Posts

Showing posts from April, 2011

About 100 people died an hour up the road…

It’s a strange thought, isn’t it. I’ve thought about it for the past few mornings when I took the road the opposite direction into town. It’s a flat and dusty road – fairly good by South Sudan standards and, if you take it in the opposite direction, it passes through some oil outposts, dry flat bush occupied by a mud tukul here and there, and the army’s checkpoints. You make a left at one junction and then you’re headed straight into Mayom County. I went there a few weeks ago because I had destroyed my computer (another tedious story involving my falling through the floor and spilling tea on it) and some friends were on an official visit and it seemed like something interesting to do with an otherwise wasted day. Apart from a couple of buildings, a bunch of tukul compounds surrounded by dried reeds, a broken tractor - there’s not much to Mayom town. There’s just a bunch of people living out there with their kids running around playing with tire rims and trucks made out of tin. Ou