Engine trouble

Surprisingly not of the digestive kind, which I've mostly been spared on trips to South Sudan. I had some stomach cramps that disturbed last night's sleep, along with scurrying rats, squeaking bats and anti-social roosters, but the threats didn't follow through.

We finally headed to the bush after numerous delays. 'Thank you for coming here', said the Minister of Local Government after our placatory letter-writing and waiting around town, although if I'd followed the main instruction of his first outburst two days ago, I would have been forced to flee the country by now. According to others, he'd come from a domestic dispute and we were in the firing line. We ironed out issues with paperwork, car batteries, rations and a random extra who wanted a lift to the project site so she could weed her groundnuts and I didn't have the heart to say we were already too overloaded, and headed to the county town of Nzara. This is the nearest centre of any size to the project site, which is a further three-hour slog along an abominable track that in the wet season is more like a stagnant river. Last time we were in Nzara we tried to advise the town's furious community about how to act safely around a few hippos that had settled close to the centre. Since then whilst out grazing in the nighttime hours, a hippo had been spooked by early morning pedestrians and had bolted across the main road, hurt a woman and bit and destroyed a motorbike engine. Compensating victims of wildlife damage is the Wildlife Service's remit but they have zero budget, and are coming to me to help them buy small amounts of fuel for the Director's car. The result is a damaged motorbike sitting in the Wildlife office in Nzara and increasingly irate letters from its owner.

After bumping down the track and waging war with legions of tsetse flies using a car manual, we arrived at the ranger post close to the Game Reserve; the focus of our work that I thought I would run out of time to see during this trip.

We relaxed on arrival and I had a cup of tea as the sun set with Charles of the Wildlife Service, who went to Ethiopia in 1987 aged 12 to train to fight with the Sudanese People's Liberation Army. How the South Sudanese pronounce Charles is delightful: Char-Les.

A boy nearby is shooting at a bird in a tree with a catapult, we're discussing how easy it would be to obtain lentils from the Congo as they're one fifth of the price there, and the much put upon Sarah, a Wildlife Service officer with a ranking of Sgt Major, but who is forced to cook and skivvy around after us because she's a woman, is preparing plantains and howling at my pronunciation of the Zande translation of them.