Juba Jaunt

Last Thursday a group of us headed to Juba. Unfortunately it turned out to be the same day that Salva Kiir, President of South Sudan, came to Torit on a campaign stop, so we missed the huge crowds that turned out to cheer him.

It’s about a 140 km drive to Juba, and it takes a good 3 ½ hours to get there. The route is very rough most of the way, but a lot of work has been done on the Juba-Nimule road preparing it to be paved, so that makes the last 20 km or so a much smoother drive. Road work has been done in Juba itself, too; now once you cross the bridge over the White Nile almost all the principal streets are paved. I was saddened though as we approached the city and saw a large billboard advertizing Number One condoms with the USAID logo clearly appearing at the bottom. This is the image America gives as a country to those entering the capital of South Sudan: a condom consultant.

We travelled to Juba for the purpose of doing several errands and with the hope of returning to Torit the same day. Those hopes were dashed when we ran into a prolonged delay at the Ministry of the Interior. We went there to renew Fr. Martin Madara’s passport so he can travel to the US for mission preaching later this year, and to start the process of obtaining a passport for two of the youth we work with in Torit. The passport renewal is relatively easy. Getting a passport in the first place is another matter. First you need a birth certificate. Then you need a residency letter from the civil authorities of the area where you’re from. You can then fill out an application and request an appointment. You then need two witnesses from your tribe/community who already have established their national identity to go with you to the ministry to testify on your behalf at the appointment. Then you are given a national identity card. At that point getting a passport is relatively easy: just one more application and appointment. But it’s a process that takes several weeks start to finish. We were able to get to the point of completing the application and requesting the appointment for the national identity interview. Our goal is to be able to send a few young people from Torit to World Youth Day in Madrid in August of next year. It’s good we’re starting early.

The delay at the Ministry of the Interior meant that we would have to spend the night in Juba. When Juba became the capital of the semi-autonomous South after the peace agreement was signed five years ago, and countries, organizations and businesses began to send representatives and open offices, prices there skyrocketed. It remains one of the most expensive cities in Africa to visit or live in. Our modest accommodations (there are no free rooms there, not even in church-related facilities) and simple meals cost four or five times what they would elsewhere. There are blessings that came out of the delay, though. I was able to join a group of priests who gather for Eucharistic adoration on Thursday afternoon. We caught up with Tom Purekal, a friend from Honduras who now works for CRS in Sudan. We celebrated the solemnity of St. Joseph in the church of St. Joseph. And I was able to get to know the city a little better and pick up a few things we really needed, but which aren’t available in Torit.

On Friday morning it rained heavily along almost the entire route between Juba and Torit, turning dips in the road into gigantic, pond-sized potholes. We made it back safe and sound, though, grateful to God for the rain and the cool freshness it brought.

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