My bedroom is the most popular. Between my two windows there are somewhere near 50 black flies crawling about the screens – unfortunately on the inside, not the outside. My colleagues don’t have the opportunity to make this same observation in their rooms. I ask Lulu for an explanation and he says, “I think it’s these pink things.” Somehow along the way I have acquired a lot of pink accessories. Pink toenail polish, pink Chacos, even a pink watch. Lulu has consequently dubbed me the Pink Lady. This is better than his secret nickname for another among us – Red Bull.
***
Our cook, Mousa, a shy and capable young Sudanese man, showed up very early Saturday morning to tell us he had to go to Uganda. His father had died. He returned this morning to tell us the funeral and subsequent family meeting were fine, but that upon their return by road they encountered a vehicle in northern Uganda that had been burned by rebel thieves. The seven passengers had been killed and robbed of their hearts. It sounds like the word of our favorite nemesis – the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been terrorizing northern Uganda and southern Sudan for 20 years. Peace talks (called the “cessation of hostilities”) resumed last week here in Juba between LRA representatives and Ugandan government officials. Similar talks were derailed last year when the LRA stormed out and headed back to the bush. Everyone is hopeful the talks will lead to a solution whereby the rebel soldiers will finally stop their evil deeds. Sometimes it seems there is no limit to the pain we can cause one another. [post-note for worry-warts: I am nowhere near where this atrocity happened and have no intention of going there.]
***
Today is Christmas at 31 Hai-Jalaba (our house/office, or “hoffice” as I call it). Anne, our boss, has returned from a weekend trip to Kampala, Uganda, bearing gifts. Cheese, Pringles, a bottle of white wine (and she doesn’t even drink!), four coffee mugs to replace our teeny tiny tea cups, real cotton sheets to replace our ridiculous polyester-blend sheets, dried soup mixes, pseudo-maple syrup, and a large tin of gingersnap cookies. Also on this day, in a move seemingly designed to send us into blissful overdrive, the city electrical system has been restored. Air bordering on cool is being pushed from a crudely installed wall unit throughout the hoffice. We immediately closed the doors, shut the windows and breathed – comfortably – indoors for the first time since we moved in nearly two months ago. At dinnertime, we gather for a Lulu improvised meal of rice and red sauce around the plastic dining table – outside. Old habits are hard to break.
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South Sudan: links of interest
Miranda