Interfaith Dialogue

I know, I know. I haven’t finished posting all my Juba stories, nor have I told you of my awesome summer holidays and I am already jetting off to my next adventure.

More on that at a later date.

But for now, surprise, a piece on the jetting off section.

I took Qatar Airways for the first time yesterday and today. It really is as great as its advertised to be – good food, super friendly staff. On the not so great side, they only allow one piece of free luggage (not sufficient when packing your life into suitcases) and Doha airport can really only be categorized as an overcrowded cattle market (but let’s face it, I’ve been through worse…)

Either way, going off topic, as what I actually wanted to write about was another feat that I really loved about Qatar Airways. That is the fact that you can fly on a plane and at all times call up a map pointing you to Mecca AND at the same time have a pilot called Jesus.

Now if that isn’t interfaith dialogue.

On Jackets

What’s the one item of clothing that you really, really do not need in South Sudan in the middle of June?

Yes, that’s right. A red furry Santa Clause jacket.

A particularly persistent street vendor in Morobo thought otherwise and felt that the one thing missing in my wardrobe was indeed such a jacket. Why, I am not particularly sure.

So after trying to convince him that I really did not need it, especially at the fairly hefty price of 25 USD, my colleague decided a change of tactic was needed. He suggested that he would take a picture of it so that I could consider it for the rest of the day and in case I changed my mind, we would come back and find him.

He happily concurred with this compromise solution – and even modeled it for us.

 

Undervalued

Not all my marriage proposals have been denominated in cows, however. The time where I went to stay on the South Sudan/Uganda/DRC border (where these gems of hotel rules and regulations can be found), is one of those times.

Before dinner, I decided to take a stroll with my colleagues through Kaya town. One of my colleagues spotted a jacket that he liked and proceeded to ask the Ugandan tradesman about its price. They were having a conversation in Luganda whilst I held back and admired the rest of his clothing collection i his stall.

Suddenly my colleague turned to English and said;

No I will not trade her for a 60 SSP jacket

Apparently during the haggling process, the trader tried to slip to my colleague that he would very well accept me as a payment for the jacket, instead of the 20 USD he was requesting. He felt that if keeping to a language I could not understand, he would be able to persuade my colleague that this was indeed a worthwhile deal.

Thankfully my colleague did not think this was the case.

I personally was slightly taken aback as lets be honest, to be equated to a 20 USD jacket is not exactly flattering.

So me being me, I decided to give him a piece of my own mind and inform him that there was in fact a man in Lanyia willing to part with 344 cows for me and who did he think he was thinking he could trade me in for a jacket.

Retrospectively, I’m not sure whether this mini outburst made my value go up or down in his mind. Judging by the look on his face, however, I think he definitely felt he had dodged a bullet.

Conversations Amongst Copulating Cows

Perhaps an inevitable post, but yes this one is about cows. More specifically about dowry prices, which I find a fascinating topic, particularly from an economics perspective.

Recently the project I was working on in South Sudan acquired a new driver who is Dinka, a tribe in South Sudan who value cows very highly.

On his first day on the job when he was driving me home, we were stopped in traffic by what else, but cows crossing. And yes, as the title hints, some decided that rush hour in Juba was indeed the perfect time to stop and copulate in the middle of the road. I on the other hand felt that this was neither appropriate nor traffic friendly. But funnily enough they did not seem to care either what I or the other hooting drivers thought.

My driver’s reaction to all of this was “those are not good cows.” So I decided to ask him what did constitute a good cow. He went on to explain the differences in weights, heights, horn lengths etc… Yes, there are differences in cows I could never even imagine. He went on to inform me that the government of South Sudan had to actually cap bride prices at 30* cows between Dinka and non-Dinka marriages because otherwise non-Dinka tribes may not be able to afford bride prices set by Dinka tribes. Intra-marriages between Dinkas had been set at 100* cows to try to curb cattle rustling, which is not only common but becoming more violent too. Again fascinating economic principles at work.

Following these explations (whilst we were still standing behind copulating cows) he turned to and said:

Can I ask, are you married?

Usually this question would always be answered with a yes, as experience has shown that the truth may often be followed by a marriage proposal (Senegal, taxi driver, 32 cows, South Africa, bar man at the World Cup fan fest in Durban, 40 cows, South Sudan, man in Lanyia who sold me an orange, 344 cows – yes,I keep tabs).

However, since we were now working together I could hardly convincingly pursue the ‘I’m married’ angle for too long.

So I confessed that I was not.

Oh good! he said Now I know I do not have to call you madam.

So much for that then.

*Numbers are taken from my memory of the conversation, so forgive me I don’ remember them exactly

Travelling Cattle Class

Part 3 on my mammoth Easter Break Trip:

After my short break in Ethiopia, I was scheduled to attend a workshop in Accra.

So I arrived at the airport in Addis Ababa and lined up in the Ethiopian Airlines queue (funny how many of my anecdotes on this blog take place in airports). When I got to the counter, I put forward my ticket:

Check-in Agent: The flight to Accra does not exist.

Me: But I have a ticket for the Ethiopian Airlines flight to Accra.

Check-in Agent: It does not exist. Its not on my computer.

Me: Perhaps it is cancelled? But if I am booked on it, I cannot imagine that it does not exist.

Thankfully at this point the lady at the check-in counter next to me was also booked on the Addis Ababa -Accra route. At this point, my check-in agent ceded and went to ask her colleague. I was right – the flight did exist. However, they decided to merge it with the flight to Bamako and not tell anyone.

In fact, not only did they decide to merge the Accra (Ghana) and Bamako (Mali) flights, but also the Lome (Togo), Freetown (Sierra Leone) and Monrovia (Liberia) flights as well. WITHOUT TELLING ANYONE.

You can imagine the scene at the gate. The poor Ethiopian Airlines Agent was overwhelmed with questions about where on earth this flight was actually going. Then we got on the plane and the lady behind me decided to double check with the stewardess that the plane was actually going to stop in Monrovia. Naturally the stewardesses had also not been informed of the extra stops the plane was scheduled to make. And so she told the lady that no, this flight was in fact going to Bamako. The poor lady was about to disembark again, when me and other passengers informed the stewardesses that in fact the flight was going to be making a few more stops before Bamako too. It is always very comforting getting on a flight when the crew does not actually know where they are going.

As a little side anecdote, this was also the flight where I decided to watch the silent film The Artist on the large screen at the front of the plane. Now I had heard a lot about this film before hand and knew that amongst other Academy Awards, it had won the one for the best original score. It took me a while to fiddle around with my headphones and I only got them in after the film had actually started. After a while I began to wonder why on earth it had won the Oscar for its music as really, they were pretty standard classical pieces. I continued to watch as it had received all these commendations. However, the point I decided to give up was when there was a scene where two characters were fighting and the music playing was Wagner’s Bridal Chorus. It was only when I attempted to watch the second film did I realize that instead of being tuned to the film channel frequency, I was in fact on the classical music channel. It is a bit difficult to tell when watching a silent film.

As we landed the first time, the lady next to me tapped me on the shoulder and inquired “Bamako?” No. We were still in Lome and 4 stops away from Bamako. It was like a Megabus trip gone wrong.

When I finally got to Accra and to my hotel, I found a series of frantic emails and messages inquiring about my whereabouts. Apparently the Ethiopian Airlines Customer Care Line had also not been informed of the “slight” change in schedule such that people calling to find out whether my flight was late or not were also told it didn’t exist. So for about a 4 hour period they probably thought that it together with me had disappeared. Bermuda Triangle style.

Photo Interlude – Ethiopia

As alluded to in the last post, I spent a couple of days over the Easter break visiting a dear friend in Ethiopia. During this trip I was in Addis Ababa, then spent a few days at Lake Langano and then took a day trip to Lake Wenchi (a crater lake).

Before the trip, I decided to go to the Ethiopian Embassy to get my visa as I heard rumours that there were plans to stop issuing tourist visas at the airport. Given the fickleness of the immigration regulations in South Sudan that I was used to, I figured it would do no harm to get my visa before. That and also really the novelty of going to an embassy in Juba to get a visa issued.

So off I went with my forms, photos and money. When I got to the counter (read: wooden table in the middle of the room), I put forward my request for a visa. The consular official looked at me and inquired why I was getting a visa. I told him that according to the Ethiopian Immigration Department, I needed one.

Immigration Official: But you look Ethiopian. You are sure you are not?

I guess the South Sudanese Immigration Officials are not the only ones to judge nationality on looks.

Lake Langano

Lake Wenchi

Lost Luggage

Readers of this blog will know that when I have a holiday, I don’t tend to sit around  but rather use the time to travel around the world some more. Therefore, at sometime around Easter, there was a three week period where my itinerary (including conferences) looked as folllows:

Juba –> Cairo –> Rome –> Bologna –> Rome –> Cairo –> Juba –> Addis Ababa –> Accra –> Lisbon –> Vienna –>Frankfurt –> Addis Ababa –> Juba

As the title of this post hints, guess which part of this slightly complex itinerary my luggage managed to get lost? Yes, you’ve guessed it.  On the 30 min flight between Bologna and Rome.

Grazie Alitalia.

After spending 2 hours (i.e. 4 x my flight time) queueing at the lost luggage counter (apparently Alitalia has a slight habit of losing luggage) my conversation went something like this:

Lost Luggage Officer (LLO): Fill out the form and we will send your luggage to you.

Me: But Sir, I have a slight challenge as my next flight is via Cairo to Juba.

LLO: Where?

Me: Juba, South Sudan.

LLO: Ahhhh (confused look on his face). Is that a city Alitalia flies to?

No sir. Unfortunately, Alitalia does not yet fly to the metropolitan hub that is Juba.

But what reminded me of this story today, was the fact that my Dad sent me a cartoon that very much exemplifies the anecdote above:

Source: American Scientist

Yet Another Juba Airport Tale

Because we/I cannot get enough of Juba airport stories.

This is a conversation I had with an Immigration Official entering Juba airport after a short trip to Kenya:

Immigration Officer: Why do you not have an Eritrean Passport?

Me: Because I am not Eritrean

Immigration Officer: Are you sure?

Me: Yes I am sure

Immigration Officer: But you look Eritrean so you should have an Eritrean Passport.

Me: Sir, I am really not sure what I can tell you to convince you that I am not Eritrean. You have my passport and thats what I would usually use as proof.

Pilots Passing….Notes

Following up, on my last article before independence day, about my experience with the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service. As I was re-recounting this story to a friend, she had her very own UNHAS-Pilot-Note-Passing experience. Apparently on a flight she was on, the pilots passed a note back to all passengers to request them to:

Please refrain from passing gas.

Fair enough.

Happy 1st Birthday South Sudan!!

Sorry this post is a bit late. It was of course meant for the 9th of July 2012. However, I was out in the Austrian countryside. And surprisingly, something the Austrian  and the South Sudanese countryside have in common is that is very difficult to locate wi-fi in both places.

But with no further ado, I am wishing South Sudan a very Happy 1st Birthday!

Oh and of course a congratulatory note on drawing with Uganda in its first ever international football game. I am very happy for South Sudan – But really the result also goes to show once again that I do not come from countries with all too much footballing prowess…..