First Impressions

It seems amazing that we have been in Torit for over a week.  It is much quieter here after the hustle and bustle of the capital Juba.  There is an overwhelming sense that there is a huge amount to do here and that the country faces many challenges.  There is an urgent need for so much - roads, sanitation, clean water, improvements in education, health and police services.  The inequalities are massive compared with home and will take years to overcome.  Comparatively everything is very expensive.  The people are amazing, very friendly and really don’t know what to make of us!  I guess we are the talk of the town!

We are still trying to sort out our permanent accommodation and are hoping that we can move into some tented full board accommodation at Caritas, a partner agency mainly working on infrastructure projects.  At the moment we are still in a local guesthouse and although basic in terms of amenities, it is okay and has wall-to-wall live Premier League Football on the television on Saturdays and Sundays as does the more upmarket Hotel Torit!  We are managing to get food okay - breakfast at a small local Ugandan café run by health workers working on a project here, lunch with bread and some fruit (bananas, watermelon and avocado, the latter being amazing) from the market and in the evenings we have either go back to the Ugandan café or go to Hotel Torit where the food is expensive but good. We can also get Tusker, Kenyan beer, Guinness Export and red wine from South Africa.

The area around Torit is very flat.  The soil is very fertile but not extensively farmed.  The potential in this part of South Sudan is vast.  The main crop is groundnuts. The foliage is very green and luscious.  To the south the horizon is dominated by the Imatong Mountains, the highest peak being over 10,000ft.  On the way from Juba to Torit we passed several unusual rock formations probably of volcanic origin (see photo).  The largest birds seen so far include heron, kite and vulture.  There are a myriad of more brightly coloured smaller birds and butterflies.  The weather is very changeable at the moment – it is the wet season which lasts until October.  One day it can be hot and dry, another cooler with heavy rain and thunderstorms which can be really spectacular, reminiscent of holidays in France!

Apologies for being so mundane!