Nairobi to Juba

We travelled December 31 to Nairobi and flights were few over the holiday weekend.  We had to take a very early flight from Nairobi and then had to wait another 24 hours for a flight from Juba up to Aweil.  We were unable to buy the Juba to Aweil ticket ahead of time.

The primary Nairobi airport terminal is always surprisingly small and seethes with waiting passengers.  As we waited to leave on Sunday morning we were taken with the enormous diversity of people and languages traveling through.  Bert's shots of our fellow passengers to Juba suggest a fairly strong Chinese presence in South Sudan.  Despite having assigned seats for the flight to Juba there seemed some urgency to ensure each got his place, or perhaps it was our uncertainty about which flight was being called (several flights seemed to be called simultaneously at one gate!) that created a jam and waves of intense human body odours.

Landing in Juba a new terminal building looked promising and the airport seemed to be functioning well as we walked across to the old arrivals building. The old building is far too small for the volume of people and  buzzes continually with an extraordinary mix of Sudanese and NGO expats dressed in everything from evening gowns to track suits.  We were a bit surprised that our baggage was sent through the screening machines as it went into the arrivals 'hall'. We are more familiar with screening ahead of a flight.  There were two officials at two different counters to whom we showed our passports and visas, and then we turned around to pick up our bags.  I'd taken a bright yellow North Face backpack for each us - if we had to carry our stuff it would be easier in that form, and how many people have bright yellow bags?  I managed to confidently lift one bag down before realizing that someone else had had the same idea. :)  When I'd identified our bags a pleasant man asked us if we were William Deng Deng's friends.  William had asked Mayen to meet us and take us to the hotel he suggested we use.

Mayen is typical of so many brave Dinka men.  He walked through the country as a boy to Ethiopia and then back through South Sudan to Kenya and in the refugee camp there he he drew a lucky straw that provided a ticket to, and settlement in,  Canada.  His wife and children are still in Canada but he has returned to South Sudan and found a job.  The strong desire to return to South Sudan and the hope to see the country build constructively are strong enough to endure the burden of separation from family and substantial hardships while seeking employment.

Very surprisingly, Juba has no regular taxi service.  Anyone who is anyone has his own car and probably driver too.  If you need to go somewhere you find someone who has access to a car or walk.  William, up in Aweil, had telephoned Mayen and asked him to help us.  Mayen owned no car, but he, in turn, had asked another friend to help us. They both graciously waited while we dealt with the urgent matter of buying tickets for the next day's trip to Aweil.

Thanks to Mayen we discovered that the Air Kush office was in an office close to the arrivals building.  The office was the size of a large garden shed and had a desk in it at which the Kush Air rep, an Arab by his appearance, hand wrote tickets while all the rest of the space was taken up with Dinka men sitting and standing trying to get tickets back home.  Bert waited outside while Mayen and I wedged ourselves into the throng and stated our goal of buying two tickets for the 8a.m. flight.  The Kush Air agent placidly continued to write Arabic notes on tickets and throw cash into a desk drawer as each client was served.  He made no list of tickets served, but continued, nonstop, to write tickets.  After a mysterious number of clients had been served, by no means all of them, he decided it was our turn.  He was willing to take dollars and quickly pulled his calculator to give me a quote.  It seemed fair.  I paid.  My dollars went onto the top of the cash pile in the drawer.  I stashed my, to me, completely illegible tickets and asked cautiously how we were guaranteed seats on the plane.  "Be here at 6.30 tomorrow!"  First come, first served?

Mayen and his friend then graciously drove us to the hotel William had suggested.