Here's the thing...

To feel the sand between ones teeth.. Our near weekly dust storms here in the field are something of a curse and a blessing. A blessing because they blot out the sun for a precious day of not dripping in sweat. A curse because you literally feel the gritty, salty taste of dirt between your teeth the whole day through. Must everything be a double-edged sword?

After sitting in my little tukul almost all day on Saturday I had enough. I needed to get out and so I went for a walk. And once I started walking I was overcome by the strangest urge to just keep on walking. I mean, just keep going. Now, I’m the person who coined the phrase, ‘if God had intended us to walk he wouldn’t have given us cars’ so I’m not normally a fan of ‘footing’, as they call it here. I think of walking as a means to an end, just like driving - only the latter is more expedient. You walk, or run, or hike, or trek, or drive in order to 1) get where you’re going, or 2) exercise, or, 3) see some beautiful mountain/hike as the case may be. That’s it. I have never gotten some high or endorphine rush from either walking or running. That’s why I found it so unusual that on Saturday I just felt like walking. It might have something to do with being in the middle of nowhere and I was on a dirt track that goes somewhere. It wasn’t to get anywhere, it wasn’t particularly beaut...

For those of you who have read this blog for quite some time you will know both about my love of epic battles and about the presence of some rather agressive monkeys (which I maintain are not figures of my imagination) on our Juba compound. This morning our new HR staff comes in. Mind you, she's been in Juba for one day, having flown in from New Zealand yesterday and says: "Well, I have to say that a monkey playing with a puppy is not something I have ever seen before." This, of course, raises the curiosity so I went with her and a guard to investigate. There was, actually a monkey in the yard rolling around a poor little puppy (estimated age 4 weeks...pictured above). We got the guard to throw rocks at the monkey long enough to take the puppy away. Needless to say, it was in a state of shock, covered in ticks and fleas so that it's coat is patchy. We got a box (having learned the bucket lesson from the cats) and put it in where it promptly went to sleep. A f...

You know your week (series of weeks?) is not going well when the highlight of your day becomes flavoured water. That has been the highlight of my day for the past two weeks. It’s getting hot in Sudan now. Really hot. Up in the 110-20’s hot. And so by about 1.30 you can hardly stand to be outside, much less string together a cohesive sentence or finish an email. Mostly, you feel like putting your head down on the desk and going to sleep in a pool of your own sweat and waiting until the sun sets before you regain consciousness. Of course, you can’t do this because, well, you are a responsible professional that has work to doing and people are outside carrying water over two hours for their families so you’re pretty much just a big whiner. Needless to say the need to stay hydrated in this environment is challenging but important. I have addressed this by making drinking water my hobby. Everyone needs a hobby. It goes a little something like this. We’re supposed to drink between 5-7...

Sometimes the only thing that can make one of your favourite watering holes better is a fountain in the form of a gorilla that spits water surrounded by a dog (or is that a goat?), and alligator. Makes me happy every time I see it.

Kittens...not just delicious...also giant pains in the ass...You see, it all started about two weeks ago... “Do you think I should take this bucket?” I shouted to Sarah who happened to be in the toilet at the time. “Why?” she shouted back. “Cause we have to put the kittens in something,” I carried on the conversation from the other side of the bathroom door. “Get a box,” she sagely advised. We were going to collect some kitties. Not your average evening activity in Juba so let me explain. There is a google group called Jubalicious on which people post adverts, announcements, etc. And, those loyal readers, will recall that several of our field sites have mentioned that they would like to have some cats to keep the rodent and snake population at bay. So, when a Jubalicious post announcing that six cute kittens were up for grabs I immediately replied that we would take two. Motot wanted them…if you’re still trying to figure out why go to previous posts on snakes in Motot. ...

In the past week I have gotten a short course on food security for a number of reasons and I found it so interesting I thought I would share. First of all, what is food security? Well, it’s basically having enough food in order to live a productive life. Most of the developed world is what we would call ‘food secure’ however, there are pockets in every society that are still ‘food insecure’ because food security is not only about the availability of food (of which there is plenty in the developed world) but about access to that food. So, if your average inner city kid in Washington, DC could be surrounded by food but still be food insecure because she can’t access it. Her family lacks the money, or the money is spent on other things. The difference between the inner city kid and the developing world is that in the developed world there is (hopefully) a complex web of civil society / governmental safety nets to keep her from starving. Her parents might get food stamps, or a local ch...