Day Nineteen - CANADA DAY

So I may or may not have let the fact that today was Canada Day slip my mind, but thanks to Mom I didn't totally forget it. Originally I was supposed to be going back to Juba today so July 1st was just the day I was leaving Aweil, not Canada Day. I swear I like my country, my days just get away from me here...

I slept almost 10 hours last night. I woke up a few too many times but I still felt rested in the morning and MUCH better than I did yesterday. I swear I had a fever yesterday. I sweated sooo much through the night.

I have dubbed today as "an Africa day". I did get bread with honey for breakfast but that is where the good of my day stopped. The driver was late and he showed up in a vehicle too small to carry 9 people, 40 minutes to the market we were supposed to be working in today. So without any cell service to seek some solutions to our vehicle problem, I sent the data collectors to Ariath, the other market 40 minutes from Gok Machar, and then the driver was supposed to come back and pick me and my translator up. The driver never came. I sat at Nylonge's tea shop all day once again and had no work to do. I was supposed to be interviewing women with businesses in Ariath but that was not going to happen. So the driver and the data collectors showed up at 4 and off I went to drive 2 hours with my driver and his squealing radio station. Even my sound minimizing ear buds could not totally drown out that noise.

Nicole said I looked like I needed a good meal, not chicken broth and rice, so we went to the UNMIS (United Nations Missions in Sudan) compound and got supper. I had a tuna sandwich and fries. It was quite satisfying and I was so full after one half of the sandwich. I definitely appreciated not having to eat a bowl of rice for supper...

On the drive home there are always little boys at certain places along the road filling in the massive holes in the road with dirt. Some of the boys have pieces of cardboard to pick the dirt up with but most of them just use their hands. For as big as the potholes are, I feel like it will take them forever...they need backhoes and a grader on these roads...anything smaller will be useless.