Watching the world go by, and watching it climb trees

Sitting on the porch of my tent one morning, on what may turn out to be a very rare day off, my reading was interrupted by a man climbing the tree that overshadows my home. I am glad it is there, as it cuts out the 35 to 40 degree heat for most of the day. That day was the day I discovered what else it is good for. The man is climbing for Mangos.

He is being a helpful soul. Some of the other guests in the compound have realised that the mangos are in season, and want to have some fresh fruit. The mans lady friend objected to him climbing, saying that he will not reach them. "You will see" he said. All he needed to do was stand on the branches that held ripe fruit and shake them until the mangos dropped. The other guests happily collected their bounty and threw a couple over a fence to me. This left me thinking: Why the hell did I not realise that I was sitting underneath a tree that had fruit that was coming into season?

I had heard the sound of the fruit dropping before. Mangoes are pretty heavy, and dropping from the top of those very tall trees onto the canvas of your house at 3am is pretty disturbing for the first couple of nights. Somehow, though, it failed to register in my mind that food was falling all around me.

The idea of food growing on trees just did not enter my head for several days of living under these huge trees. It just does not seem to be part of this city person's thinking. When I think of getting breakfast, I think of BUYING it. I don't really associate it with growing on trees except in a purely logical sense. I mean, I know that some fruits grows on trees. I have even seen a few trees where this process was occurring while I watched. I have even picked a few fruits and berries myself. Hard to believe this of someone from a huge metropolis, but I swear it to be true! I guess the main issues is that it usually happens very far from where I happen to be. Fruit = supermarket before fruit = tree.

Not so anymore. I am now in a place where nature is not so far away. In fact, it sometimes drops on your head. Please don't misunderstand me, we do not live in a garden of eden here. The mango trees grow so tall because they are irrigated by the Nile, which meanders along a few metres away from where I sit and read. The grounds are maintained by the compound staff, and wandering mango thieves are kept away by the twenty four hour security. Well, except for one particular group of thieves. One of the reasons I may not have made the connection between the 'thwack' in the night and mangos on the ground in the morning was that the guards allow in a horde of children at the break of dawn, who run through the compound and pick all the fruit from the ground.

The bounty of nature does not extend far beyond the banks of the river. Most of Juba is dust, and it is getting very dry now. Nature is now spending a lot of time bounteously filling my sandals with sand as I walk along the side of the few tarmaced roads, and stumble through the dirt street. In the evenings, I might wander past the small cattle market that is just around the corner from home, the cows and bulls penned in shoulder to shoulder, their three foot long curved horns forming shadowy crescent moons in the dusk. Goats often pass me in the street, either by themselves or driven in a small herd by scurrying young men with flimsy sticks. They are driving them through the streets because the goats are grazing. They are pretty much the only recycling facility that the majority of citizens ever see. The rest of this poorly irrigated country is wilting under the sun of the dry season, with perhaps only some of the marshy areas keeping their moisture. Even the forested areas suffer in the heat.

Agriculture depends almost entirely on rainfall in South Sudan. I guess this keeps people in the habit of measuring the passing of the two seasons. Even if your family did not have to grow any food for itself, you are likely to have grown up in a place where plenty of people did. At the very least, with little food and little shelter, anyone here will learn to watch the skies. I did not grow up like this. My house was warm. The snow was fun for kids, merely annoying for adults. The rain was constant and could be ignored. As for fruit trees, they largely existed in the supermarket. In this country, this may make me a little stupid.

But that is ok, because I am now learning. Those kids that collected the fruit? They were smarter than me. They knew about the fruit already, thus demonstrating a deeper knowledge of the natural world than I have. Well they aren't going to feel so smart anymore! I will show them. I am now in-tune with nature, and will demonstrate this by getting up ridiculously early in order to steal those mangos from under their noses. 

Introduction to Juba Relationships

Social life is important for an Ex-pat in South Sudan. It gives us a break from the stress, allows us to divulge and divest our frustrations. It lets others see how we are doing, lets them talk to us. Relationships get formed quite quickly, almost as quickly as the alcohol gets consumed. Workers stay in their postings for relatively short periods of time. After about a year people begin to yearn for home, Many UN postings are for a maximum of two years, which is as much as many can do. The turnover of colleagues, and therefore turn over friends, is not just down to homesickness though. It is also determined by people's desire to forge ahead in their career. Getting a new job in this line of work does not just mean moving up in the organisation. It is likely to mean moving country as well.

We are faced with a dichotomy. We work and play with our colleagues, seeing them in the office in the day and then drinking, talking or watching movies with them in the evenings. It is easy to spend all day in each other's pockets, developing very close relationships very quickly. However, they are only here for a few months, so we know these relationships have to be casual. You face a choice: Do I spend emotional focus on these friends, telling them everything, or do I keep some distance in preparation for the time we have to separate?

In this casual/intense atmosphere, relationships blossom and disappear. But bear in mind, that this is a social atmosphere that is divorced from that at home. There is very little constraint on how those relationships can develop. Many develop into love affairs, often with the full knowledge of the expat community. Rumours will spread, and people will hear about those dalliances. It is a small pool of people, so you may find that your ex is now involved with your friend. They won't be able to keep it quiet, not for long.

What of those already married when they get here? What happens to their relationships with those back home? I have not yet been around long enough to answer this question in a meaningful way. Many people take lovers here. The ubiquitous phrase "what happens in ____ stays in _____" applies here as much as it does anywhere else in the world. What is not clear to me is how these affairs impact the marriage or family at home. I have yet to meet those that have lost a marriage to their work, but I am sure they are out there. I think it is fair to say that long term separation places a strain on a family. The infidelity I am not so sure about.

Marriages do last.  There are some who spend their lives going from mission to mission, posting to posting, sending money home and only occasionally visiting. Perhaps this is enough to keep their family happy and balanced. I have met some who have kept this going for decades. The attrition rate, of those that failed in this task, I can only guess at. I will let you know more as I find out. Unfortunately this might take a few years, and lots of personal experience. With any luck I will not be a 'failure' statistic.

Introducing Juba life, episode two...

The next thing this expat encountered in Juba was, of course, other expats. Introductions were made by colleagues to other people inside and outside of the organisation, who in turn introduced me to an ever expanding circle of NGO workers, UN staff and international friends and flatmates. Most of these people have a huge interest in socialising, eating and drinking. In short, people are partiers out here.

The social environment will not be a surprise to any other third sector/aid workers who read this, but it deserves some explanation for anyone new to the subject. The stresses of life and work play themselves out in a slightly different way for expats in a foreign environment. Away from their friends and families, away from the creature comforts of their homes, away from the distractions and past times of their home countries, they need to find outlets through which to vent the frustrations of dealing with life in a country that works very differently to the nations and environments they are used to. Importantly, they need to be with and talk to people who understand. What is the easiest way to find such people?

This last question is easy to answer. Expat workers drink a lot. There is no hiding this fact. Want to relax after work? Beer. Nothing to do? Go out. Easiest place to meet others? Bar or a house that has lots of wine and spirits in it to lubricate the evening. In anticipation of these frequent gatherings, anyone returning form a furlough abroad will bring all the creature comforts of home for personal use and dissemination: Downloaded TV series; Chocolates; Cheeses; Alcohol. 

There is a challenge to overcome when dealing with the perennial problem of 'having nothing to do.' Boredom is a danger for anyone placed in a situation where they are divorced from their favourite hobbies or pastimes, and so we fill the space with parties. Want the Gym? There isn't one. Internet? too slow or just does not work. Enjoy cooking? We live in tents and containers that don't have kitchens. If you want to eat you have to eat out. Want to stay home on your day off? It is 40 degrees Celsius outside and we live in tents without air conditioning. 

You may ask how I have chosen to deal with the challenge of boredom. I am going to try and take some inspiration from Samuel Pepys, a seventeenth century diarist from England. It turns out that people did all kinds of things in the evenings when television and youtube were not around to distract them. They sang, they danced, they played musical instruments, wrote, whittled and carved. I am going to study Spanish, and practice playing the violin at the victims in the tents next to me. Wish me luck. They will need it...

Getting past the Post

Hello Reader.

In this, my first posting, it seems fitting to tell you about the sights and sounds that greeted me every morning for the last couple of months. Place yourself in my position, if you will, and compare this to your morning commute:

As you leave the compound, clanging the gate shut behind you, the street greets you in its usual way. Looking along the road that leads to work you see a rolling, pitching dirt track with clouds of smoke hanging in the air. The day is already hot. The rubbish that families have put out on the road overnight is burning, reducing to nothing on the road. People walk through the haze on their way to the public shower stalls, a corrugated hut whose owner rents out buckets of water. A large group of labourers sit outside a tea shack, huddling down for their morning brew and bread, chatting loudly.

Pick your way over the rubble and piles of earth, jump the occasional puddle, and make your way to work by crossing over the ditch that was filled in two days ago by workers repairing the road with stone, gravel and earth. This ditch has stopped you before, during the rainy season, as the river of run off that created it carved a small valley, cutting you off from the other end of the street. Now that the rains have stopped, they can carry out their repair work without it being washed away.

You have no kitchen at home, so you must stop to pick up breakfast. There is no milk in the shops today, and the man who you buy fried eggs and chapattis from has not set up his charcoal brazier yet. He tells you two of his friends were killed last night, so he is sorry but he is a little late this morning. You will need to pick up some boiled eggs and bread from the kiosk hut just opposite him. Now keep going, you are a little late for the morning meeting.