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.
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