An alien in South Sudan!

Wow what a couple of weeks…..... so I am now officially an alien of south sudan, I bet sting didn’t sing about that!!

After our little detour via Nairobi we land at juba airport a day later than planned, the smallest airport of  a capital city I have ever been too. The one small room for all arrivals displays the usual melee of queues and confusion for immigration and then if you are lucky your bags are dumped in the middle of the room. Sadly our bags did not arrive, as with most of the flight, however we only have to wait one day for our bags to arrive and thanks to a little forward thinking by packing a change of clothes, mini toiletries and the kindness of  another volunteer for my first few days in south sudan I wasn’t too smelly!!

So I spent one week in the “Jubble”  for in country training, I got to spend time with the other lovely volunteers, and meet the staff I have been emailing for weeks. We were registered with the government and passports stamped as aliens in south sudan, i quite like that title!The training was as expected, dos and donts of volunteering, paperwork completion, security briefings and advice for travelling round the newest country in the world plus we had the bonus of wifi in the building so managed to get a skype call out to the uk, whoo hoo novelty. Each morning and evening consisted of the people who run the guest house becoming guineapigs for my minimal Juba Arabic, I reckon I must be improving because by the end of my week the manager no longer laughed as me when I said good morning!

Thanks to two wonderful fellow graduates of the Diploma of Tropical Nursing I was treated to a fabulous evening of good company, good food, free flowing G&T’s and few other essential treats… Thank you Ali and Andrew, you are legends, looking forward to seeing you in Yei!!

Last Saturday, after a strangely emotional farewell with the other volunteers , I set off for a 6 hour, African back massage, road trip to Yei, cheesy music blaring and beautiful countryside made for a fab journey. I was  truly and warmly welcomed into the Yei  expat life, when I was shown to my accommodation and handed a G&T within minutes of arrival.  This has been reflective of how my first week in Yei has been, a fab group of  ex pats working for various organizations, who meet regularly to run, play volleyball and rugby, go to the market together and share dinner, even a movie and a beer together. Its like a little family, everyone looks out for each other.

I have a fabulous 20min walk down an undulating dirt road to the hospital from my guesthouse accommodation.  In the dry, the road is solid as a asphalt, however when it rains, which it does most days, the road turns muddy and full of mini streams (imagine commuting through a festival), however the call of Kawadja ( white person) from all the smiling children and curious adults makes it a much more engaging commute than a London train! At the guesthouse I am lucky to have my own room, with own bathroom, ok so the sink doesn’t work, the toilet leaks and sometimes there is no water however the mosquito net has no holes and for the next month this room is home and I love it… and thanks to my trusty trangia meths burner, I am able to rustle up a variety of wonderful rice and bean dishes including Yei’s plethora (relative for Africa) variety of fruit and vegetables.

My first week working at Yei Civil Hospital has been surprisingly productive and I am really excited about the 2 years ahead. I have meet with the senior members of the hospital, the training institute, county health department and visited each of the 8 wards and outpatient clinics. The hospital is trying so hard to do the best it can with the limited resources at their disposal, however issues with intermittent running water, insufficient medication supplies and equipment, infrequent staff salary delivery, limited staffing numbers and level of education and experience mean that I know I will be pushed harder here than anywhere I have worked before….. and I CAN NOT WAIT!!! I don’t want to bore the non-medics with endless tales of hospital life, so for anyone who wants more medical related info please let me know.

For now I’ll sign off and just say don’t be strangers, I can access emails most days however texts and wifi based things are a challenge, well at the moment impossible, however hopefully this will change when I, fingers crossed, move into a NGO compound in a month.

Nursing with my backpack to be continued…….