Juba

I have just (Friday) returned from my first trip to Juba. Juba is in the Central Equatoria region of Southern Sudan, and is the base of most of our flying in Southern Sudan (which is most of MAF Kenya's flying). We have one aircraft based there (on a rotation basis) and hope to increase this to two shortly. Unfortunately we have no permanent pilots based there at the moment, which means the pilots are on continuous rotation. Hopefully this will be resolved in the near future.

My visit was mainly a familiarisation visit, but also to help out the Base Administrator and Base Manager with some finance issues. Although it has supported the MAF Kenya flying for the last two years since it was set up, it was (until the beginning of this year) a separate MAF Programme, and was only integrated into the Kenya Programme at the beginning of 2010 - so there are teething issues still ongoing. [The Sudan Programme - like the country - has a long and chequered history; it was the first MAF Programme in Africa, but due to the unstable past we have been expelled several times].

Flying up to Juba, we crossed terrain that reminded me why MAF exists. Here are a couple of examples (you may need to zoom in on these to see them!):





I really enjoyed Juba itself; it is like a cross between Dar and Dodoma - the humidity of Dar and the undevelopedness of Dodoma. Fortunately the power was fairly stable while I was there so the air con could run all night! Which was just as well! The base has a compound with both the offices and the staff houses. So like Dodoma it was a very short commute! The green photo is of the Base Manager's house (it is not quite as nice as it looks - the houses are metal pre-fabs) and the dustier photo is of the 'business' section of the compound, with the office in the far left corner.





Pictures of Juba are a bit hard to come by, as the authorities are very sensitive about photography and so one has to be a bit careful. My photos of the town itself were quick snaps while driving to the airport, and my photos of the airport and environs all taken from inside the plane!





I will be going up to Juba fairly regularly, and hope to actually get on a flight to see some of the work we do first hand. In the meantime it is nice to know that the work is going on, and I am contributing to it from behind my computer :)