I came to Juba Sudan with high hopes that this was a community that was developed enough that I could find vendors that would be potential suppliers for some of the materials I will be needing to make the project at Apuk Padoc a reality. In two days of searching in various parts of the town I found only small shops that carried a few things, but none that was on the scale I would need for the project. Furthermore, none of the dozen or so shops that I visited had piping materials of a quality I would need. There was cement, planks, gravel, rebar, corrugated roofing material, water tanks and other small items like nails and screws, but each vendor had only a few of these things, and all of the pipe I saw was inferior, thin-wall—the stuff we came to know in Mozambique as “Chinese made,” not good for anything but vents for latrines.
All the material I found here was very expensive, as well. Cement was about $13 a bag, corrugated roofing for 28 gage (thicker than normal) was about $10 a sheet and so forth. After several hours yesterday and two more hours today of this fruitful investigation. I ruled out Juba as a potential place for supply of the things I need. As for cement, gravel, rebar and roofing materials, I am sure it will be in Wau, a place much closer than Juba for shipment to Apuk.
So the conclusion so far is that when it comes to piping materials (both PVC and Steel) I think we will be relying on the vendor/manufacturer I found in Kampala Uganda for all our needs along those lines.
Now a little about Juba itself. It have been interesting if not fascinating in some ways to be here the three days I have had to stay to make the connection on to Wau by Airline Travel. Things are so blasted expensive, I have been truly amazed. Gas, for instance; gas is equivalent to $5.00 a gallon her (I bought some gas for the fellow who hauled us around today for a couple of hours). I’m paying $100 a night for a hotel room that would sell in U.S. for no more than$15 a night. It’s clean, but that is all I can say about it. Everything else I have experience as well, even the traditional restaurants are very expensive. I bought meals for three of us today at a very un-exclusive café in a dirty market area and paid $4.00 a plate for the food. There was plenty, and it was okay, but not fancy.
The city itself (see the photos I am downloading to this link) seems to be completely under construction. Starting at the airport, all the roads in the city, many new building coming along, everywhere I looked people were busy and new businesses are springing up everywhere. Only about 1% of the city currently has paved roads, while most are under construction. Those that aren’t are rough, pot-holed 5mph style roads that make the driver swerve back and forth from one side of the road to the other as he drives along. Dust is everywhere, but like other places I have seen that are similar (Mozambique for example), no one seems to care and life goes along. Almost every inch of the city that is not under construction with new buildings or other structures, is taken up by shacks of all kinds. They are also crowded into areas so there are just narrow walkways between them. Me and Daniel were walking through one of these areas last night, zig-zagging between the houses where yards wee just a dirt space in which children played, goats were tied up, and people had their clothes hanging up on lines between the shacks. Some were square with tin roofs and others were the more traditional circular huts with thatch roofs. Here like many of the villages where I have traveled and worked in the past, people are barely surviving and it is obvious there is little hope for them.
I wonder if a program like I am starting in Apuk Padoc in the North possible here? I suppose it would be, but the enormity of it would be so challenging, it would take entities like the U.N to make the difference, as billions of dollars would be needed over a long period of time.
The people I have met, however, seem happy and though they are just surviving they seem to feel there it hope for them—especially these young men that I have met who are here finding work and attempting to raise themselves up above the normal with education. One thing I have found that is disturbing in some way to me, is the investment so many of the people have in their cell phones. One can hardly look in any direction without seeing someone with a cell phone at their ear. Even here in the hotel where I am staying, one of the boys from Apuk who has been hosting me this week seems to have his cell phone at his ear or in front of him while he texts constantly. He was here for a couple of hours last night charging two phones and four batteries for them, while he sat the entire time then and again this morning constantly holding his phone. During our two-hour travel-about the city today, I am sure between the driver (also a boy from the area near Apuk) and my host, they must have gotten two dozen calls between them. I just wonder what affect this will have on their lives in the future.
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