[Malual Kon, Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan 42°C] This morning, like every morning, I wake up with the sounds of roosters clucking, children playing, and neighbours beyond the compound fence discussing the beginning of their day.
I make my way from inside my canvas tent on the Save the Children (UK) compound, and walk the narrow cement [...]
Posts under ‘travel’
A Visit to War Faj Village in Northern Bahr el-Ghazal
The roads of Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan
[Malualkon, Northern Bahr el-Ghazal, Southern Sudan 40°C] The gravel road between Malual Kon—where I’m now based—and the new Women’s Association Centre in Gok Machar village—where we are driving to—is long and mostly strait. It traverses a savannah-like landscape of grassland dotted with mango, palm, gwel, neem and other trees and shrubs. It’s now the dry [...]
Adopted Marabou Stork in IOM compound
[Malual Kon, Aweil, Southern Sudan 40°C] I arrive into the interior of Southern Sudan byde Haviland twin Otter 15-passenger plane. Here is it hot and dry. I travel with Martin, a Sudan Radio Service reporter based in Wau. We will collaborate on news gathering together during this trip and my visit to Abyei, later in [...]
In Wau on Day of ICC Decision
[Wau, Southern Sudan 36°C] I leave the bustling and dusty capital of Juba and fly about 500 kms northeast into the interior of Southern Sudan to the town of Wau. Although there is less traffic in Wau, without a single paved road in the town, it is equally dusty. The oxidized earth leaves a veiled [...]
Mine Risk Education West of Juba
[Juba, Southern Sudan 34ºC] It’s my first day in Juba (Feb 26) and I start working right away. From Juba, I have a “story from the field” to write about Mine Risk Education (MRE). I’m picked up for a briefing meeting at the UNICEF offices. You can’t get in without a badge or an escort [...]
Arriving in Juba, Southern Sudan
[Juba, Southern Sudan 33ºC] Flight 565 from Nairobi touches down onto one of the rarest commodities in all of Southern Sudan: a paved surface. The only tarmac in the entire southern region of Sudan—which is about the size of France—is in Juba and about 1/4 of it makes up the airport’s runway. But that is [...]
Schooling Sudanese Refugees in Nairobi at Sud Academy
[Nairobi, Kenya 27°C] Below is a selection of photos taken at Sud Academy, a primary/secondary school for Sudanese refugees in a poor neighbourhood of Nairobi, Kenya. The school has a student population of more than 200 students, some of whom were abducted during the civil war by northern militia and enslaved by them to tend [...]
In Nairobi preparing for Juba
[Nairobi, Kenya 28°C] The Nairobi heat rarely gathers on the brow long enough to bead. It evaporates long before it has a chance to trickle then drip. Kenya will prepare you for the heat of Sudan, everyone tells me as I reach for my water bottle, still thirsty. It’s not just the heat of Southern [...]
Travel Health: Mefloquine, Neem and Choices
[Nairobi, Kenya 28°C] It’s now one week before my arrival in Juba and according to the prescription of apo-mefloquine that sits on my desk, I should be starting my antimalarial treatment today by taking my first 250-gram tablet. One tablet to be taken one week before arriving in a malarial area (some areas of Kenya [...]
Jetlagged in Nairobi
[Nairobi, Kenya 29°C] My Flight to Nairobi straddles three continents, 13 hours of flying time and oceans of sea water and desert sand. The initial 6-hour flight brought me in Amsterdam to languish three hours in the busy Schiphol Airport, before continuing on to Nairobi on another 7-hour flight. North America to Europe to Africa. [...]
