Monday 24th October

We are grateful to be staying somewhere with western toilets. Power supply is limited to 7.00pm to 9.30pm at night. Using the computer and recharging phones is a bit hard. There is no refrigerator.There is no hot water. A cold shower feels  cold with our hot bodies.  You don’t drink the water. Internet connection is fairly pathetic.  But the people are wonderful! We are enjoying everybody we meet. A local lady did the washing for all four us today.  It dried on the barb wire atop the 6 foot fence around the house.

Abraham tried to get us a meeting with governor. We sat in his room waiting but he was meeting the national defence minister. Lots of police and soldiers around but quiet and calm. Then we went to Bor Complex Secondary School. Headmaster Achuol was very gracious. This school gives instruction in Arabic to accommodate families who are moving back to the south after having resided in the north. Arabic will be phased out over the next few years. We all visited a 2nd form class and each had a chance to say a few words.

While this was going on Warwick had asked for some American dollars to be changed to Sudanese Pounds.  A young man pulls up on a motorbike and Abraham says to give him the money and he will sort it out.  He takes off and over the next two hours we get calls about the rates he has tracked down.  The official rate is three to one, but we had heard that four to one is possible.  The quotes came back at 3.30, 3.60 and finally a deal was done at 3.80.  As we walked back to the bus the young man appears again and hands over the $760 SP for $200US.

By this time we are in need of food, so walk to the Freedom for lunch.  Greg is not feeling 100% so he gets a $1 motorbike ride to lunch.  After lunch we try to buy some food but although there are market stalls everywhere, we only succeed in getting rice, milk powder, drinking chocolate and toilet paper.  We could find nothing to go with the rice.  We discovered Dinka men have nothing to do with food preparation, and despite their best efforts they could not help us find anything like a tin of tomatoes or any tinned food.  It may not exist here.

The rest went back to the house and I went to the University to meet Professor Robert and have a look around.  I (Warwick) met the Dean of Agriculture and he has arranged for me to lecture the Ag students on Wednesday.   I also got to speak with the guest extension lecturer, so that really helped direct my thinking for the presentation.

Off home now to a third night of no food provided by us, but with the heat we have only eaten a little “walla walla” each night, which is very nice. 

Greg spent the afternoon with Chol Mike, a former head master, who works in administration of the Bor County education system. He is the secretary of the Jonglei Worship Centre.  They talked about all sorts things and Greg was energised.