Getting around in Juba

I held on tight as the motorbike bounced along the dirt road, it was clear the driver didn’t know where he was going. My destination wasn’t on any of the bus routes so I was taking Juba’s other form of transport, the boda-boda. Supposedly boda-bodas originate from the Kenya-Uganda border where they carried passengers across shouting “border, border”. These originals were bicycles made to carry a passenger on the back, a motorised version quickly appeared and it’s these that have become Juba’s own form of taxi service.

After a couple of stops for the driver to ask for directions I reached the Tong Ping Business Centre and saw the sign I was looking for. The trip cost me ten Sudanese pounds ($3) – I should have agreed a price before hand, I did this on the way back and only paid seven. My final destination was another couple of hundred yards away, but I was relieved to have found the place at all.

I walked up to the gate and knocked. Every compound has security guards and a gate, often locked even during the day. I was let in by the uniformed guard and asked to sign a guest book. Security is an important industry here. There are large advertisements for security providers displayed prominently in busy places, although they don’t quite match the aggressive advertising of the cell phone companies. Some hotels promote themselves by naming the professional security company they use. For veterans it can provide a good employment opportunity, but it isn’t without its risks. The other day we heard that the local school was broken into, the security guard was struck in the head – he was lucky to have survived the attack. After my short meeting another guard helped me find a boda-boda to take me home.

The return trip took a route along main roads. It was less bumpy but navigating the fast moving traffic of the paved streets made the journey just as much of an experience. Traffic here can be hazardous. I’ve yet to see an accident, but I would be surprised if they aren’t quite common. Crossing the street is enough of a danger. There are no street lights or designated crossings that I’m aware of. Along the paved roads is an almost constant stream of traffic. Most cars are large vehicles, four by fours that are able to get around Juba’s predominantly dirt roads. There are a number of smaller cars, but after a heavy rain these are often limited in where they can go. Motorbikes abound. There are dozens of them and they weave in and out of traffic. I hardly notice the constant honking anymore.

And then of course there are the buses. These white minivans pack in a dozen passengers or more and on any main street you’d hardly have to wait a minute to see one. Finding one that isn’t full and is going where you want might take a little longer, but I’ve never had a long wait. At one pound a trip the bus is a lot cheaper than the boda-boda or a private car (the only car hire price I’ve seen was $100 a day with driver).

Getting around in Juba isn’t always easy for a visitor, but the transport systems exist. It’s all a matter of knowing how to use them.

38 years of conflict

The Sudan gained independence from Britain in 1956. It spent 38 of the next 50 years embroiled in civil war. The history of conflict in the Sudan is complicated and descriptions have often simplified or distorted the reality of the situation. However, the simplest description of the conflict requires only one word: tragic.

How many have been killed between 1956 and 2011 may never be known. Estimates for the First and Second Sudanese Civil Wars (1955-1972 and 1983-2005 respectively) are over two million when war-related famine and disease are included. This is some of the worst loss of life from conflict since the Second World War. But the full devastation is not told by simple casualties. In addition to those killed, millions have been displaced, forced from their homes and land, their lives shattered. And there is also the unquantifiable tragedy of the wasted potential of a fertile land and the complete prevention of any kind of economic or social development in so many places. There is no-one in South Sudan who hasn’t been affected by the conflict.

One man I spoke to had fought in the first Civil War. He spoke of his village being bombed. A younger man tells me he left his home and grew up in a refugee camp in Kenya – his brother was killed in the war. Others talk of fathers and relatives who fought.

One night I am told of a man who was arrested and killed after receiving a letter from his brother in Uganda. His brother wrote asking how he was coping, having heard of the famine conditions in Sudan at the time. The content of the letter was deemed as evidence that too much information had been communicated outside the country.

Another story was told of a woman lining up for food with her infant child on her back. She waited in the crowd being pushed and shoved for hours until she finally got some food. When she reached for the child she found it was dead, crushed by the desperation of the crowd trying to get food.

The suffering inflicted on the Sudanese people from famine and displacement was exacerbated by an antagonistic government that repeatedly prevented international assistance from reaching those in need. In 2009 the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir, the first time a sitting head of state had been indicted by the court. In 2010 a second warrant was issued including charges of genocide.

I sat around one night with a group of young men born at the beginning of the 1980s. For them they had known conflict almost their entire lives. “In Europe when young people sit around they talk of other things, but here we talk about politics” said one of them to me. For us, so often, the events of the news are dramatic but far away and politics is an academic diversion more than a pressing reality. For these men politics and conflict had directly informed their whole lives; to be a passive spectator wasn’t an option. Yet they were not fatalistic, they spoke hopefully and proudly of their country and its future and seemed to have a clear sense that they had a role to play.

Everyone here has been touched by the conflict on some personal level. Even as South Sudan prepares for Independence fighting has reignited in the border areas and the future of Darfur seems uncertain. For some in Juba the peace feels like a precarious one. And for some in other parts of the country there is no peace at all.

Madness at the market

“Maybe he is possessed by a devil!” said Emmanuel. I was sitting at the back of a bus with him and Hanan, while outside, a fierce young man was insisting he wouldn’t let it move until I got off. The people at Custom Market reacted to the drama just like any other crowd: women chattered urgently in Arabic, motioning that he must be crazy, and men stepped in dutifully to bring the situation under control.

Custom Market is not by nature a peaceful place, consisting of dozens of small stalls and pedlars loudly pushing fruit, beans, jewellery and other goods alongside a great crowd of ‘buses’. But it is a place of trade and lively fraternising – of human co-operation, not conflict.

We were there to switch to buses on our way to a group meeting. The place appears to be the city’s bus station. There were scores of vehicles, maybe as many as one hundred, covering a wide area. How it is possible to locate the correct one, I have no idea. The buses in Juba are almost universally small white minivans which pack in about a dozen passengers and drop and pick up flexibly along their route. The conductor leans out the window shouting where the bus is going, and this seems to be the only way of identifying which bus to catch. If you want to stop somewhere you click (which the conductor also does to collect money). I haven’t even attempted to use the buses alone yet.

As we were standing for a moment in the market I felt my water bottle yanked from my hand. I looked around to see a severe looking man who seemed to be around my age. He was wearing a red t-shirt and smoking a cigarette. I had hardly had time to react before he poured the contents of the bottle over my head.

Instantly there was a commotion as Emmanuel cried out. Those nearby stepped in to intervene asking what was going on. Hanan and Emmanuel insisted I had done nothing. I asked what was going on and Emmanuel said the man had mental issues. There were enough people to easily guard me, but as Hanan led me away the red shirted youth watched and followed, gesturing aggressively. I wasn’t able to walk away, but it was the middle of the day and the market was full of people who blocked him from getting to me. “Here, come” said Hanan, leading me by the hand into the crowd of buses. We climbed into one and moved quickly to the back seat.

I thought maybe we’d lost him, but then we saw him peer into the bus. He walked up to the back of the bus and swung a punch at my head. I was at the full extent of his reach and Hanan shielded me with her hand, so the blow landed only lightly on my forehead. Once again a commotion broke out and he retreated from the bus. There was a mix of concern, shock and gossip in the voices chattering hurriedly in Arabic. Clearly the locals were just as taken aback as I had been.

I am told there are no facilities to deal with the mentally ill in Juba. Several times one of my hosts has explained the behaviour of someone on the street as being the result of a mental disorder or drunkenness. On my first visit to the bank a drunken soldier interrupted usual business demanding that he had money he was unable to withdraw. When the bank told him his account was empty and he had withdrawn his last month’s pay Reverend Moses handed him a few pounds and told him to use it for transport to go and take it up with his commanding officer.

Even in Chicago or London the sight of a destitute man muttering to himself is not unusual, and for all the conflict, pollutants and poverty that the residents of Juba have been subjected to it is perhaps surprising that the mentally ill are not more prevalent. However, the lack of government capability to care for those who are disturbed or abusing substances, and the uncertainty of policing, makes their presence, like the stray dogs that roam the city, somewhat disconcerting.

The problems are real, but the spirit and unity of the great majority of the people often overcomes them - despite the demands of one madman the bus was leaving and there nothing he could do except laugh as the crowd took him away.

The bare necessities

I stared up hopelessly at the shower head trying to will the water to come out, but there was none. After a long hot day there is nothing better than getting home and cooling off in the shower, but on this occasion I was going to have to wait.

It was a few hours later after supper that I saw a small vehicle with a large tank. These water trucks provide water around the city and I have seen a few since I have been here, just today I saw a similar one for sewage. The provision of water in this way not only has the problem of water outages, but also raises the cost of water supply. The cost of supplying water to the periphery areas of the city may be greater still, which is of special concern as this is where the poorest and most vulnerable tend to be settled.

In a similar way electricity here is produced by diesel generators which can be expensive to maintain and run, especially with the high cost of fuel. I have frequently found myself groping around for my torch when the power has gone out or struggling to sleep because there is no power for the fan.

People, who have travelled to parts of the developing world, or the younger industrial countries, may be used to cheaper prices than are found in Europe or North America. In Juba, however, the cost of living can often be quite expensive. The lack of a developed domestic economy is one of the reasons for this. Without the infrastructure of a proper power grid or water supply these basic utilities become much more difficult to acquire. But in addition food, fuel, construction materials and capital goods are for the most part all imported from Uganda or other bordering countries (the roads to Uganda are the best so most goods come this way).

Not everything is expensive. Bottled water can be bought for the equivalent of 20 pence (30 cents) and a basic meal can be bought fairly cheaply. But at one restaurant we visited the food prices were similar to those in the United States or England. Accommodation is also costly. While I am looking for somewhere cheaper than my current room ($75 a night), this is already a low price for somewhere that provides security, water and a fan. Most hotels are $100 a night or more.

There is, therefore, some urgency for South Sudan to be able to build up its domestic industry and agriculture base in order to supply basic goods. Until this happens a decent standard of living will be out of reach for a large part of the population. On a recent trip into town I saw a number of shops selling electronic goods – cameras, stereos and computer equipment. Some of these shops seemed well kept and had new, attractive, furnishings. With peace and independence many of the comforts and luxuries of modern living have penetrated into Juba. But these are costly imports, available only to the small new elite of businessmen and foreigners. For the majority of the population there is hardship enough in just obtaining water, food and power.

Juba - a city under construction

As I came in to land at Juba airport I could see mud huts, not more than a hundred yards from the runway. I am told that the new international terminal at Juba airport will be complete in a year. The construction work is unavoidable (literally) as we walk through an area of building work to get to the car on my most recent visit to the airport to get my visa signed and pick up a group from South Africa.

What the new terminal will be like I don’t know – but I imagine it will be something quite modern, in contrast with the existing arrivals area. This is nothing but a large room. Soldiers are very evident around the place (some with assault rifles), but there are no real barriers and there is no division between immigration and baggage collection. The latter is, in fact, just the area immediately in front of one of the windows where luggage is passed in from a tractor and trailer that brings it from the plane. The ensuing scrabbling to claim bags makes me think much more fondly of the orderly lines at Heathrow. The departures room next door is not much different. It is larger and with a security check at the door where bags are put through an x-ray machine – but this is significantly less rigorous than, for example, the security check to go up the Sears Tower, let alone the security that I am used to at O’Hare or Heathrow.

In many ways the Airport represents the city in microcosm. While conditions are very basic the evidence of construction is all around. At the ECS (Episcopal Church of Sudan) office that I have been going to each day we are in amongst the work; mud, sand and materials are scattered all over the compound, and a large pile of dirt sits just a few meters from the door. Across the road a multi-storey building is being erected. I am told that the workers on that building are Sudanese, but the ones working in our compound are Ethiopian. The construction trade seems to be healthy in Juba, and despite a huge growth in population over the last 6 years there seems to be jobs enough to attract outsiders.

In 2005 the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) was signed, ending the Second Sudanese Civil War – one of Africa’s longest running conflicts at 22 years. From speaking with local people it is clear the impact that peace has brought to the growth of Juba. I am told that in 2005 if you stood by the main road in Juba you would go three hours without seeing a car. By 2006, when some of the main roads began to be paved, there would be vehicles as frequent as every half hour. Now in 2011 I sometimes struggle to find a gap in the traffic in order to cross the street. Population growth has seen a similar remarkable boom since 2005. Estimates of the population in 2005 and 2006 are around 250,000. Now I am told that there are probably a million or more inhabitants of the city. This represents an annual growth of the city population by 30% or more. In comparison, Raleigh, North Carolina, one of America’s fastest growing large cities, had an annual growth rate of a little under 4% per annum between the 2000 and 2010 census (growing from 276,000 to 404,000).

As may be the case for much of Africa the main investors in South Sudan are Asians: Indians, Chinese, Malaysians, Japanese and others. I hear from one person that when someone goes out and spends ten pounds in Juba, two pounds will probably go to the Tata Group (the largest private corporate group in India). Many of these investors, however, are more interested in the oil fields that are far to the north of Juba.

My role here in facilitating investment from the UK in agriculture is somewhat different from many other international arrivals. With a large market for food in Juba and fertile land nearby there is certainly a need for agricultural development. At present a great deal of Juba’s food, as well as other goods, are imported from neighbouring countries. This is a consequence of the brutal civil war that has taken two million lives, stalled development and displaced a majority of South Sudan’s population, often repeatedly. Recently there has been renewed conflict over the disputed region of Abyei and claims of ethnic cleansing in the South Kordofan (north of the South Sudan border, but with many people culturally connected to the south). However, if independence can bring a lasting peace to South Sudan, there seems the promise of great things for Juba.

On the plane ride from Heathrow I was impressed by the quality of Kenya Airways, which lives up to its slogan – “The pride of Africa”. On the short trip from Nairobi to Juba I read a magazine on board that has advertisements for new villas being developed along Kenya’s coastline. They look modern and comfortable. Kenya (and in particular Nairobi) is seen as the region’s financial, communications and transport hub and is the largest economy in East and Central Africa. Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Kenya every year bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars. Although growth has been mediocre, there has been average growth since 2000 of 3-4% and the country may now be on the cusp of greater expansion of 5-6% over the next few years.

I have great hope that with stability and self determination the people of South Sudan will be able to attract the same kind of investment, tourism and development that Kenya has and maybe even surpass it in rates of economic growth. Perhaps in a few years I will come to visit a Juba that looks quite different from the one I am in today.