A Kitty In Kenya: Suddenly Sudan

This year celebrated my third foray into the township of Pibor, Sudan. This was the most difficult year yet as it was HOTHOTHOT! The temperatures ranged from 120-129 degrees F. Ouch.

It was great to reconnect with familiar team members and meet a few new faces, too. For those of you who are not familiar with my work in Sudan, I thought maybe it would be proper to first show you the basics....

Getting There:

Since I was already "in the neighborhood," I met up with the other team members in Nairobi. After a brief respite and reunion, we flew out to Sudan on this private charter plane. I was a little proud to see that it was owned by my employer. But then the pride quickly faded when I realized that I would be getting no special "employee perks." (Thanks Scott! :-P )

Accomadations:

Once we arrived in Pibor, Sudan, we set up camp at what we have come to lovingly call the "Pibor Hotel."

There are two room styles in the Pibor Hotel. There is the "verenda view":

And there is the "nature view." I always choose this one; it features a beautiful night time view:

My friend, Leigha, and I enjoying our "room" with a view.

All rooms come with a complimentary wake up call. It is not optional.

The Pibor Hotel also features a bath house (co-ed) where you can take a re-freshing bucket-bath:

On a note of disappointment, last year the bath house featured a rain water collection system that would allow the tomato soup can shower head (in the above pic) to function like a real shower. However, due to hotel management cut-backs - or something - the tomato soup can shower is out of order and there are no plans to repair it. So, this year we just took a bucket of water into the bath house and took our baths. Really not so bad. And I think the water pressure was much better that way. Though a little sporadic, I suppose.

The Pibor Hotel also features three bathrooms:

However, it is requested that each guest bring their own toilet paper.

The Pibor Hotel offers a Club House for guest use:

We had a belated Christmas Party - my team felt bad about me spending the holidays away from my family and friends back in December, so we decided to celebrate again in Sudan! We had Santa hats, fake snow and cookies.....

Food/Drink:
Water is of great importance in the heat of southern Sudan. You have to constantly conscious of the need for hydration. There is an arabic vendor in the village who will sell bottled water but the Pibor Hotel also has a reliable water filtration system:

For food, we mostly eat non-perishable items that we have brought or MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), which are modelled after what our soldiers eat on the field.
I survived the week in Sudan on Skittles, jalepeno cheese whiz and crackers and dried fruit.