Mud, sweat and mud

We made it! Our plane was tiny (can you see me pretending not to know Natalie was taking my picture?). But the flight was almost 2 hrs and surprisingly smooth. I slept for half of it. I am getting a lot of much needed rest whenever I can. Am feeling much better today - almost 100%. Thank goodness - the morning travel would have been a disaster otherwise.

It generally goes like this - arrive at the airport to check in. Bring all your baggage behind the counter to be weighed and checked by security. There are no xray or other sophisticated machines. This is a purely labor driven process. Particularly the whole check you in thing - everything is written by hand and your boarding pass is a laminated piece of paper the size of a book mark. Then you sit and wait. Or stand and wait as the case may be. Then you go through a line - one for men, one for women. Your carry-on bag is checked and then you go behind a curtain for a patdown. Hence the separate lines - women get checked by a woman. The whole thing would never pass muster anywhere else.

In fact, we get on the plane, where the pilot is pilot, baggage loader, unloader and head steward. Once we are all seated he boards the plane, walks to front and says, "no smoking and no shooting the pilots - have a good flight!". Haha - well, let's just say this is an adventure and leave it at that. And now for the good stuff...

Welcome to Malakal in Upper Nile State

Checking out the company boat used to deliver radios and work with villages that are along the Nile and Sobat rivers. These villages are virtually inaccessible via the rainy season - except by boat. We have agriculture projects, radio distribution and infrastructure projects in the area.

Did I mention Malakal was muddy? This is in the center of town - and it is like this on EVERY road. Bikes, motorbikes, tuktuks, cars, animals and humans all share the same narrow road way. You will notice some of my later photos have very clear mud spatters because of all the mud on the vehicle.

I was outfitted with a pair of beautiful (and matching!) rubber boots. This is a fashion must in Malakal. This is the before shot when they were nice and clean. Stay tuned for muddy rubber boots! Say that three times fast.

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