Walking with Heads Up

I did not have enough time to spend in Juba before I left for Bor-Jonglei State. In fact, I was preoccupied by the prospects of reuniting with my family that I could not do any observations during that one day I was here in Juba. Now I am back and have had one good week in Juba. I can now claim a right to write about condition of Juba and its people. Juba is a capital city of the semi-autonomous Government of the Southern Sudan. Yes, I know that there is JIT supermarket where you can find western’s food that one craves—donuts, chocolate, and what have you. I also know that there is Da Vinci restaurant where fancy diner goers go to relax on the Nile River. In fact, I accidently went there and paid something like $30 for a dinner that was too salty to be eaten. And if you are a night-goer too, there are more than a dozen places to go to here in Juba. In fact, one of them is near our guest house. Fridays and Saturdays are no sleeping days here in our compound. None of our residents is spared of the noise! It feels sometimes like the music is being played inside our compound. We actually do joke that all we need on Friday and Saturday is a drinks’ bar and we would enjoy ourselves here without having to go out. All these, good or bad, I am told, came with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed in 2005. With that came a population and now you can not miss a density of a once known as a ghost town. I would never claim to understand the feelings of the people I now see here. I only see that the Southern Sudanese own and run this town. I know that the flag of Southern Sudan sits on every license plate of any car registered here and, I also see it flying allover the government’s buildings. I see also men in uniform of all departments of the military, policy, and wildlife forces. Southern Sudanese are also drivers driving cars of all agencies here in Juba. I was in a car with my driver driving through the Juba town when he began talking to me about what has become of Juba town. “You know, Panther, Juba has changed completely”. Of course, I don’t have any personal witness to what had happened to this town since the signing of the agreement. But I knew he was not just willing to teach me about the development that has taken place in Juba—he had something bigger to tell me. He wanted to tell me that what I see, though dissatisfying, was not here 3 years ago prior to the peace agreement. I gathered from his facial expression that even the men and women that gathered in that overcrowded Konyo Konyo market have just been liberated and now have the liberty to work and provide for their families. He wanted to tell me that those kids in blue, green, red, and white uniform have just had the liberty to seek education. He also wanted to tell me there is something that is now called the Government of Southern Sudan and its legislative branch and purely comprised of the Southerners who are now making decisions for their fellow Southerners for the first time since Sudan’s independence in 1956. And more importantly, Mr. David, my driver, wanted to tell me that the Southern Sudanese have finally had the freedom to take matters in their own hands and now walk with their heads up.