The drive to our base in Yei from Juba, in South Sudan, where I flew in to from Nairobi, was only 100 kilometers. However, since there are only about 15 kilometers of paved roads in all of South Sudan, the entire trip was on a dirt road. The road was full of pot holes, rainwater runoff trenches and INCREDIBLY dilapidated bridges. So that 100 km drive took every second of 4 and a half hours. That was a sign of things to come for sure. There is not one single stretch of paved road anywhere in the area I travel on a regular basis, between all the churches we are constructing. And some of the roads still have yet to be cleared of all the land mines left over from the civil war against northern Sudan.
This is a photo of a "Mine Wolf" vehicle we passed on the trip from the airport. It's one of the pieces of equipment the mine-removing crews use. Hopefully the fact that we passed it going the opposite direction doesn't mean we had just driven through a mined area. :) Just kidding. I was assured he was just on the way to another mined road which was not cleared and opened yet.So, in an intentional transition to a related subject...this is the truck i drive. :o) We use Toyota LandCruisers, both hard-top (SUV) and pickup truck styles. They're extraordinarily tough!! And it's so much fun driving on dirt roads in the countryside, across rivers and through mud bogs, hopping pot holes and puddles!
So when we got back to the compound where the staff lives I was pleasantly surprised. They've taken great care to make sure we are comfortable here. I was fully expecting to live in tent camps and to have no reliable electricity and that type of thing. But fortunatley I was sent to what is held as the most comfortable Samaritan's Purse base in South Sudan. This is what the area of the compound where our living quarters are located looks like. Yeah I think I can handle it here. :) 
We have electricity but only that which we generate from our diesel generator. The generator runs during the day and charges batteries which we use for power at night. We actually have hot water in our homemade shower. The photo on the left shows the business end of the shower. The one on the right shows the fireplace where a fire is kept going to heat the water overhead. Pretty groovy setup, huh? 
This is of one of our banana trees and some of our pineapple plants. If you click on the picture to enlarge it you'll see both are bearing fruit right now.
They have these huge tectonic semi-mountains here that bulge out of a mostly flat landscape. It's an amazingly beautiful country. The problem is that the government will not allow people to climb up these massive hills. I've heard that the government thinks there are valuable natural resources such as mercury in them and they think people who climb them are trying to steal those resources. But there really hasn't been a suitable explanation given as to why nobody's allowed to climb. It's a pitty because they really look like a lot of fun. 
In fact, they're so enticing that a couple months ago some of our staff tried to climb one and were arrested and had to stay in a local jail overnite. Maybe one day when the government mellows out and the economy/infrastructure develops, tourists will be able to come and climb.As evidenced by some of these photos, the weather is pretty
violent right now, during their rainy season. Yes, that is an overturned, fully loaded gasoline truck we had to pass one day during a storm. It probably rains five days a week on average during this season, but the climate now is very nice. It's usually no hotter than 85 and always very low humidity, execpt when it's raining, of course. However, I hear the dry season is scorching. We'll see. :o)Well that's all for this post. I'll have another going up soon with pictures of our local construction workers and of churches under construction, as well as some general photos of the people of Sudan.
