TIA

So I should probably explain why it’s been almost a week since my last post.  Has anyone ever seen the movie Blood Diamond?  If you haven’t you should it’s a wonderful movie.   If you have you are familiar with the phrase T.I.A or this is Africa.  What this translates to is that nothing works.  Nothing.    When we were preparing for our trip this year we were told that we would have internet access.  This is completely and totally false.  Well not completely.  If we drive an hour and a half from our house in Mogiri to the border at Jale (note: squeezed in a land rover over bumpy dirt roads) we can access Uganda’s internet network- which is what I’m doing now.

Although I’m not completely throwing in the towel, my plan for blogging is now changed a good bit.  I’ll write my posts when we are home, whenever I find something worth writing about.  Then I’ll post all of these on one day, whenever we next make the trip to the border.  It’ll be an adventure :)

A word on why getting internet access in most of South Sudan is so darn difficult: Politics and underdevelopment.  As you may know, South Sudan recently broke from Sudan and is the newest country in the world.  It is also the least developed.  Before the separation of South Sudan from northern Sudan, all internet and mobile phone access came from the capital of the north, Khartoum.  For political reasons, most of this is now being withheld.  Internet is laughable and airtime for phones, although available, is rare because a small fraction of what was previously available is now coming from the north.  Until South Sudan develops their cellular and internet networks, communication is difficult here.  Thank you Khartoum. 

Which brings us to the under development problems.  I’m living in a mud hut and the nearest water is 2 kilometers away.  We use a pit latrine (although a relatively nice one) and our showers come from a bucket of cold water and a cup.  Note: This type of shower is really not so bad… at least we aren’t wasting water!  As you can see, internet is out of the question here.  I really should have seen this coming…

So, to conclude, there’s really nothing to be done in this situation but go with the flow.  Drink some tea, engage in mindless small talk and hide from the rainy season monsoons.  T.I.A… Wish us luck :)