The Accent of Concord
Magna area South Sudan
Week ending 06/03/2020
A week is such a short time it seems hard to believe that it is a week today I left Perth and headed for South Sudan. To commence a lifetime challenge and defining moment of ones character and be savable to say that I can walk the talk.
The flight over was long and largely uneventful with just the monotony of metal detectors and various forms of different English being thrown at you to relieve the Muddiness.
Khartoum soon changed all of that with dust and heat even in though it was evening and an airport that if you did not have some one to tap you on the shoulder so to speak as you walked across the tarmac you would find quiet intimidating particularly if you only had an enter permit like I did and you had to go and negotiate your visa from an office that has no signs and limited English.
Luckily I had Matarma to meet me and although he could only say Hello we got on well and he paved the way.
That was until we hit the baggage collection my first 3 pieces came off in the first lot with chalk crosses all over them as I was to find out the x-ray machine had found something. My boots in the red bag did not make it and did not arrive till Sunday afternoon. Filled in the forms this was in Arabic and English and anyone who has seen Arabic it has no meaning to some poor bush boy from Australia so instead of taking half an hour it took one.
So off to customs I go with the dodgy wheel on the trolley crashing into everything and every body luckily for me was so polite and the white Hiragana was stupid and did not know how to drive. Certainly would have been some trolley rage in Australia.
Finally get to the Customs steel table and have to take every thing out which is in its own little water proof bags and these they did not open [only the printer and scanner as it turns out I should have given them the printer as it does not work but” Beauty” the administrator assures me she can get it going so at the moment it is in Bits in a bag, certainly there will be no warranty front Harvey Norman now] then they descended I must say with the utmost politeness and they had found the 2 way radios I had bought with me .This was Matarma greatest work as he for over an hour made phone calls shook hands with every body and the pips on the shoulders got more and after an hour he had reached a deal where I could go with the radios except one that he keep and would come back with and pay the excise duty when the had worked out how much . The negotiations are probably still going.
The Soluxe Hotel in the street near the airport is owned and run by Chinese with the odd Sudanese helping basically doing what the Chinese do not want to do. It was nice and clean but the food was as my friend Red Six would attain to it is real traditional Chinese food if it has no flavor and variety.
I was lucky enough to go out to Peter and Linda Shuurs for lunch and boy does he cook a mean Thia chicken Salad. Peter is the C.E.O of the now renamed Concord Agriculture Project and is my immediate Boss. I was then lucky enough to also go out to dinner with John and Fiona Elgin. John is the C.E.O of the Sabina Project, which is also owned by Citadel and is closer to Khartoum. Fiona is the daughter of Colin Campbell a long time friend of my sister and myself the last time I saw Fiona was around 1980.
W e set off for Juba early Monday morning through the absolute chaos of Khartoum domestic terminal luckily Matarma was with us again although Peter is certainly well versed and knows the routine .The idea when travelling here is to have only a very small amount of luggage and the back pack was good as you need free hands a lot of the time.
Juba was a vey different experience with the expected arrival of the President on his electoral tour the airport was closed and we were sent to park the plane at the end of the strip and we had to walk back a k or two to a break n the fence where all the luggage was bought on a tractor and trailer. This was probably quicker than going through customs in the “Terminal”. Fred from Uganda picked us up also Jooma and his partners who we use to facilitate the movement of staff through Uganda into South Sudan. From now on all our Project staff and consultants will come up from Entebbe or Nairobi, as it is easier to obtain entry permits and work visas from the South Sudanese consulates there.
Juba is the Capital of South Sudan and is a town of several Hundred Thousand on the banks of the White Nile. From there sprawls out wards into the surrounding bush with a network of dirt roads and lanes that are now for the best part creeks that turn too rivers and mud during the wet. There would be some seriously good four wheels driving in the city during this time.
A set of hills to the Northwest provides a huge amount of runoff into the city and gives the streets a good clean up.
The UN is proposing to erect a 20,000 man village /camp for there workers on the Northern slopes of the hills the fence topped with razor wire is up and the construction has started .I think the figures are that there are 70 NGO,s working in Sudan and all are in South Sudan. There are none in the north.
We meet with our attourneys down there and also had a look at some Container housing that we own and will shift to camp as soon as we can they will have to come up via the river to Adock and be placed on trucks as the road from Juba to Shajees is closed due to some tribal conflict. It is certainly an interesting part of the world perhaps the worst part was not been able to openly take photos as there were a few rallies on etc and only today we herd of some journo loosing there camera to the soldiers.
I am not as most of you know particularly prone to Indian Food but we went out for dinner and it was the best Indian food I have eaten . Chris from the Un ordered he is an English Indian from Leeds and I think this was the key the flavors were superb and fascinating blend of dishes. Here I also had the Local Tusker beer and would recommend it to anyone. South Sudan drinking is permitted unlike their Northern Neighbors.
We stayed at Bros Hotel and it is pronounced as written not the Kiwi way.
Quite interesting having a family living in a tent at your old fibro cement donga door mind u it was a good tent at least my aircon worked when the power was on I suspect some of the outages were due to the lack of diesel for the genset. Apparently the place rocks on Wednesday night for ladies night and it is a mystery where they all end up during the night.
Did not see a back packers accommodation and would guess it ma be a while in coming.
Next day off to Sharjees again we were held up at the airport this time by the President leaving so eventually we headed off I think it only took 1.5 hours on 748 airlines in perhaps the cleanest Dash8 I have been in but not the newest.
Airstrip at Sharjees just waits at the back of the plane.
Kobus the maintenance manager of the project was on hand to meet us .Kobus is Africans and has a property near Namibia and grows raisins and wine grapes, he has spent some time in Saudi,
Off to Concord base camp via the Capital of Unity State and Rhome Kona, which is on the other side of the river To Benito [Buntoo]
Picked up some stores and fuel headed to my home for a while. François {frank] was on hand to greet us he is our/ it /GIS./net work/ procurement/security man. His title is Special Projects manager. Frank gets all the jobs we don’t want and the pleasure of dealing with the soldiers .He being an x one him self I can see no better person for the job maybe I will call him lucky. The soldiers have the odd AK but have a pushie instead of a Humbie. They have not being paid for a while so they are happy we are feeding them and giving them a tent and shower
We have at the moment 12 staff and are expecting 11 more sometime today they will be late as they missed the plane from Entebbe for some reason. My guess is their handlers mucked up we have had to charter a plane to fly them up to Sharjess , which is 2 hrs South.
Have looked at the site and the soils are very special we will be able to grow things there is no doubt about that. Still waiting for our gear to arrive so just busy with building a Mess come kitchen out of wood grass and bamboo.
The surveyors are at work over at the site .It is a bit slow as they are still using the old chain measuring and line of site theodolite as the satellite stuff is on the way still and they are have to clear by hand and we only have one axe and saw so we are looking forward to the truck from Khartoum in the middle to the end of next week.
We are currently expecting to be a bit behind with our building and earth works Expecting arrival of our machinery next week so hopefully we can star to build some lay down areas for the rest of the gear and build ourselves a fuel farm etc . I expect to be in our present camp for the wet so we are preparing for this as well.
The main objective will be to get some crop in the ground and consolidate our position going into the wet. There is 100 days till the end of June when or about the rains start???
The weather is hot today and the boys from Zim are not used to it and we have no aircons or any thing the water is too hot to bath in and tools are also hot it does not seem to worry the locals until after lunch.
The most amazing thing at the moment apart from the Leopard track is how clean the people are their clothes are spotless as are them selves they live in grass huts surrounded by black dirt and dust yet their whites are whiter than white most put us to shame. No running water the odd burrow pit and some small amounts of water distributed by the oil company so when they leave ??
The fish we have being eating is superb, caught locally at Magna where the governor has his main farm/ cleared area.
The sheep purchase yesterday at the dam of a sheep from the Falata was quiet a surreal experience as it reminded me and felt so much like walking through the sheep at Credo selecting a killer all be it they were a different colour but the smell and behavior was the same .Considering the conditions they were in good nic and it was very tasty as we can only hang it for a night because of the weather. The Falata walk up from Nigeria and back every year following the grass some of the herds are several thousand and the ears are marked with different marks on top just done with a knife some have crosses others half a cross and lots o f other symbols.
I was interrupted by a visit from the Governor he dropped in for a chat and some tea he is a very affable man and committed to the development of his region and state. He has 10 Children of which 6 are in Melbourne studying has oldest daughter has just become a radiographer.
He was telling me that he was in the bush fighting the war since 1983 and the struggle was long and hard but worth it for the people.
His intrigue was about 20 soldiers with machine guns mounted on land cruisers and a couple of personal bodyguards.
I am off to look at a road building construction through a swamp so I guess I will need my civil engineers hat out on Tuesday so I am looking forward to that. It is quiet and experience to travel with an armed escort. This week is at an end hopefully by next week we can be working with our machines that will be on the
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