First Impressions

Well, we went to visit Juba. Here are a few of our observations from our initial impressions of the place we expect to be calling "home" from early in 2014: these are the ones I am happy to share on a blog! We saw some good things and we saw some challenging things for us to face next year. Let's start with the good things...

The MAF Team
I believe from experience that people make a place, so if there are friends, a place is easier to live in. With this in mind, it was good to meet the people that make up part of the MAF South Sudan team and we really enjoyed starting to get to know them! Here are some of them: in the office, then in Operations and in the third picture, at Tea Break:

Our lovely new house on the MAF compound:

The Playground + Pool on the compound, where our children loved to play:

The River Nile- just a 15 minute walk from our new home!

Supermarkets galore, shiny and well stocked! 
That will be a treat after Dodoma's small shops!

Now for some of the challenges...

Juba is HOT and humid!! 
The amazing heat is going to take some getting used to. It makes Dodoma's hot season seem positively chilly!! When we first got off the plane in Juba to walk down the stairway and onto the airport tarmac, I felt as if I'd entered my oven on bread-making day. I am sure that, if you dropped an egg, it would fry right there on the ground! My children were quite impressed by the heat and it figured heavily in the information books they each made on our Juba visit... (Sorry, you'll have to turn your head sideways for these pics- I couldn't get them the right way round!!)

The Education Question
We now have to work out what we are going to do about the children's education... will we go for the home-schooling option in this air-conditioned classroom, situated inside an old container on the compound....

...or will we opt to send them to the school in town, which is named in honour of the late Dr. John Garang?

 At the moment, it looks like the blue container may become the place our kids call School. Then the challenge will be...how will they meet friends and peers...?? There seemed to be very few kids in evidence. We were told that families often opt to send their kids to Uganda or Kenya for education. Social opportunites for Esther and Ben in particular will be far reduced from anything they have known to this point. At the moment, this is my biggest worry and the thing that wakes me in the night with anxious thoughts.

Driving on the RIGHT!!!!
Just as I get used to bumping about in a 4x4 in Tanzania, where we drive on the left, I now have to make a complete mental adjustment and start to think about driving on the right!!

Safety
We are well aware that we are going to a place where there have been difficulties in the past, although it was wonderful to see the rapid development and optimism of a country pleased to be at peace since it gained independence in 2011. However, the highly visible presence of UN vehicles, personnel and planes made me extra aware of security issues. The fact that our MAF compound has a strict curfew of 10:30pm also brings this home.

The cost of living
I could not believe the prices in shops!! We may have access to all sorts of wonderful shops with glittering goods on well-stocked shelves, but when we realised how highly they are priced, we also realised that many of these goods will still feel inaccessible. In Dodoma, this is because they are not available. In Juba, it will be because they are so expensive..
For example, in UK sterling:
a tin of baked beans = £5.50.
a box of 100 tea-bags = £5.
a 250g packet of butter = £4.50
I bought 5 oranges and paid £6!!
I am going to have to learn to shop carefully and stock up out-of-country where possible...

Well, that's all for now. There is still ALOT to learn, but these are some of my first impressions...