Welcome to Wau!

Welcome to my blog! I am hoping to break the curse of keeping a travel diary by writing here on a semi-regular basis.  Hopefully my ramblings won’t be too boring for you all!

So here I am Wau, trying to reflect on the last 5 weeks...which at times has felt like 5 months!

Leaving Melbourne was a mission, I wouldn’t really recommend heading off to a 3 day music festival the day before one heads off overseas – chaos (but completely worth it – thanks to the Meredith crew for putting up with my freaking out!!!!).  But then after a whole lot of flying I was in South Sudan and I had absolutely no idea what to expect...other than a whole lotta dirt.

Southern Sudan by the numbers :

People : around 9 million...give or take.

Kilometres of road that are paved : 40 kms (and I think I have driven on all of it!)

Traffic Lights : 3 – all of them in Wau (usually only one working at a time.)

I am in Wau working for Unicef in Logistics.  The primary work of Unicef in my region is in Child Protection, Nutrition and Water and Sanitation.  This means that I am doing everything and anything, from running a warehouse, loading the trucks, identifying where to drop supplies in our states and organising vaccines for a mass measles campaign in the camps of the returnees from the North.  In a usual week I am either in Wau or out in the field, which usually means a very bumpy drive for a couple of hours on some lovely dirt roads.

Living in Wau is pretty good.  The compound that we live in has a cook and a cleaner so I don’t really have to do anything but work – which we do alot!  I am generally working 6 days a week, so have to cram the weekend into Sundays.  I arrived just before Christmas and spent it here in Wau with a group of people from a number of different UN agencies.  It was all a bit of a culture shock as we had a goat slaughtered and then we had to butcher it – welcome to South Sudan!  But it was a really good night that ended up with me making a friend in Johnny Walker – although I renounced the friendship the next day ;-)

Recently we have also had the voting for the referendum to split Sudan into two.  No-one was really sure what to expect, but the 7 days of voting went off pretty well.  The queues on the first day were immense, some of co-workers waited up to 8 hours to vote – can you imagine having to wait that long in Australia – there would be anarchy!

But it was a nice reminder that voting is a privilege as a number of people were voting freely for the first time in their lives – which is pretty amazing.  No post voting sausage sizzle here though – maybe next time?!

So it has been a really exciting time to be here in Wau and I have been loving pretty much every minute.  There have been a couple of “oh sh!t” moments, but no patented Peta Barns freakouts as yet – I would even go as far to say that I have developed some sort of Zen like calm....which I must have acquired on the plane as I was definitely not like this at home!

So now the Q&A section where questions that I have been asked will hopefully be answered...this blogs questions are strangely from one source...feel free to send through more!

Mrs K Barns of Perth asks – what do you eat?

We eat reasonably well, there is definitely a high proportion of rice and meat dishes, but it is broken up with the occasional goat or pig.  There is even an Egyptian restaurant in Wau now – hurray for Schwarma!

Mrs K Barns of Perth asks – where are you living?

I am living in the Unicef guesthouse which is about a 10 minute drive from the Unicef office.  There are 5 international staff and we are all living together in a big house.  The compound is pretty secure, we have 24 hour security and a generator which kicks in when the town power goes off (which is often!).

Mrs K Barns of Perth asks – when do you get a holiday?

This week! We work six weeks and then have a week holiday – so i am making the most of not having a Christmas break by heading off to the beach in Mombassa, Kenya.  I arrive on Australia Day so will be having a quiet beer or three to celebrate the occasion!

So that is it for the moment, below I have posted some photos of life here....thanks for reading this far – talk to you all soon!!!!

Christmas Eve in Wau!  Check out the Christmas tree in the background, well done to Serge for finding tinsel in Wau!!!

New Years Eve before the J.Walker ;-)

One of the Rubb Hall Warehouses I am managing...before the clean up!

How the Returnees are living when the first arrive back in the South, trees are hot property.

Chris Thomas this is for you - when you are ready to leave South Melbourne the hair salons of South Sudan await you!!!

Caroline this is for you - there are donkeys everywhere!!!

Me and the kids ;-)