 strides, to join a few of the lads for some ice cold ones.  Only when your feet drag through it, do you realise the burning red dust feel of the road.  Sun above, sun below.  Something not captured when escorted by private vehicles all day…or for any biker riding in their wake (though I wouldn’t mind a Simba! =)).  What I really wanted was a trip to the White Nile, but it took this long to have a break and get acquainted with my new housemates.  With so much confinement, it’s easy to see how important team unity is here.

It seems rare under such circumstances for the continuity of the team to go into the long term.  Nonetheless, many of them hold interesting stories of how their life in Juba came to be.  None more so than our Kenyan driver who, with a taxi service already in the States, I was told returned to his motherland to pick up his wife and three kids.  Half way en route to them, he thought it a good idea to leave his belongings with a gentleman in the queue (already boarding) and sneak to the toilet.  So you can imagine his shock when he returned to discover his briefcase, green card and all, gone.  Now he exists as ‘the most professional driver in all South Sudan.’

…apparently, of the category in all South Sudan, I also fall in, under the prefix only white Rasta.

day two: oil & borders

This is hard work.  The more I hear about conflict the more I gringe.  Over land, over cattle, over wives… absorbing all of this information is as difficult as it is disheartening.  The task of mapping conflict seems a long way away when your peers question not only (1) where a critical mass of data to conduct serious analysis will come from [I didn’t laugh when jokes of ‘count the dead’ were mentioned] and (2) the kind of response a conflict early warning system can provide [what good is ‘reactionary’ when communication and reply is so slow? Can ‘predictive’ even be modelled in the context of tribal militias?].  In a country where only 15% has access to a mobile network, getting data from the people seems to be years away.  In the meantime, the biggest mapping concern I hear about seems to be towards coordinating the army of locally-based NGOs and development actors… of course they have no idea whose where, who’s doing what and how many of ye are there; that would mean a degree of communication, openness and collaboration we’ve just never seen before!

It was way past the 10 hour working mark and I needed a beer.  So why not with the UN’s Regional Coordinator, exponentially it’s been on the cards anyway.  I can see it even in his eyes there’s not much optimism to stop the loss of life that awaits in the dark reaches of this country.

…it seems to go on without much care from a government more concerned with the only land that will count…that of oil and borders.

But today was the first day I had the pleasure of receiving data (so finally some ‘fuel’ for this mapping vehicle!)…of course I couldn’t help but notice data covering the gluttonous carvings of land ownership made by various European companies (the French… Total Fin!?) just waiting to begin drilling, nevermind conservation areas or the settlements near by.….just can’t change some things I guess.

Sound sombre?  It’s ok, I had pizza for dinner and 3 cups of warm tea to sooth myself.

day one - "you choose."

My first real day on the job and I knew already that building capacity would be in my job description at some level… after all, the main problem is not that the majority here have not had a say in how their country has been shaped, but rather that the majority don’t have the tools to shape it the way they would like.  What I didn’t foresee was that my first act of ‘building’ would be through the panel for hiring a new member for the new Government’s Ministry of Peace!

You have to see the funny side when asking applicants about their approaches for collecting conflict information from communities and local insight into Sudanese culture when my own insight only consists of a few compounds from various NGO, UN and Government arms…!

Not that I would complain about the compounds.  Delights they are amongst the seemingly desolate shacks.  Walking into them, my local colleagues immediately stretch for the AC remote control…something about a dripping Scotsman seems to bring about a need to cool the room down to near freezing point.

Once again, I seem to join a part of the world where staple foodstuffs is the norm yet today I’ve had grilled fish twice and diced meat reminiscent of a ‘beef gus’ I used to know.  I’m SURE I was only joking to our cook Grace when I winked and whispered “surf’n’turf tonight aye hen?!”

…coupled with some big screen Champions League, I’d say a fine reward for a 10 hour day spent hunting for new Government affiliates

day zero...welcome to bewilderness

After 12 months of boot camp in a GeoScience lab, it’s time to get on with the mission: applying GIS with International Development.  After a decade of academia and a hat-trick of degrees, my first contract as a professional is long overdue… but I sure can pick ‘em.  South Sudan is undergoing a vital stage in its life.  Just 4 months away from inevitable independence, the country stands with a near invisible infrastructure.

I’m barely off the plane landing in Juba when this fact has already been relayed to me.  One quick tour round the Danish De-Mining Group’s compound and I’m already off to meet and greet Christian Relief Services and the Ministry of Peace who will spend the next few hours inundating my head with ‘development set’ jargon without actually mentioning the words ‘conflict’ or ‘landmines’.  Considering my role for the next 3 months is to provide information for de-mining and to develop an early warning system to help respond to further conflict, I thought we should have talked a little more on the subject.

With limited staff the country here is really stretched, even at its new-to-be Capital.  I can already tell that nobody has just one job for one organisation here…it’s more like three for three.  Yet instead of woes, I am greeted with smiles and laughter.  My hope is just not to disappoint an already demanding expectation of what GIS can bring in communicating what’s going on within communities with potential conflict.  Even if computers and information systems could help, most of the laptops are in the arms of NGOs… and I have two now!

After only a few hours in the country my spoken words have been only questions.  The only assurance I can make is that ‘de-miners’ are rewarding themselves handsomely with a cook, a cleaner, satellite flat-screen TVs and of course, a Christmas stocking filled with accessories…

p.s. thank you for my awesome new rucksack, satellite phone, fleece and victorinox!