Juba
It is my final day in Juba, and I am back to the essence of Sudan- back to waiting. Even with this torrential rain it is over ninety five, high humidity, sweat-coma inducing degrees.
Pouring over my notes of the trip, I find a conversation I had with a Sudanese man a few days earlier. His name was Jean Paul, and he had been in Juba longer than most. He was here before the peace, when the city had been adopted as the Northern Sudanese Army’s southernmost garrison. He was here towards the end of the war, when it was clear the south would prevail and the revolutionaries shelled the city for weeks on end. His brother had been killed while out trying to find food for their family. When I asked him if he resented the Independence Movement because of this he smiled, as if to say there were things I would never understand, and simply said “It is war.”
The motto of South Sudan is Justice, Liberty, Property. For many living there now, these principles are still a long ways off. When I land in the capital city of Juba, I am struck by the infinite dichotomies of the place.
There have been those who have likened Juba to the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the landscape that comes into view does not disappoint. A wash of rich green flora, trees and grasses and vines; the lush feel offset harshly by the red mud and dirt that the plant life springs from. But it is not merely the jungle that connects the two; in both cities the hillsides are dotted with large, government funded complexes built from a seemingly infinite supply of oil money. That same supply has not drained down to the flatlands below. Here, the handmade houses speak nothing of the clean West African jungle. And as my gaze shifts from hillsides to hovels, how quickly my eyes forget the beauty- overwhelmed instead by Kilimanjaro trash piles, motor oil Niles and acres of grass huts, somehow as foreign as New York skyscrapers in Wichita. Just as quickly as I forgot the beauty, it returns amidst the quick smiles of those I meet upon my arrival.
Many men and women still wear traditional, colorful robes of swirling patterns, with shaved heads and small caps. But the outer-worldly influences permeate here as everywhere- a small child, four or five, poses for a picture wearing only tattered boardshorts and his fiercest scowl. He plays, as he lives, amongst this same trash strewn landscape which he shares with the goats. The goats — even the child — seem to me as discarded as the old shoe boxes and empty soda cans. Everyone seems to be waiting. They are not sure what they are waiting for, maybe. For newborn South Sudan to finally become the country they fought for. For their lives to begin again. For anything that means they no longer feel discarded.
I arrive at my hotel at around 7:30 that evening, although hotel would really be the wrong word. I had been told I was being put up in a campground. Before leaving I had imagined perhaps a large tent, some running (non-potable) water, and folding army cots. The sort of setup one might encounter on safari. Upon landing, I would have been content with anything not actively sited in a trash heap. As it turned out, I shouldn’t have worried. The Complex (as I came to call it) is situated directly on the banks of the White Nile. It is heavily fortified by what amounts to a private army, and has semi-sheltered rooms with mosquito netting. (Those damn mosquitoes nearly drove me insane. Trying to sleep with several hundred thousand of the little beasts trying to tear their way in, it was enough to send better men than me into fits). It also had functioning bathrooms, and most importantly of all, a bar.
The mass of people here is staggering at first. In the shops, in the streets, day and night. There is no such thing as privacy here, and it has nothing to do with government surveillance. I cannot breath. The smell of garbage does not bother me. I have traveled plenty of places just as hot, just as humid. But never anywhere so crowded.
Juba is a quintessential boomtown. Its population has swelled since the end of the Sudanese civil war in 2005, when South Sudan finally gained its long fought independence.* The official population for Juba is two hundred and fifty thousand, but in reality, it is well over a million. A huge number are refugees who swarmed back once the war had ended. They came to Juba on the promise of easy employment, which was soon discovered for the farce it was. So instead, they build roads in the dry season. In the rains, they return to waiting.
Everybody builds roads, over thirteen hundred miles of it so far. The road may not be the work that so many came here for, but it is vital all the same. The roads surrounding Juba are made of that same red earth, and travel to the nearest city of Nimule takes hours. This is when the roads are dry, and all that truck drivers must deal with are dust clouds and potholes. In the rainy season, the road is mired and swamp-like, and trucks become stuck or swerve to avoid puddles and into other trucks. The unluckiest hit one of the hundreds or thousands of land mines that remain from the war.
*Though the peace treaty was signed in 2005 it was on a six year Visa of sorts, and final secession was decided in July of 2011.
It may not be the work they came here for — building roads and removing mines — but it is work enough, money enough, for the young men — often just boys — to buy themselves cheap Senke motorbikes. These bikes are everywhere, entire hospital wards devoted to their disciples. The new roads also bring these accidents- after all, much of the population has no idea what traffic safety is. But at least the ambulances will be able to get to the crashes. Juba’s ambulances have never been used, they cannot drive on the unpaved roads.
One of these boys tell me that he is eight before he drives his Senke away with scrawny knees. As I watch, a goat which had been asleep on a basketball court awakes and nearly collides with the child on his bike. I see him swerve, but he does not crash. Once again my eyes smile, and wonder at a place where no one else so much as blinks. Why should they? More promises have been forgotten here than the pit-like graves can hold.
Despite all that is wrong here, there is hope for all that Juba lacks, for all that South Sudan is not. What hope there is comes from a man named John Garang. Garang was the leader of the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army, a group largely responsible for winning independence. Born in Sudan and schooled in the United States, Garang was a natural leader who gave up additional schooling and life in America to return to where he knew he was needed. Garang died under “mysterious circumstances” a few months after he helped bring about the signing of the treaties that eventually led to the birth of the country he lived, fought, and died for.
The people have not forgotten. His tomb sits on a hill near the center of the city amidst its tangle of roads, a heavily guarded structure containing an elaborately tiled floor, and the large, white, slab-stone grave itself. Every day school groups attend the site. On this day, all of the boys stare solemnly, glances shifting between the portraits of the deceased and the men clad in green camouflage, automatic rifles and berets who stand all around. A girl prays for John Garang and tells me she is thirteen and cries and says it is “because I never got to meet him.”
It is not easy for my western mind to connect with these feelings. I think of politicians at home, in America, and their soundbite references to Founding Fathers and Revolution. I have never felt anything for them like the emotions I feel listening to this girl discuss a man I have no reason to care about. He was not my people, his cause was (no, is) not my cause. I have been in Juba for four days, and I know in that moment that I would have followed John Garang wherever he needed me too. Maybe it’s for him. Maybe it’s for her. I take the flowers I have brought and lay them near the edge of the area. I remove one, handing it to the girl as I leave. She smiles up at me through her tears, and I hastily leave before the soldiers (or the stoic young boys) see my own.
After I return to the states I take a cab ride with a man who tells me his name is John. He is from South Sudan, and I ask him about John Garang. He smiles widely, but corrects me when I explain to the other passengers that he was a leader. “Not a leader,” says John. “He was our messiah.” Everywhere his memory remains. Everywhere people are waiting for his return, knowing it will never come.
