Back to Baliet

It’s another Sunday in Baliet, and I’m back to bask in the slow pace of compound life. Of our 3 field sites, this is the only one that isn’t overwhelmed by responding to the current emergency of internally displaced people (IDP), and thus the one that I get to visit. I almost didn’t believe I would make it – my flights on both Saturday and Tuesday were cancelled, requiring me to do a quick 180 moments after arriving at the airport each time, head hung in disappointment, forced to sit like a lost and destitute puppy with my baggage on the side of the road until a driver could come back to collect me.

When I turned up at departures on Thursday, some of the staff laughed as they saw me arrive once again, bag in hand, ID tag around my neck. “Madam!” the guy at the security scanner said, “You are back. I am Thomas. Today you go.” Great Thomas, thanks. I had actually been praying really hard for yet another cancellation because I was beginning to find my groove in Juba and knew what lush, debaucherous and delicious opportunities I’d be missing out on while spending the next 5 days and 5 nights on the edge of the Sobat. Ah well, life is tough right? I guess I need a reality check every once and awhile, and Baliet is definitely a different reality.

Though life can generally be described as a series of good days and bad, here in Baliet it is better to focus on smaller units of time, with the hope that the good moments follow the bad quickly enough to keep you from walking down to the river, and jumping in (I am assured that this would lead to a horrible fate, despite the fact that I think it sounds like an awful lot of fun).

Outside of the times that I’m focused on work, I’ve kept busy making friends with the locals, and it seems I have befriended a hedgehog. He appears in the evening while I sleep and is discovered in the morning by the cleaning ladies, curled up under my bed. The first few days they would shriek and I would come and move him outside, now they more calmly find me and gesture that I am needed at my tent. Even though he hisses at me, I feel like we’ve bonded (I've always had a thing for guys who don't appreciate me). Last night we were joined by a small grey mouse with rather adorable eyes that I decided was cute enough not to be shooed away. My generosity was abused however, and earlier today I discovered that he had helped himself to my coveted NyQuil. That was definitely a really bad (and expensive) moment. I’d like to think that it gave him a tummy ache, but man, NyQuil is good shit, and I bet he had the best sleep ever. He just better not come back looking to see if there is any room at this Inn again. Luckily while I was in the midst of mourning the loss of my favorite cold medication, and plotting retaliation on the enemy, I was informed that there was pasta with dinner and I wouldn’t have to eat rice and beans (again). (Really, really good moment!).

Later, I accidentally kicked a toad on my way to the latrine (bad moment), but then was overcome by a sense of pride because for probably the first time since I’ve been here, I didn’t tinkle on my feet. Not even a little bit! (Great moment!)

See? If I break it down small enough, life here is quite bearable. Sometimes even enjoyable. It would be easy to let some of the challenges of this place get you down, but I try to appreciate the small pleasures – eating a fruit for the first time in days, getting to the fridge and actually finding a bottle of cold water, the moment when you’re napping in your tent, marinating in your own sweat, and you hear the generator come on and a second later feel the breeze from your fan. Ah, glorious! Then again, at least I only come for short bursts of time. This is where some of our staff live. I mean, I can get used to most stuff, but I'd be lying if I said that it wasn't tough to restrain my irritation when I have to shower with really dirty water, or battle millions of bugs (especially when I have to evict some sneaky ones that are trying to take up residence in my underwear. Yes, the ones I have on).

Small victories help though, and it's a good thing there are some board games around to help provide opportunity for victory- even though I got my ass whipped repeatedly at Checkers, I beat the pants off the Area Coordinator at Scrabble (but not literally; his pants remained on the entire time). 

I like that this is my reality sometimes. I’ll spend tomorrow in the villages, and then fly back to Juba on Tuesday (Inshalla, God willing). It's time for me to go to bed but I think the mouse is back, he better watch his back…