600 kms

I'm stuck in Juba.

I'm not sure why I feel like complaining about this fact. I have air conditioning here. I live between solid walls in a room that has a door, not a shoddy zipper. I don't have to worry about my room being ravaged by a goat, my mattress chewed up and spit on the floor, or jumping out of bed and landing on a hedgehog. I am not even momentarily tempted to eat a disgusting mix of vegetable leaves and animal intestines because I can't fathom the idea of another mouthful of beans and rice here.

Here, there is gin.

Still, I'm disappointed. I was all geared up to spend the next 3 weeks split between 2 of our field sites. We have projects in 3 states in the south, and 3 in the north. So far I've only been to 1 so I was excited to get out there and see what the other sites are like and really start sinking my teeth into the work that I'm in charge of.

Instead, on the weekend, one of the armies started dropping bombs out of the back of planes in the area I was going to and my trip got cancelled. First my boss said I wasn't going, then WFP cancelled the flight that I was to be on. It was unanimous, I was grounded.

My ticket for the 9am flight sat on the edge of the couch taunting me this morning as I packed up to head back to the stuffy office. I guess I shouldn't take it so personally. I doubt the armies were thinking about me and my needs when they decided to enforce their own interpretation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement and send 20,000 people running. Still, it would have been nice if they had had a little consideration for the fact that they were really messing with people's plans. Oh, and their lives.

John Kerry has been quoted as saying "At this very moment, Sudan stands ominously close to the precipice of war". I hope he is wrong. And if he is right, I hope it never comes to that. (Did I really just quote John Kerry?)

I find it absurd to think that I am currently in a country that is possibly on the brink of war. It's amazing what 600 kilometers can do.

Somewhere out there, 600 or so kms north of me, some people's weekend consisted of the sound of tanks rolling in, of bombs and gunfire. Surely mothers and fathers were hurriedly rounding up their kids and finding a way to move south, where there was enough silence to suggest that imminent danger was far enough behind them. My colleagues had to quickly leave our compound, with only 15 kgs in their emergency "go pack". No one knows what will be left when they get back home.

But for me, my weekend was spent eating overpriced butter chicken. Playing poker. Drinking gin and tonic, with ice. Bopping up and down in a bar to very loud and obnoxious Russian music that the one Russian patron seemed to be enjoying very much. Watching movies while I lay in bed, ignoring the emails my boss was sending from across the hall, while enjoying the cooling freshness of my air conditioner and waiting for the driver to come pick me up to take me to my next dining or drinking destination.

It's wholly unfair. Trust me, I get that.

It's not my place to engage in debates about politics. I won't do it (publicly at least). I don't know any of the people who have been affected by the recent events. I haven't even met our field staff that had to move south. For now I can only imagine how it would feel to be 600 kms from here.

Just 600 kms.