I just saw a women get hit by a motor cycle. She should be ok, maybe a bit bruised. Lots of pain for a little while. I was surprised the guy on the bike didn’t wipe out. He was able to safely pull off to the side of the road. I would say the unfortunate thing for him is that the woman he hit was wearing a military uniform and she was with several colleagues. Military folks around here have very short tempers. And a small crowd was starting to form. Things probably got a little ugly for the driver of the motorcycle. I didn’t see that. I was in a mini-bus on my way somewhere else.

still stuck in juba. as time passes I lose more and more hope that I am ever going to be able to leave.

two months just disappeared.  sorry.

just lots of not so fun hanging over my head and I wasn’t feeling up to posting or taking the time to do anything here.

quick review:

- left a contract after working two months and not getting paid.  at the same time lost office location and most of my clients.  the business took a nose dive.

- wandered around juba for several weeks feeling awfully sorry for self and awfully broke.  wife went to Khartoum for a few weeks to become a big music star.

- spent some weeks wondering how I found myself living in a grass hut with no water and electricity without a job, no savings and more responsibility than I might have wanted in life.  decided to stop feeling sorry for self and remembered I was the one who chose to be where i am at.

- hyperventalated a few times cause we were broke and had lots of bills.

- wife finally came back from khartoum.  unfortunately she didn’t achieve the goal she was after.  both of us feeling slightly frustrated with Juba.

- found a few freelance jobs.  got some money to clear some bills.

- currently in a holding pattern, waiting for clients to pay some money and planning to get out of juba for a bit and at live poor in a nice house in kenya instead of a grass hut in juba.  At least for a while.

- might come back later

i probably should have posted this the other day. But i’ve been slow when it comes to the internet lately. sorry mom, will work on an email soon.

The region and tribe that my wife comes from was attacked by a rival tribe just a little over a week ago. Some really horrible news is coming out such as the fact that at least 750 people have died from the fighting.

Here is a report I found from someone who visited the area just a few days after it happened:

1. THE COVERED TRUTH

Report on the attack on Murle town of Lekwangole

Date 11/3/2009

Pibor, South Sudan

“On Sunday, 8 March 2009 at 4:00 PM Nuer Youth armed to the teeth with G3 rifles and automatic machine guns, attacked and captured the Murle town of Lekwangole 30 Miles north of Murle provincial town of Pibor

The attackers killed 213 people including Lekwangole town clerk Mr. Nur Gayin and left 120 wounded 39 men were captured and taken alive. 28 children and 11 women were
also abducted Government officials in Pibor counted the number of 9,773 displaced people which are being hosted in primary schools in Pibor town without food, shelter and medicine.

An estimated 2,000 head of cattle were taken. I visited Lekwangole on the 10th of March, two days after the attackers left the town with their looted possessions. I was horrified with what I saw in my own eyes. Bodies were laying everywhere in Lekwangole town. The whole town was brought to ashes. The only two NGOS in the area namely COOPI and MSF Belgium compounds were destroyed and looted of all the valuable
items including medicine in MSF Clinic. I even saw two decomposed bodies near COOPI Compound. I was warned by the natives not to go further into the bush where a lot of dead bodies were laying because the Lou Nuer fighters were still combing the bush. They kill whoever their eyes could see in the area.

I was able to bring some wounded to the clinic in Pibor town including a young woman who was shot from the back and the bullet came out just near her upper breast. Up to this moment, many women and children are still missing. The local authority that went and did a thorough assessment after me put the number of dead toll to 400 people. The fighting was still raging north of Lekwangole town when I left the place.

The capture of Lekwangole town by what is so called cattle rustlers is a new phenomenon in history of cattle raiding practices in South Sudan. I condemn this aggression. The cattle’s raiding was always done in cattle camps. But capturing the town like Lekwangole and destroying everything including hospital and NGOS properties, is not any longer cattle raiding. It is an aggression against development in the South Sudan.

Lekwangole was captured and held for two days. What baffled me most was that the SPLA army in the town was just looking on. They did not intervene to stop the aggression from the Nuer Youth.

It is now almost two weeks since the fighting began and nothing is done to contain the situation. As I report this incident, the fighting is still burning in Manylangirach village North of Lekwangole town. If the international reporters could be dispatched to the area, they could confirm what I am reporting about I am calling upon the Government of South Sudan to intervene and stop this fighting. Already 213 people have died and many more are still missing in the bush

It is unbelievable to see people are killed 4 years after CPA was
sign. Southerners should not die again after the Comprehensive Peace Agreement. This lawless act on Lekwangole may drag the Government of South Sudan to the state of inability to solve its own domestic problems

The government inability to halt the aggression, made people to think the Nuer Youth is acting with full knowledge of the Government of Jonglei State and GOSS. It is the government who disarmed Murle population and it is now the same Government who could not protect the people they have disarmed for the purpose of peace and harmony in the region.

I call upon the UN and the entire humanitarian organizations to
intervene and stop fighting in Lekwangole and to bring food and
blankets to these 9,773 internally displaced civilians from Lekwangole
Payam

I also call upon Murle leaders and youth to refrain from any retaliatory act or revenge. Let the law take its cause. The cycle of violence will not lead us anywhere. God is against the killing of human beings by his own fellow human. Let us together make South Sudan a better place to live in

Continue praying to God for Sudan such that lawless killings as such will not occur again”

For the record the fighting seems to have stopped. It looks like a few folks and agencies are trying to get in and give some support to folks on ground.

fortunately juba seems calm and relaxed today.  at least for the time being.

I’ve been following news reports by a guy named Rob Crilly who is currently reporting out of Darfur.  It doesn’t sound so quiet there and looks like it could get a lot worse before it gets any better.  He is also twittering here if anyone is interested to follow.

The reason for all this turmoil, at least for today,  is that the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Omar Al Bashir yesterday.  This particular man is the President of the whole of Sudan.  Needless to say, he is not very happy with the whole thing.  Go read here what the warrant of arrest is all about.  Click on this link for a google news round up on all the current news and information coming out or also check out the Sudan Watch for more information.

Mr. Crilly has written a very nice article commenting on the advocacy outside of Sudan that pushed for this indictment to happen.  I have to say that I rather agree with the points that he has made.

If anyone is interested in what other Sudanese are saying a great place to start is here - www.thesudanesethinker.com.

What it has meant for us in Juba these last few days is just a whole lot of anxiety.  There was fear that soldiers aligned with the government in Khartoum and soldiers aligned to the government of Southern Sudan might end up going at each others throats.  They are supposed to be friends and working together at the moment, but little things come up every now and then and they start a fight.  This arrest warrant is a rather big issue for the Sudanese and could have very well managed to spark things.  Fortunately, up till now nothing has happened.  Hopefully isn’t a smoldering match.

Because of our concern for a fight, we decided to temporarily relocate to one of the hotels for the past two nights.  Currently we live right next door to the barracks for the Joint Integrated Units (JIU).  These guys are made up of Northern and Southern soldiers and are the ones I mentioned in the above paragraph.  If a fight had started, we were fearing it would start there.  Not necessarily the best place to be if things had gotten a little hectic.

We are going back home tonight.  We got tired of an uncomfortable bed, overpriced food (but good) and shortage of a change of clothes.  I am hoping that sooner or later we will be able to find a better place to stay that won’t be so close to an ignition point and hopefully won’t have to worry so much about these sort of incidents.

I should start collecting these calendars. I saw this one in a local clinic near my house this morning. I love it.

I got to my office a bit late yesterday morning.  I am very happy that I didn’t run a place in the center of the Juba Town market. It was bulldozed down by the government.

Apparently the government is referring to these shops and their owners as squatters.  They say they have taken over the land illegally and are not supposed to be there.  Seems strange that they have let them sit there for the past 4 or 5 years and are only now getting around to clearing them out.

So in the course of just a few days the government has managed to put thousands of people out of jobs and probably left thousands more homeless.   I’m sure now we get to see an increase in crime and other problems of the sort.  Maybe a few riots or protests.  Who knows.

The picture below is from the dashboard of a Bus I took to get home in the evening.  I like the bears.

child's toy

This is a picture of one of my nephews holding a toy he had created that day.  It looked liked it would provide hours of fun if it didn’t fall apart.  All it is is a stick, plastic bottle, plastic lid and piece of twine.  He put a very small hole in the side of the bottle and tied the twine to it.  He then wrapped the twine around the stick, pulls the string and has a spinning lid.  Its like a yo-yo in that the twine wraps itself around the stick and you pull it again to reverse direction and keep the topping spinning.

I tried it out and lost the string on the second pull.  He then added a small stick to the end of the string to keep it from getting pulled back inside as it was spinning.  Loads of fun and pretty smart kid.

The family also killed a goat that day.  I’m not sure if Abarizaa is going to remember it or not, but it will be the first time he has seen a live animal killed.  He came running to me and his mother very excited and what looked to be a little bit disturbed.  “Goat, goat, beat you!”  he said while pointing in the direction of the animal.  He followed this up by making slashing gestures to his throat with his hands and fingers. “Goat, sleep”. He then ran back to inspect the goat again.  After they finished cleaning and skinning it, they cooked it.  Goat meat is very tasty.

Since coming to Juba both of the boys are getting sick at least once a week.  This is very frustrating. They have had constant bouts of diareaha and other funny things.  This week it seems Abarizaa has a bit of Typhoid.  The doctors said it was only a little bit and that he will be fine.  But he hasn’t been happy for the past three or four days.  I don’t like being in this place with sick little children.  I can’t take care of them properly.

So my wife made it back in one piece.  She was still a little bit shaken up over her whole experience in Malakal.  She said the police unloaded a large amount of tear gas to disperse the chaotic crowd and she swallowed some and got a bunch of it in her eyes.  She also feinted and had to be carried out of the place.

The reports coming out of Malakal at the moment are a little bit conflicting.  People have died in the last few days due to an increased amount of fighting in the area since the incident at the CPA celebration.  The conflicting bit is the number of people that have died.  Sudan Radio service has a report putting the number at just over seventy, while a reuters report indicats only nine have died so far.  Regardless, either  a few or a alot, the whole situation is extrememly tragic.  Shiluk and Dinka are attacking each other, burning out houses, killing and doing all sorts of other things.

There doesn’t seem to be much information going around Juba.  This actually might be a good thing.  When folks here about something that is happening far away, they often imitate or feel the urge to retaliate from this end.  I don’t know if there are so many Shiluk in these parts.  There are alot of Dinkas .  Hopefully they won’t feel the urge to start punching each other around in this town.