I am Sudanese.

Since arriving in Juba, I have begun to embrace many things about the culture. On of these things is tea. Now the picture of tea your mind probably just jumped to, is probably not the tea that I drink. It includes 2 scoops of milk powder (because you can't really get milk in liquid form from my understanding), then as much sugar as a child could ever ask for (except I put much less than locals) and then a tea bag...or sometimes Nescafe instead. The other day, I had caught a boda (motorcyle taxi) to go to a linguistic institute to buy a book to learn some Arabic. (Which by the way I am no longer a Mazungu...I am a "Cawaya"). I was walking along the road after I bought the book and walked past a group of guys chillaxing in the shade during the morning tea time.

"Hello. Come have tea with us."

hmm, never take food from strangers. But I do like the idea of stopping in the shade and forgetting about my duties for the day.

"Okay."

So we hung out for a while and talked about life. Then just when I was about to go on my way again, Lexson came by on his boda.

"Oh hey, I stopped to have tea."

"haha Adam! You are Sudanese!"

Nice, I have done it. Too bad everyone still looks at me like I am the strangest Sudanese man to walk the country. In fact, yesterday I made a poor little girl cry simply because of my skin colour. Rats (in the words of Charlie Brown). And she is my neighbour. Her family is trying to help her adjust. But mostly they just laugh a lot and think it's quite funny.

Anyways as for my work here, things are going well. During the course of this week, we have managed to register the organization (Afro-Canadian Evangelical Mission) with the Ministry of Religious Affairs and with the Ministry of Legal Affairs and a few other logistical thing such as getting a PO box and design business cards (which apparently are the bees knees around here so we really can't function without 'em). So ya we are getting closer and closer to being able to operate and I am truly excited to go set up camp for a while in Mundri. That is the place where I will be hanging out working to start developmental efforts focused towards children. It is a state over from here and from what I hear, about 4 hours on a terribly bumpy road. But the good news is, it's supposed to be much cooler there which will be a sweet change from this intense heat. Oh and yesterday, I saw my first African storm which was accompanied by watching a transformer blow up across the road (for all you transformer nerds...don't worry, it was a decepticon). haha okay just kidding but it did make us lose power once again for 1 day and counting. The whole scene was quite spectacular though :)

I got some pics up finally now too. Just a couple. The first is of the day Lexson and I left. The next is of a sign in Kenya that I am still trying to make sense of so I just had to snap a shot. I don't really have any pics of Juba yet because the police have laws against taking pics so I have been hesitant.
If you can't read it, it says: Credit will only be given to people over 85 years of age. (Provided accompanied by both parents)
Ha and weirdest thing is that this was in a photocopying place. Both parents? 85? hmm.