First impressions of Juba

The Jaja Inn has a good location close to government buildings, NGOs, and on a main road.  Their nightly rate of $35-$45 (depends on your skin color or accent) is far below others offering accommodation. Mayan needed more than an hour to negotiate our room rate, initially the establishment stated that we would each need a room as the beds were so small.  After the first attempt we all left for a drink across the road. Refreshed, we returned to complete the deal.  We could after all squeeze into one bed, and money in the hand was worth more than an empty room.

We left our bags and headed for a walk in the area.  Bert commented that Juba seemed like a city of villages as the place is a series of compounds.  The NGOs and government departments are built in the same style as family compounds are all over Sudan, the building materials are just different.  Simple dwellings sit alongside high tech complexes, hard packed mud roads run into the few asphalt roads.

It was Sunday and a lot of people were walking and chatting in groups.  In the villages everyone would greet another on the road, but here in Juba folks avoided eye contact.  The small children, however, were the same: they swarmed us strangers and loved having their photos taken and being able to see the frame on our camera immediately.  Garbage was very evident, but not as bad as I had anticipated.  Lone light bulbs and ads for Oxford cigarettes seemed oddly misplaced and a pole with a blue mosquito net tied to it in the middle of one road suggested someone pulled his bed out in the open (given the somewhat hostile feel of the city, not something I'd expect either).

Bold street placquards echoed the pride of independence and flora and fauna added to the awareness of the newness of the city's growth.

 Back at the Jaja we headed to our room through  the courted open dining area and the darker indoor area around a bar and a small courtyard that looks deceptively tame.   The room was sweltering and sordid.  Toilet didn't flush, but at least a large container could be filled with water to compensate.  The fluorescent light bulb flickered and petered out and the electricity in this sector cut in and out so that air fluctuated between noisy breeze and absolutely steaming.  We were alarmed by a knock at the door at 8.00.  It was Majok, another of William's friends who was coming to take us to the airport in the morning.  He wanted to introduce himself to us so that we'd know him in the morning.  (Afterwards we were doubly grateful for his thoughtfulness.)  Marieke's experience with bedbugs in Spain nudged me into buying bedbug spray to take to South Sudan.  The foam mattress at the Jaja got a liberal dose of bedbug spray and we prayed cleansing over the whole room.  We were across the road from a complex of flats and restaurants, Home and Away, and they boasted a disco.  The disco blasted music into the small hours of the morning.  There were small pauses in the music in the interludes between the electricity dying and their generator kicking in.  The night life of the inn woke us repeatedly until 3 and we had to be up at 5.30 to leave at 6.00.  We had checked earlier with the bartender that we could get out at 6.  "No problem."  At 6.00 the place was locked up tight and not a soul was stirring.  We managed to wake someone who woke someone else who had keys and waited a few seconds for Majok to pick us up for the 10 minute ride to the airport.