Foreign travelling has never been as embarrassing as it was when I blundered at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport when I arrived there on time but with the wrong passport and yellow fever certificate.
I was bound to fly to Juba, South Sudan at dawn when I had a gut feeling after disembarking from the taxi that something was amiss. After clearing with security and being allowed into the airlines check in counters, I took out a passport and a yellow card certificate and checked them before handing them over with my ticket to the ground crew.
What a shock when I flipped through the passport just to discover that it had a familiar mugshot that was of my father, while the yellow card certificate was for my son! Scrutinizing the documents further, the passport had expired a decade earlier, while the yellow card certificate had expired three years earlier!
I felt like a lion that had been rained on. I managed to get some guts to face the airline official and pretended that I had forgotten something very important in my house and was requesting for a transfer to the next flight.
Blunder of Blunders
Lady luck was on my side, they had an afternoon flight at 3pm. I immediately booked it and left with my luggage for a taxi ride to my house. On arrival, I quickly went to the bedside drawer where I usually keep my confidential documents and was relieved to find my passport and yellow card certificate staring at me as if lamenting: "why did you abandon us?"
Once beaten twice shy; I ensured that I had picked the two safely in my jacket in advance ready for my afternoon trip back to the airport and seamless clearance and the three-hour flight to the South Sudan capital.
On arrival in Juba, I was met by a colleague, Paul Jimbo, who had relocated there two years earlier and was managing our office in the dusty town. He worked with a Sudanese, Pastor Basil Buga, as part of a legal requirement that all foreign organisations must have a local director.
The next four days were hectic as we held several meetings with broadcast and print journalists and helped them sign a memorandum of understanding to form a Juba Editors Guild, like the Kenya Editors' Guild. We also held a training session on ethics, gender sensitivity in reporting and role of media in electoral processes for over 20 editors and journalists from the various media houses.
Media training
On the final day, we had training sessions for women leaders and Members of Parliament on the role of media, strategic engagements with media and on gender agenda. Juba is strategically located by the banks of River Nile, which crisscrosses the naturally endowed land locked country. It flows from Lake Victoria to the Mediterranean Sea, to the north through Khartoum in Sudan and Cairo in Egypt.
South Sudan was still recovering from the devastating decades of a three decades devastating civil war between Sudan Liberation Army (SPLA) and Sudan People's Movement) and the Sudanese military forces.
Accommodation for visitors and expatriates at that time was wanting and very expensive at an average of $100 per night in reconditioned containers and/or tents. Most of the foreigners were expatriates, business people, staff for United Nations organisations and employees of international Non-Government Organisations.
To ensure the peace between the Khartoum and the Juba governments was maintained; the UN had a big strong peace-keeping team stationed in Juba and other big towns like Malakel and Bar Al Gazel.
Most of the local Sudanese seemed content to live in their grass-thatched houses and pit latrines and outdoor bathrooms. The best hotels were mostly run by Ethiopians and other foreigners and consisted of reconditioned containers ant tents.
Grass-thatched houses
The best facilities were in the UN staff compound where they had air-conditioned offices and prefabricated accommodation for their staff and very important visitors. Our media trainings were supported by United Nations Women on the eve of the historic South Sudan General election after the citizens had voted in a referendum to split from The Sudan and then signed a peace agreement to form Southern Sudan with Col. John Garang Mabior as its first President.
Unfortunately, Col. Garang did not last for over a year as President before his helicopter crashed a few kilometers into the Southern Sudan territory after holding a meeting with his Ugandan counterpart Yoweri Museveni. Several of his aides and security officers ended up in an early grave with him.
The mysterious chopper crash shocked the Sudanese and the world as a whole and raised controversy over the chopper, which President Museveni had offered, and why the pilot detoured to New Site, in South Sudan, instead of to Nairobi where his wife lived and was waiting for him. Conspiracy theories pointed an accusing finger at Ugandans, the Khartoum government and some rebel forces in the SPLA and SPLM, among others.
His deputy, Salva Kiir, later succeeded him with Riek Machar as his deputy in a smooth transition. By then, Juba was like a one-street town with the highway from the Juba International Airport leading into the town to the UN compound, the presidential office and residence; and to the Parliament Building and then out through the Juba bridge, over River Nile, heading East to Uganda and South to the Kenyan border.
Juba was the next frontier then for a number of daring and enterprising Kenyan professionals and businessmen who had relocated there and set shop as pioneers. Among them was former Rangwe Member of Parliament, Dr. Shem Ochuodho, who was one of the presidential advisors on information technology, having earlier served in the same capacity in Rwanda, under President Paul Kagame.
Former Kenyan deputy Ambassador to Ethiopia, Charles Anyama, had used his ties with his South Sudanese friends to land a job as an advisor to one of the ministers on trade and commerce matters. Another professional I met during our visit was former Members of Parliament, Engineer Eric Nyamunga (Nyando) and Ochillo Ayacko (Rongo) and leading businessman, Engineer Otieno Odongo, who were both into national and district-wide infrastructure development and business.
Other businessmen included Job Oyugi, son of Hezekiah Oyugi, former powerful Permanent Secretary in the Office of the President, in charge of internal security, who was in the hospitality industry.
Kenyan entrepreneurs
During our maiden trip to Juba, we touched base with some of our contacts with Southern Sudanese nationals whom we had met and formed a partnership with in Nairobi. They included Col. Garang's head of communication, Obed Kunde, Pastor Basil Nyama Buga, and a former British Broadcasting Corporation South Sudan news presenter, Rebecca Joshua, who was later appointed as permanent secretary and then cabinet secretary in the subsequent government.
Indeed, there was an air of excitement and hope in Juba and the rest of the country among the locals and their compatriots who had returned from exile to neighbouring countries like Kenya, Uganda, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of Congo and Europe, after their independence from the northern neighbours in Khartoum.
Almost every South Sudanese we met and spoke to was optimistic and believed that they were on the right path after decades of being discriminated, dominated and exploited by their northern neighbours economically, racially, religiously and politically.
Optimism in the air
They looked forward, as the youngest nation in Africa and the world, to start enjoying the fruits of their nation, in particular revenue from oil reserves in Southern Sudan. The lingua franca was Nubian, Arabic and some English because of the influence of their Kenyan and Ugandan neighbours, where thousands of refugees had previously lived and went to school.
By then, Juba and most parts of the young nation was still militarised with the local soldiers doubling as policemen and women working side by side with their Ugandan counterparts in peace and security operations. One of my first cultural shocks was to be told by our tour guide that photography was prohibited in public spaces.
The ban included journalist who could not take photographs along the streets, especially of the soldiers. Mistrust and suspicion was in the air. The other was their poor working ethic where time and commitment were not respected. Public servants reported to work casually at 9am. or 10am, instead of 8.30am. and then took their plastic chairs outdoors under the verandahs and/or trees to play cards, board games and chat along all day.
The women were not left behind, they passed the time plaiting their hair, polishing their nails and chatting along oblivious of the public service code of ethics. I personally witnessed an ugly incident while waiting to meet and interview the Speaker of Parliament when a veteran from SPLA caused a storm when he stormed his office saying: "We must be respected and not kept waiting. If it wasn't for our sweat and blood some of you would not be enjoying this peace and luxury!" The security guards had no option but to allow him to see their boss.
Elsewhere, there was a sense of arrogance and irresponsibility witnessed in some of the pubs. In one of the incidents, a group of armed SPLA soldiers, dressed in their military attire, went for a drink and meals in the evening. After enjoying themselves, one of them turned on the Kenyan manager and threatened to shoot him for requesting them to pay up. When asked why they were hostile, one of them said: "Why have you detained our leader (Garang), like a prisoner!"
Strange culture
The bone of contention was that the management of the popular pub had decided to hang the framed portrait of Garang inside the wire mesh secured area where the barman had stored the hot drinks and beer to avoid it being stolen.
So in order for restore peace and maintain good customer relations, the manager relented and complied by removing the portrait "from the cage" and putting it on the outside, as required by law.
Meanwhile, the irate drunk soldiers clapped in joy and walked away singing liberation songs in their vernacular without paying a cent in victory. The manager and his patrons were left in shock and traumatised.
Another incident was when a South Sudanese rammed into the back of Kenyan driver’s car from the back on a major street in the city in broad daylight in the presence of the traffic police.
Instead of apologizing, the irate South Sudanese threatened the Kenyan saying: "I am not the cause of this accident, you are! I wouldn't have rammed into your car if you had stayed in your country!"
Controversial Elemi triangle
The matter ended there as the South Sudanese driver supported by his compatriots at the scene entered his car with confidence and drove off in protest as the two traffic policemen watched helplessly.
Another cultural shock in Juba was the glaring affluence of the rich living and driving luxurious cars like the Hummer side by side with their walking compatriots living from hand to mouth.
By then, Kenya was facing an acute food shortage with serious claims that hundreds of sacks of maize had been smuggled across the Kenya-South Sudan border through Lokichogio and Torit to Juba, by road, to feed South Sudanese soldiers.
The controversy involving top government officials caused a heated debate in Kenya’s National Assembly and widely covered by local and international media. During our visit, one of our tour guides took us to one of the huge warehouses in Juba where we saw them filled to the brim and waiting to be distributed.
At the end of our training sessions I was left wondering whether the participants were there to learn or just to pass time and get allowances. The only English newspaper in Juba was edited by a Kenyan, Paul Jimbo, and was printed in Kampala from Sunday to Friday, and airlifted to the capital of South Sudan.
The size of the Juba International Airport was similar to Wilson Airport in Nairobi. It was congested and quite disorganized with customs and immigration officials collecting visa fees on one hand and bribes on the other openly from the hundreds of passengers using the facility. It was like a scene in a movie seeing all that mayhem as we waited for our return flight to Kenya.
The next trip to Juba, two years later. There was a marked improvement. Most of the city roads had been tarmacked, many hotels had been built including one by the son of Ugandan President, among other East African leaders, many permanent high-rise buildings had also come up, including Parliament Building and government offices.
Tension was still palpable between SPLA soldiers, their Ugandan counterparts and the public. We got a feel of it in our second visit when we dared to drive to Torit, on a lonely dusty highway from Juba, on the border of Kenya and South Sudan.
Torit is near the controversial Elemi Triangle which was carved out from South Sudan and given to Kenya to administer under a secret memorandum of understanding between then Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi and his South Sudan friend, Col. John Garang, at the height of the civil war as a buffer zone and strategic zone in case the worst came to the worst in the civil war. Later, the then Kikuyu member of parliament, Paul Muite, raised the issue in Parliament, but was debated in camera (closed to the media and public).
During the five-hour drive through one of the densest rain forests I have ever seen, we hardly saw a single wild animal, bird or people walking along the highway. Our guide informed us that most of the wild animals were shot by SPLA during the civil war and turned into game meat.
Asked why motorists were warned not to alight, even if for a short call along the highway, our tour guide revealed that it was because of fear of landmines left behind by SPLA/SPLM and the Khartoum military officers to ensure no one uses the land.
The only exception was on our way back from Torit on the earth road when we were stopped by SPLA officers manning a roadblock near one of the few settlements we saw, and directed us to give one of their colleagues a ride to the next village.
We had no option but to oblige as they carried their guns and machetes openly. I felt traumatised by the soldier's rifle, many bullet wounds and scars from his face, arms and feet. So it was a big sigh of relief two hours later when he alighted after limiting our conversation to yes or no answers. After that, it was fresh air heading to Juba and back to our homes in Nairobi, away from the militarised society.
The saying "home sweet home" soothed and consoled us during our return flight to Nairobi.
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