Into Africa

Africa is hot and dusty and huge, just as expected really. I have landed in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, and leave soon for the south of the country and my home for the next six months, Bentiu. I flew here from Paris on Quatar Airlines via the city of Doha in the gulf.

I am keen to see a little of this historical city, sitting at the confluence of the Blue Nile and White Nile rivers. Taking photos seems to be a bit of a problem here though and so I grabbed an aerial photo from google earth to show the joining of the rivers. It also shows the main airport from which the government here launches bombing raids in Darfur and if you zoom in you can even see the attack helicopters that are also used against villages. The MSF office and house where I am staying is located just to left of the end of the runway near the blank square area (a cemetery actually) and the main town area is in the centre of the photo on the south bank of the clear flowing Blue Nile.

I'm stuck in the office at the moment with briefings and people to meet and chat to about the project in Bentiu. I have also been spending a bit of time with the MSF mechanic learning about the Toyota Land Cruiser's that we use down there and how to keep them running. There are a lot of white land cruiser's in town here with various different logos on the doors... UN, CARE, UNHCR, UNESCO, ICRC... etc.

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