Atoc
Oil on Linen 35cmx50cm

Juba Town traffic more frenetic than usual, with outrageous driving maneuvers, bordering on the terrifying. Guess its a numbers game and I finally connected the wing mirror of my car on another wing mirror of a guy who had parked his car half into the street, while I tried to dodge a boda boda.

We had an engineer, seconded to us by the Ministry, assaulted. Part of an alarming list of incidents. However, it seems as though he was spending his evenings with a women from Uganda, which may have been the cause. Not sure if its jealousy, family, or money but it doesn’t sound spontaneous.

One of our guys electrocuted himself at the office trying to get mangos out of tree with a metal pole, while standing on top of the water tank. Burns on his legs and hands, but at least he is breathing. Flurry to get him flown to Uganda for specialist treatment.

I made a fire, the first in the small round, locally made charcoal cooker. A simple affair, as the charcoal here (huge business that is decimating the forests) is excellent. A bit of cardboard all that is required to get it going. I used meat left over from the braai last week, which defrosted into a mush and didn’t taste much better. I hope the wild cats enjoy it more than I did! Huge effort for zero return. Needs a rethink.

Still a glass of wine, and an espresso fixes most things.

Painting of a boy flying his kite near Jebel Hill in Juba Town. In the book ‘Something is Going to Fall Like Rain’, by Ros Wynne-Jones set in South Sudan, there is story about how heaven and earth were connected by a rope so that they could visit each other at anytime. However, mankind broke his pact with God and so God sent a small bird called Atoc to sever the rope, which he did opening the blue sky between heaven and earth.

Steeplechase jog, as the route is full of water and mud after the storms. I used Craig’s jog-walk-jog technique to get the extra loop in. Glad the shadow on the road was a bird and not a snake!

The traffic pattern around Juba Town has changed with long queues of cars and trucks blocking the roads near filling stations that have fuel. With the border still closed between South Sudan and Uganda due to flooding and road damage, supplies are running low. When news comes in that a filling station has managed to get fuel, there is a swarm of vehicles heading towards it. As you would expect, prices are going through the ceiling.