Part 2 The Next 3

Selfie with Mary at one of our Lakes.
"Why are you so short?" she asked me before grabbing the
phone and taking the photo herself.

And now the last three countries, which I was going to post yesterday for Joanna in the hospital with Evie, but then I got distracted by being very angry at someone who stole months of work from me, and I started contemplating a career change, writing nasty emails I didn’t send, and also looking at all the nice photos Marian took of our super-awesome family time together to change the subject. I woke up this morning with a renewed fervor, which I then lost as I tried to run in oppressively muggy weather before getting a very sane response from a kind colleague about taking the high road. Stupid high road. There’s less oxygen up there. How do you know the decisions you make from the high road are really better? Lack of oxygen is bad for your brain. But I’ve always liked climbing things (as you saw in Part 1), so whatever. I’m going to do it.  But I reserve the right to base jump from the top of the high road down to the abyss of the low road if needed.

So anyway, next three countries were Sweden, US, and Canada.

IAS is a Swedish organization, and one thing I’ve learned while working with them is that I really like these Viking people. I like them as much as I hate ABBA. And I really really hate ABBA.

Sweden:

·      Leksand, is the most “Swedish” part of Sweden (this observation is not original to me, it was donated by an authentic Swede). It is know for a large red wooden horse, which Leif pointed out as the largest in the world. I mentioned to Paul that this is likely because no one else in the world has thought it important to build a large red horse, but we didn’t mention that to Leif. Let him be proud of this Swedish accomplishment. The houses here are also all painted red with a paint that is made of copper dust mixed with water that is supposed to protect the wood. Leif said, “As you can see, all the houses here are red. Except for that one, which is yellow, but it is wrong.” Leif’s house is 120 years old and sits on the banks of one of the many crystal lakes in the area. All of us Africans in for the meeting started dividing up the lakes between our countries. Mary said, “I’ll take these for Kenya. Ketema, you can take that one for Ethiopia. Moggas, take that one for South Sudan.” This is what happens when water program people travel together in water abundant countries. I’d take some lakes to Chad, but I know in 10 minutes of arriving in our great country, they would be full of camels and cows and no longer safe to drink. But the cattle would be happy.

Making Juliet try out the trampoline.
She loved it.

You can take the Chadian out of Chad,
but when you give him a scarf to help him stay warm
at a Swedish cookout, he will still wrap it around his head like
he's about to go out and get on his camel.

IAS Tchad in Sweden!
Sadly, the first day we found out that Hervé's mother passed away,
and he had to go home quickly.

Eating raw pickled herring, event documented by Rune.

·      Food is…. Well, let me explain with a story: Anders, Danish colleague who used to live in Tanzania, told me  about a Scandinavian restaurant that opened in his town to his great excitement…until it closed down 3 months later because there weren’t enough Scandinavians in town to keep it in business. It takes a Viking palate to appreciate their cuisine. I tried dill-flavored caviar paste that comes in a tooth-paste like tube.  At the first bite I thought, “This isn’t so bad.” But as I continued to chew, amazingly, it got worse. But the worst was the raw pickled herring. Initially, I wasn’t going to try it, but Rune saw me skipping past it at the breakfast buffet and goaded me into trying it, “Don’t you eat bugs and other strange foods? I thought you would be brave enough to try our Viking food.” He challenged my courage! So I took some. Then it took me about 10 minutes to convince myself to put it into my mouth. It was truly terrible. I can’t describe it, but it triggered my gag reflex, which I had thought I didn’t actually have, as I usually can’t throw up, even when I’m sick. Later, as I was discussing his country’s horrible delicacies with Leif, he said, “That wasn’t herring you ate. It was seal. Wasn’t it seal?” he asked the cook lady who happened to be popping out of the kitchen at that moment. “Ja. Det är sill,” she said.

“So you’re saying I ate a seal?” I screamed in horror. “Seals are the puppies of the sea!” I then proceeded to tell everyone that I ate seal because – cool story. Until Desiree heard about it. “That was herring. We don’t eat seal here. Who told you it was seal?” I told her about Leif and the cook lady. She kindly explained that “sill” (pronounced “seal”) means “herring” in Swedish. I’ll get you next time, puppies of the sea.

Other important Sweden moments:

Andreas (a Swede) told me that he thinks I was the worst of anybody with the cold. We should note that this is me compared with Africans from Kenya, Tanzania, Ethiopia, South Sudan, Uganda, and Niger. People who had never seen snow until IAS decided to have meetings in Sweden in May.  I was worse than all of them. You know what? Screw it. I have other strengths. Note: I did NOT complain. I just wore all the clothes that I had with me all the time. And drank  a lot of tea. Also, friends loaned me their coats out of compassion. I just have that effect on people.

With Juliet after touching the electric fence,
With Julius "letting the body work,"
And with the cows...

I also enjoyed many Julius sayings. I knew I should have kept a list of them because now I only remember two. The first was when we were outside participating in a Swedish tradition of letting the cows out for the first time after the winter where they’d been kept inside for survival. As far as I could see, it was still winter. There was an arctic breeze blowing and I was on the verge of hypothermia. I was standing next to Juliet, who was appropriately bundled up. “Don’t touch the fence,” she said. “It will give you a shock.” Naturally, I touched it. She was right. But I was still freezing so she let me wear her scarf while I bounced up and down to generate heat. Julius, feeling sympathetic, as a Ugandan who’d moved to Sweden years before, advised me to embrace the cold, “Amanda, sometimes you have to let the body work.” Later that day at the fancy Swedish lunch buffet they took us to, he noticed my plate after I got back from the salad bar, “Amanda, you cannot eat only that grass," he told me, greatly encouraging me because I hadn’t found the rest of the food at that point and the salad bar had more gross slimy fish stuff on it. I had some Swedish beef instead.

Even in Sweden, sometimes we have to jump off our cars.

Then Leif asks me to drive, and I'm supposed to know that
this means to push the shifter down and up to reverse?
That is not clear from the drawing.

With Beatrice in the mines!

Of course this happened.
IKEA is all of my nightmares in one
nearly impossible to escape building.

I made Ilyasu try out the self check-out.
He loved it.

My photo of a moose I saw at 3am while driving to the airport.
I'm thinking about changing my career and becoming a wildlife photographer.
I clearly have skills.

The United States of America:

·      My observations mean nothing. Everyone has their own opinions about this place. I had fun eating various types of processed food (it’s what separates man from the animals!) and hanging with my family, including all the crazed progeny of my sisters. There were also some meetings I attended. I am happy to note that I survived them.

Cool aunts buy nerf guns for their nephews

Cool aunts share their tea

Breakfast with the cool aunt means you can eat
a plateful of bacon, and she is just so proud.

Canada:

A confusing photo I took in Canada

·      I think you all know how I feel about Canadian immigration policies. It turns out, they apply in Canada as well, but their results are more pleasing there than they are in South Sudan. Before leaving the plane, the flight attendant insisted that we ALL take the exit immigration papers for entering Canada. “I’m only in transit,” I said. “Everyone has to take them,” he said. (Amanda starts thinking dark thoughts again about Canada even though she reread Gordon Korman’s classic Canadian novel “I Want to Go Home” in the bathtub while chez her parents.) It turns out everyone had to go through exit immigration to get to the next part of the airport (insert eye-roll here for Canadian airport organization skills), but it ended up working out because I had about 6 hours to kill and I decided to go see Toronto because why not?

·         Canadian trains are nice. Canadian announcements in French and English are convenient because I start paying attention once they repeat in French, and in that way, I don’t miss my stop.

·      Canadian people are nice. I walked down to the water (of course) and sat on a bench by the Canadian maritime police station (because it was the first secluded bench I found). A police boat pulled out, and following what I assume are Canadian maritime customs, honked the horn before entering the lake. I turned as they honked because reflexes, and the gentle policemen all apologized to me for some reason.

·      Canadian birds will eat out of your hand. This must be because they are so used to all the nice Canadian people.

·      Canadians sell LOTS of maple sugar candies.

And that’s all! I’m home in Chad. It’s hot and muggy, but it’s also still MANGO SEASON! In conclusion, to deserve this great life, I quote the Sound of Music, “somewhere in my youth or childhood, I must have done something good.” And I’ll have to ask my mom what it was because I can’t remember it off the top of my head.

I'll leave you with these photos of ma famille:

I didn't take many photos in TN because 8 children
were wanting to play with my phone every time I took it out
and Marian had her fancy camera.

When you have a nephew on the spectrum who
gets overwhelmed by people and noise,
it's ok to hug each other under a blanket.

Playing in the creek

Oh yeah...and it's me...

O Canada--Why Me? (I thought we were friends.)

Until I was in grade six, I was schooled by Canadians, and I loved it. I didn’t mind spelling things with the extra ‘u’ and I sometimes said ‘sorry’ so that it rhymed with ‘gory’ and that was fine with me too. Once I entered into an in-depth conversation with Mr. Case about Canadian politics and who I would vote for in that election (it was 1992 or some where around then) and I was passionately for the Tories or the Liberal Democrats or whatever political party he was telling me about. I was about 8 years old, and I really didn’t care, but he was getting a kick out of the conversation so I humoUred him because I like to entertain.  I also have a favoUrite book called “I Want to Go Home” by Gordon Korman (I’ve mentioned this before) about 2 Canadian boys trying to escape the funshine camp activities that they are being forced to endure. It inspired me. And finally, I have genuinely liked almost every Canadian I have ever met, but now I have a real grudge against Canada. And not the grudge where we make jokes about Canada because those are funny and coming from a place of love. This is legit.

This is also a good book. About two boys recking
havoc in a Canadian boarding school.

As you know, immigration guys love me, as a general rule. I often get proposals of marriage and offers of citizenship when I’m getting visas or getting my passport stamped. I am good at schmoozing. I use languages, humor, and the head-tilt, and it works.  I have only failed at this twice with two different South Sudanese officials and BOTH TIMES what is the ONE THING that they wanted me to know about them -- the reason why they can never be wrong even though they clearly are? 

They used to work at the embassy in Canada. 

They both wanted to start a rambling and irrelevant story about how “When I was in Canada, I learned everything about this and I know that there is only one way to do this right, and it is the way that I am doing this.” Stories about Canada don’t HAVE to be boring. We know this because Anne of Green Gables. (Also, Gordon, I don’t care that you have an annoying rhyming name, you are the BEST.) But these guys can make even the most ardent lover of maple syrup want to crack the Stanley Cup in two and throw it at a Mountie.

 

A kindred spirit

The first issue I had was in Sudan while I was getting a new visa to South Sudan, and someone had filled the paperwork out for me, in accordance with the word of the slick businessman sitting in front of the embassy who told people that they had to pay him 20 pounds to fill out their paperwork. Most people going into that embassy don’t know much about it, and neither did my lovely colleague who had gone there to pick up the papers for me. Still, that didn’t matter to any of the other Embassy people she met. No, they were fine with her perfectly adequate paperwork until it got to Canada. He called me into his office. “Are you really going to work in South Sudan? Your work permit is finishing. You are lying and I can throw you in jail! I know about this because I worked in Canada!”

“I am applying for this visa so that I can go back and renew the work permit paperwork.”

“You can’t lie on these papers! This is very serious! In Canada we learned that if you lie, we can throw you in jail!”

“I’m not lying. These papers are accurate. I need a visa to get into the country so that I can renew the other paperwork.”

Finally, he agreed to give me the visa, but he marked over the whole paper in red pen, correcting spelling mistakes and ranting about how Canada is the only place where you learn things. “Visas everywhere are always the same in every country. Canada system is the one that everyone uses. You may travel many places, but I also traveled to Canada and I know that all systems are the SAME. They don’t change. And also our system in South Sudan does not change. Because we are like Canada and we stay the same.”

Side note for those who read this who have not had much visa experience (sometimes, especially while sitting for hours in a dimly lit stuffy room, I envy your lives): the visa system in South Sudan has changed each one of the 24 times I have had to renew my visa. If there is one thing you can count on in South Sudan, it is that nothing will stay the same except for that one room you have to sit in for an hour waiting for an Indian tech to fix the computer so that the South Sudanese visa guy can painstakingly type out your name and life story with one finger onto the sticker visa he will put in your passport.

Side note 2: No two visa systems are the same. If Quebec secedes (and in my current state of mind, I would totally get it. You do you, Q), they will most definitely have a different visa system than Canada and what’s more, it would all be in French, and they would laugh in your face if you didn’t understand them and make you sit in a room and listen to Celine Dion songs until you decided to reenact the Titanic and jump onto an iceberg, which would likely be right outside the window because if there is one thing I know about Canada, it is that it is cold there.  Also, visas have been a part of my life since childhood. They are miserable and mystifying Geneva Convention-approved form of torture. They are never fun, but they look cool in your passport.

So I got the visa in Khartoum, in spite of Canada’s best efforts to stop me, and I got a Facebook invite from the guy I met after Canada, who was properly charmed by me (also, I went overboard with the charm and it was Canada’s fault AGAIN, and I can never get a visa to South Sudan from Sudan again because I’m worried about jail time and/or not being able to turn down a marriage proposal from a South Sudanese soldier).

Old passport

Then fast forward a few months to now when I’m in the awkward “carry around 2 passports” stage. This happens when you are from a cool country that lets you do that (Sweden) or you are a cool person with dual citizenship. (I’m not that cool. I could never choose just one extra citizenship anyway.) In my case, I have two passports because one passport got too full, but I have all my visas in it. I had to finish that passport and get a new passport. My new passport is shiny and stiff and empty. My old passport is flabby and shabby and full. But my visas in it are still valid. The nice lady at the US Embassy assured me, even though I knew it was true because I’ve been in this stage before. Once, notably after I had a temporary passport with my China visa after being mugged in China and losing my other passport (the thieves gave it back though—it was nice, but I’d already canceled it. Still—I keep my old passports as souvenirs). I had the China visa in the temporary passport (I had to get it quickly because I was picking up my parents in Hong Kong and taking them to Macau and then the mainland for a visit) and my new passport was the valid passport I was currently using. I was crossing the border from Laos back into China after a sketchy solo backpack trip I’d taken through Southeast Asia, ending up in a van in the middle of nowhere with a few Chinese guys I’d met who agreed to take me back to China. Can I just say, it is a  good thing that no one can travel with 23 year old me anymore? Because I was an idiot.  But somehow I survived that and got to the border, and the Chinese officials looking at my two passports were initially a bit confused. But using my patented method for getting past immigration official—languages, humor, head-tilt, they let me back in. And if they can do it, then so can you, South Sudan! And of course, South Sudan would have, but stupid CANADA got in the way AGAIN!

In Laos before hopping in a white van
with 4 Chinese men I'd never seen before in my life.
Also: "under the clothes" money pouch is not hidden well in this photo-
another poor choice.

“I cannot stamp your passport,” said the immigration guy who had been fawning over me and my wonderful Arabic seconds before.  We argued back and forth a few moments (“Yes, you can—I just did this twice in Chad and once in Kenya.” “I can’t because the computers and I might get in trouble.”) and then he said, “Come here with me and I’ll take you to the boss.”

Let me just tell you something: when someone has your passport, you follow them. That is what you do. And so that is what I did.

I ended up outside of the airport in a trailer converted into an office, where a police was sitting in a fancy chair. They brought another man with me, and they gave his info to the police first. This turned out to be problematic for me because he was trying to come in from Sudan without having followed legal procedures. This is not good because former enemy + outdated legal procedures = really good excuse to get worked up and yell a lot and assert your new-found power.

Then, basking in the glow of his righteous anger, he came to my passport. “Now I know that this is wrong,” he said, “because I was in Canada.”

That is really what my hair looks like when I get off a plane.

And it went down-hill from there.

Here are some things he said to me:

“Your passport is finished. I have to respect the American law and I cannot accept this visa.”

“You are not in America. You have to accept South Sudanese law. American law does not matter here.”

“I know you have been many places, but I have been to Canada.”

“When I went to America from Canada, I had one tiny problem with my passport and they made me wait for 3 hours, and I said, ‘Thank you for following the law.’”

"American police force is very strong. You know that TV series 'bad-boy-bad-boy-what-you-do-the-do'? It is a good series. Very strong police."

“You think this money is going into my pocket? It is for South Sudan.”

“So what age do you think you will retire? 50?”

“Why aren’t you married?”

Ultimately, it was a very important conversation. After I bought the visa and went back and the evil sneaky Sudanese former enemy was gone, he was much more friendly, and that is when he asked the last two questions and told me how we were great friends. And also more about how he learned so much in Canada.

Official uniform of immigration personnel in South Sudan

Another important moment: when I went back in to buy the visa, the immigration guys said, “You didn’t understand. You could have just paid a small amount of money if you didn’t go to the boss.”

“YOU told me to go to the boss,” I said. "And no, I won't marry you, because you did not give me my visa for free."

In the interest of full disclosure, I have paid extra money to get out of Burundi a day past my visa and I paid some baksheesh to a guard in the Valley of the Kings to see Tutankhamen’s tomb without a ticket, but in this case, I didn’t even think about offering a bribe, and I really regret it. Especially earlier today when I tried to get my visa renewed to 6 months multiple entry in accordance with my year-long work permit (ends in 2017)—the main reason for this visit in the first place.

“Oh no,” said my friend at the immigration office. “You have a valid visa. We can’t renew until it is over. But you can talk to the big boss, if you like.”

So we went to the big boss.

“How are you?” he boomed loudly in Arabic, remembering me. “I hope you are 100%” (a classic Sudanese response to that question).

“No,” I said. “Only 90%. I need you to fix my visa problem.”

I explained and he said, “Well, we cannot give you a new visa when you already have a valid visa. But you come back next Tuesday, and I’ll give it to you.”

Why is Tuesday the magic day? I don’t know. But I do know that this man has not been to Canada. So I joked my way out, making him promise me the 6 month visa and South Sudanese nationality in front of 5 other officers who were all laughing and will all remember that he promised the crazy khawaja who speaks Arabic a six month visa. And if I survive the dangerous public transport ride to Yei tomorrow on a road fraught with bandits and gaping holes (which I have to do now since my schedule has changed thanks to CANADA and I couldn’t get an airplane in time), I will be back in his office on Tuesday, and he will remember me, and he will be happy to give me my 6 month visa.

“I’m 98% happy now,” I told him as I was leaving. “I’ll be 100% on Tuesday when you give me that 6 month visa.

Winner of National Geographic's "Capture the Authentic Spirit of a Country" Travel Photography Contest 2016

Completely Preventable Adventures

 

This post is once again about the road over-traveled and under-maintained. Juba to Mundri is never a fun trip unless you can go by private car. I could have. But I decided not to call my drilling friends because I thought, “Really, what are the odds that they would be driving through Mundri on the same day as I will be?” It turns out that the odds were really high for that, and I could have traveled in luxury, and remembering this fact—that a simple phone call could have saved me a lot of pain and discomfort.—was not an encouragement to my soul. Truthfully, I will do almost anything to get out of having to make a phone call to someone, and I always procrastinate calling people, which often has a detrimental effect on my work. Sorry, People I Work For.  Currently, there are at least 2 important phone calls I was supposed to make last week that I have found brilliant reasons to put off until this week. Now that it’s this week, it has suddenly come to my attention that next week might actually be a more appropriate time for these calls. I keep trying to remind myself of the lesson I should have learned from my Juba-Mundri trip, but I’ve had so much practice ignoring my inner Responsible voice. Anyway, as always, the trip had some very entertaining moments, which I will share with you. However, if you really want to be able to truly understand what I went through on this trip, you need to go roll around in the dirt until you have grit in the creases of your ears, and then, still fully-clothed in dirt, go sit in a sauna for 12+ hours. If you can somehow arrange for that sauna to be situated next to a construction site that is busy using dynamite for whatever construction sites use dynamite for, so that you are consistently being bounced around, that would help with the accuracy of the simulation. And make sure you are squeezed between the door and a large man. If the Pringles you spent way too much money on in the store happen to spill out all over the muddy floor—DO NOT PANIC. Eat them anyway because, for real, Pringles.  You probably might not get some horrible floor to foot to Pringle to mouth disease and die.

Note: I have no photos of this trip, but please enjoy some photos from my recent time in Khartoum, sprinkled throughout.

Can you tell me what the English on this says? I can't read it, but I remember it being really funny to me somehow. The Arabic part isn't funny, so it must have been the English.

So I was already trying to get on the Land Cruiser I had arranged the day before when I found out that the drilling team was going to Mundri and I could have hitched a ride, if they had known and weren’t already half-way there when I called. This put me in a supremely bad mood.  That mood was not helped when the Land Cruiser I’d arranged to travel with decided to foist me off on a different Land Cruiser because the President was coming to town and the shop it needed to buy stuff from was closed for security reasons. I agreed reluctantly to change to the other Land Cruiser. The driver proceeded to have a very loud argument with the lady sitting in the front seat with her child to kick her into the back because of me. This made me mad because the lady was there first, and also I became the opposite of Rosa Parks, which is not ever what I ever wanted to be, but the guy insisted that I had arranged the ticket first (probably true since I called the afternoon before), and Rules Must Be Observed. Then he showed me my ticket, which had been purchased previously. In the spot for the traveler’s name, he’d just written, “Khawaja.” My mood lifted slightly because—that IS funny. It dropped again later when I had to go re-register with the police because they wanted to check my passport and visas and yell at the driver for his unprofessionalism—“You MUST write the passenger’s name. What is this ‘khawaja’? This is not a good way to do Business.” Though, to be fair, there were no other khawajas anywhere on the premises of the Bus Station.

Finally we were on the road. But we were stopped at the last check point out of Juba by a couple of power-hungry soldiers. “You must all get out and take all of the luggage off the top of your car.” This is not a welcome statement. It takes a long time to get everything tied up nicely on the car. It was already getting late. Untying the luggage, taking it down, inspecting it, packing it up again, heaving it up to the roof, re-tying it—this is a process that takes time. Our driver patiently climbed to the roof anyway. I huffed and rolled my eyes at the soldiers, who took that as an invitation to conversation.

This Sudanese cereal tasted horrible but--GMO free! (Is there a connection?) And yes, I ate it anyway. Anything tastes better with added sugar (also GMO free).

Soldier: “So. Where are you from?”

Me: “America.” (I am pretty good at shutting down unwanted conversations with one-word answers, but this guy was persistent.)

Soldier: “Right. So where in America?”

Me: “Yeah. America.” (Because even when having pointless conversations with soldiers, I really don’t know how to answer that question, and it’s easier to play dumb.)

Soldier: “Yeah, I know, but like where in America? Which state? Canada?”

(In South Sudan, people will make Canada jokes FOR you. Saves so much time.)

Me: “No. Just America.”

The soldier decided to try a new tactic.

“So. Why are you traveling alone? You work with an NGO? You should have a bodyguard.”

Me: “What? Why would I need a bodyguard? I’m totally fine. I always travel this road.”

Soldier, “You might need one. For your children.”

Me: “I don’t have any children.”

Soldier: “Why not? Where is your husband? Are you married?”

Me: “No.”

Soldier: “Why not?!”

And then, inspired by those Oscar-red-carpet female movie stars who are fighting for feminists everywhere by pointing out that there are better questions to ask women than “What are you wearing” and “who did you hair” and “why aren’t you married,” I decided to turn the question back on him.

Me: “Why aren’t YOU married?”

Soldier: “I am. I have 4 wives.”

Me: “Oh.”

(It turns out feminism is only for movie stars.)

Soldier: “You should really get married.”

Me: “Oh yeah? Why?”

Soldier: “Because you’re running out of time.”

(And feminism is dead.)

By this time we were halfway done unloading. The soldier, having made all his important points about the need to travel with a body guard (for the children) and the need to get married (you’re not getting any younger), glanced up at the driver and said, “Ahh. Don’t worry about the rest of the stuff. It’s getting hot now, and you have a Khawaja with you.”

We packed up everything so fast before he could change his mind. Meanwhile the other car with no khawaja and 3x as much stuff secured to its roof, including a wheel barrow, several shovels, 45 jerrycans, tents, pillows, mattresses, and more, was still unloading everything. 

I love it when I can use my Khawaja privilege for the benefit of others. The guy sitting next to me grinned and secretly high-fived me for my white burning skin.

The bottom of this tissue box kept me entertained during a long meeting. Please enjoy! Note: even if you think you've noticed all the funny things about it, read it again, and you will notice even more. But only when you have unlimited time to observe it, like I did, will you really be able to appreciate it.

The first half of our journey was uneventful. We made it to the lunch-time-break town where cars and busses and trucks MUST always stop (I always hold on to a vague hope that just once we can make it through without having to have a 30-45 minute break, but it’s never happened). While there, another soldier decided to ask me where I was headed. “Mundri,” I said laconically. “Ah,” he said, “You’re almost there. You’ll be there in another hour.”

It’s about 40 or so miles to Mundri from Janbo, but this is South Sudan roads, and 40 miles on South Sudan roads is like 200 miles on paved roads elsewhere.  So I said, “It will take AT LEAST another two hours.” Little did either of us know that it would actually take another 7 and a half hours.

Shooting guns in celebration at crowded weddings is not a bad idea because gravity only applies to apples.

A little ways down from Janbo, there was a horrible crunching noise and we fishtailed through the sand to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. The men piled out with all the tools and got busy. We were back on the road for a little while before there was a repeat of the situation. This time I got out to see what was happening (Note: I now had nothing else to do since I had finished my book that the Frizzes kindly gave to me for my birthday—Ungifted, by Gordon Korman, Canadian genius, so I had nothing else to do.) I helped the guys unscrew the bolts on the tire (they were really impressed) and then watched as they chopped off a bit of rope and used it to tie the tire tightly to the bar connecting it with the other tire, which also secured a spinning thing in the middle that must have some important role in making a car move forward.

The guy turned to me and said, “See? This will totally work. The car won’t break down again.”

I said, “Uh-huh. You really expect me to believe that you actually fixed this car with a bit of rope?” Truthfully, there was much hope in my heart because I love a good “fixed the car with rope” story, but there is something in me that has to be cynical, and I gave him the “raised eyebrow look of skepticism.”

He said, “No really. Believe me. This is Africa. We Africans know these things. These are things that Khawajas don’t know, but we know them.”

And of course, when the car broke down again 15 minutes later, I couldn’t resist. “Tell me again about what Africans know about fixing cars with rope?” I said, because I am a horrible person of minimal self-control. In the Book of Three, Eilonwy tells Taran that “Saying ‘I told you so’ is like putting worms on someone’s head,” and she was my childhood hero, but I couldn’t resist.  Fortunately, my traveling companion had a good sense of humor and we laughed together before we both got out again to re-tie the car. I mean, it DID work for 30 minutes, and there was nothing else for it.

Look at the shoes my friend made me wear with her thobe to  the wedding!

Meanwhile, we stopped passing trucks and cars asking for tools, water, various items we needed. It was a party. Guess who else stopped to check on us? The wheelbarrow car that had been detained unnecessarily in Juba, not having a sun-sensitive khawaja to illicit sympathy in the hearts of inspecting soldiers. The driver said, “Hey—I remember you! We’ve totally traveled to and from Juba together before in the past.” Me: “Yeah, I remember. Want to squeeze all of us into your car and take us on to Mundri?” Sorry, Khawaja (Remind me someday to tell you the story of “Sorry, Khawaja.” The drilling team told me the story originally, and it made me laugh for 20 minutes. And then for the rest of the day, if I happened to think about it, I would start laughing again, which meant that throughout the long trip we were making, periodically I would burst into laughter for seemingly no reason at all. But there was a reason—Sorry Khawaja.)

Finally, it was dark. Our driver had given up hope and was just sitting by the side of the road. I was trying to call Repent to tell him to hire a car to come pick us all up, and I would pay, but the phone network was really bad. I would get a tiny bit of signal, call, hear his voice, and then lose the connection. And then, along comes a rickety old short-tired van.

“Hello, friends!” said the driver. “Are you going to Mundri? I’ve just been in Janbo picking up some bamboo. Hop in, and I’ll take you with me.”

We hopped. We piled everything in the van, waved goodbye to our exhausted driver and the man who offered to stay back with him, and left.

“Make yourself comfortable, my guests! I’ll have you home soon,” said the driver, our new best friend. And he would have, but he also stopped another time to check on another stranded car and offer his mechanical assistance. We finally made it home by 10:30pm. Repent greeted me, smiling, “I cleaned your whole house for you. Here’s some food and water too.”

South Sudanese people really are the best.

Roger slept in my pillow while I was gone. He missed me. He also resented it when I kicked him out, but I don't think either of us would be very comfortable with this continued arrangement.

Post script to the story:

I went for a run the next morning, on the Mundri-Maridi road. Several of the trucks that I passed by waved and smiled at me, “Ah—you made it to Mundri!” They recognized me from passing me the day before on the Juba-Mundri road. Most truck drivers will spend the night in Mundri, stock up on food and then head on to Maridi or Yambio or wherever. It was so fun for them to see a friend from the day before, and let’s just be honest—you don’t see many white women squatted down by a car, screwing in bolts and yelling at passing trucks to stop and let us borrow a wrench. They knew it was me.

This truck is from a while back on a field visit with Repent. It was broken down by the side of the road, but I read the mudflap, so as we passed by I yelled helpfully to the guys working on it, "Just be determined! That's all it's about!" They were a bit confused, but it worked because I saw them on our way back, putting along, and I stopped to get this photo. That is the wisdom of Mudflaps.