Hole in the Ground and Wireless Internet - The journey to Africa begins, again

It's been a while since I last wrote anything. I mean I did have to write tons of papers the last 2 years being in grad school and all but I didn't do much blog writing. But luckily for all you (total of five) people out there wanting to know what I'll be doing in the coming months and years, I'll be writing routinely so that hopefully ya'll can live in Rumbek, Sudan without actually living there or travel all over Eastern Africa vicariously through me.
Leaving Atlanta airport I was only hoping that I didn't leave anything important behind, (and I can't seem to find my swiss army knife, so yes I guess my fear wasn't unwarranted) the sometimes crazy but unbelievable rewarding life of living from room to room with your life in 2 bags and a carry on hadn't quite sunk in yet.
And why would it. Africa is supposed to be so exotic, how could there be any problem. Even I who has lived and worked in the vush and had faced the cumbersome seemingly insignificant day to day problems like lack of clean water, heat, mosquitoes, etc etc was all geared up to go there and help eradicate disease and suffering from South Sudan. Little did I know that those day to day things were going to come and bite me in the behind pretty soon.
From Atlanta I flew to Dubai. It was a 13 hours flight, I got a good 5 hour sleep. I stayed at the Dubai airport for 6 hours before I boarded the Kenyan Airlines flight to Nairobi. As soon as I entered the plane it hit me, Ah! that pungent smell of body odor. We think desi's have a problem, desi's got nothin on a native African when it comes to BO. Don't get me wrong I'm not one of those "omg I can't breathe here, I need to get out" kinda person but still it requires some getting used to. Even before the plane took off there had been 3 arguments in the near by seats over luggage and there was no hostess in sight to mediate anything. I don't blame them though, its not like anyone was listening to them anyway. But everything bad about the quality of the plane from the earphone jacks not working to the thing shaking like its wings would fall off at 30,000 feet was forgotten once lunch was served and I heard the hostess say "It is all halal". Ah!! music to my ears.
So a note to myself and everyone, if you want good service, a nice plane but bland food, travel North West, but if you are looking for some good African cooking fly Kenya Airways.
After landing in Nairobi, I got in line to go through customs and heard my name being announced on the PA system. Not again, I thought, not this early, the police interrogations (see this posting for details, Perks of having a Pakistani Passport) already? But no, it was just them telling me that my work permit for South Sudan was ready and I needed to pick it up before my flight to Juba.
In the waiting lounge to go to Juba I made a few friends from the UN Security team before we all got on what seemed like a 30 seater plane and landed in the Juba International Airport, Sudan an hour and a half later. From the airplane, Juba looked liked any other East African place; red surface, a few trees, roof tops made of aluminum sheets, very little paved roads and some slum like neighborhoods.
When I said international airport, please don't bring the thought of JFK or even some small airsptrip in some small town back in the US. It was more like a Flea Market in South Georgia. Our luggage was being tossed out of a tractor trailer and on to a very dusty pavement where we had to grab our belongings from and run them to a counter where airplane officials would inspect them by opening everyone's bags, so no belt, none of those fancy machines that go beep, just humans. On second thought, the machines were there, people just went around them.
After about two hours of waiting on the pavement outside the airport door my ride Mr Jacob finally arrived to come pick me up. Apparently there was confusion over what time I was going to come. Kinda fitting though, the new Operations Manager not picked up from the airport due to lack of operations management, made me feel that I was needed. :)
The compound here is pretty big, there is a big garage where the vehicles are fixed, small offices on one side and the dinning hall, bathrooms and living rooms on the other side.
This is a staging area for me as I am flying to Rumbek on Friday, on a UN plane (thats the only means of transport in and out of there as you can't go by road- i mean you can but its pretty impossible) where I will be stationed.
Oh, the most interesting observations of the day before I forget as it is getting really late,
I heard a worker of the compound - a native Sudanese, enjoy a "Chinese", yes a Chinese song blasting over the radio. I am interested to find out now how much chinese influence is prevalent in the region. There is wireless satellite internet all over the compound and solar panels power half its lights, but on the flip side there is no clean running water and one has to squat over a "hole in the ground" to take a dump (pretty common still in rural areas all over Africa). Yes people, "a hole in the ground" - see picture. Some of the extreme and bizarre discrepancies only to be found in Africa.
Signing off, will write more soon, I've taken Larium for Malaria tonight and its supposed to give vivid dreams and can cause hallucinations, lets see what happens tomorrow, God knows my dreams are almost real already.