Tukul for One

As I put my bags on the scales to board the UN flight from Juba to Wau I was told my luggage was over limit and therefore I could not travel. I had not been told that this leg of the trip would be limited to all baggage being under 20kgs. I quickly started packing all of my heavy toiletries into my back pack to leave for 'someone' to bring in a weeks time when a nice gentleman offered to 'take' some of my luggage kilos as part of his.

After landing at Wau and driving through the streets of Wau town I started to feel very isolated and out of my comfort zone. I observed many 'street kids' the ones whom I am supposed to be helping while here, but in saying that there are probably also many people who are not on the street but are so poor that they have limited clothing and appear very dishevelled. Donkeys pull carts of water through the streets alongside armed soldiers walking the streets with large guns.

I was asked if there was anything I needed to buy before we head to Acumcum - the village where I will be based and and I wasn't sure what they meant as I did not know what was available. In any event I bought some bottled water, instant coffee, powdered milk and six cans of beer.

It took 40 minutes to drive to Acumcum via 4WD, along unsealed and dusty roads, passing people herding long horned cattle and goats. It is so dry and arid here it is difficult to know how anyone or anything survives, yet I am told it is the dry season and when it rains, grasses can grow up to three metres tall. We then passed the Acumcum market but all I could see for sale were wooden poles for building huts.

Turning off the road into a wire fenced in area, I could tell by the sign at the front that this would be my new home. Inside the compound there are three rows of tukuls - mud huts with straw roofs and a cement rendered building next door. The building is the HARD office where we have access to internet when the generator is on. I was shown to "my" tukul. Inside consists of a double bed with a mosquito net, a TV (that doesn't work) and a single bed. There is also lock on the tin door!

The toilet is a mud brick out house with a hole in the ground. Next door is the bathroom - comprising of another mud brick hut with a cement floor and a big container full of water. No running water, no flushing toilet and no toilet paper. I have brought significant amounts of toiletries with me from Australia and now think - will I actually be able to use any? I started to think "What have I got myself into? Can I survive this? What happens when I get sick?"

Despite the excrutiating heat, rats running through the roof and trying to attack my packet of tim tam biscuits, I survived the first night in my tukul in Acumcum.