Jebel Kujur

Passed through an area of Juba new to me en route to the Ministry of Transport, where we waited an inordinately long time for them to faff with our paperwork. The government issues many processes and regulations that NGOs must follow, such as annual stamping of vehicle logbooks. In the absence of much central budget allocation except for ministries more directly involved in the conflict, revenue is raised this way, even if many of the processes lack much practical relevance.

Jebel Kujur is characterised by a rocky outcrop that in peaceful times sounds like a nice Sunday outing with good views over the surrounding plains. It's eye-catching in the wet season and breaks up the brownness of Juba's dusty prefabs, derelict/half-constructed buildings and mostly unpaved roads. People live in simple homes around the Jebel's base, cultivate its slopes and earn cash by rock-breaking for the construction industry. It is only a few minutes from some of Juba's clamorous intersections and markets yet feels very rural.

It's been a hectic day, as days cannot fail to be in Juba, of searching for and being agog at the cost of printer ink, completing tax paperwork, briefing the European Union office, chinking beers and sharing challenges with a fellow conservationist in a partner organisation, having verbal diarrhoea on Skype after being unconnected in Yambio for a while, and eating liver and fries.

News from home that my Great Auntie Mary has died a few months short of her 100th birthday. She had been receiving palliative care and was the last of my relatives from her generation. Mary must have been one of the UK's longest-lived widows as her husband died in Italy during the Second World War not long after they were married. They hadn't had kids and she never remarried in the 70+ years since.