Sunday, July 6, 2008

quick thought on civil/rebel wars in developing countries

I don't think I ever quite grasped what civil war does to a developing country until I landed in a country that is in the middle of one today. This morning I arrived in Sudan and imediately you could tell that this place was unlike any other country that we had been in siince arriving in Africa. This is a nation, solely because of rebel insurgents and lack of any organization in the government, is completely dependent on surrounding nations. Sudan grows none of its own produce and hardly raises any of its own livestock, which in turn makes everything very expensive. No one works here because the government is paying people a monthly stypen so that they won't refugee themselves to neighboring countries.
All day long in the states we here about the Sudan and darfur and it never really clicked. It always seemed everyone on this side of the world fought eachother or in this case themselves. But it is different when you are here, we are still in the south tomorrow we fly up to central Sudan, tonigt we are still in a part of the country that hasn't seen conflict in quite some time but because of the nonesense in the the north everyone is suffering. Because there is a war that is going on due to rebels and corrupt government everyone suffers. This country is struggling in more ways than one that is for sure. I am in l Juba the capital of southern Sudan and there is no public power, the only people who have power are on their own generators. The capital city! This is real now, that's about all I know to say.

*I typed this on my phone that could be the reasoning for missing letters and more horrible than usual grammar and spelling.

2 comments:

rachel rianne said...

geez. that definitely puts some things into perspective, or at least identifies the lack of perspective of the situation from the west. i'm looking forward to hearing all about it when you get back, and i hear you're documenting most of it too. good. we should have a recap event in the fall.



ps: i'm purchasing a bike in the next week or so. i'll let you know the details when it happens.

Shane A. Jones said...

No power huh? That's pretty primitive. I saw your Dad the other day and he was telling me that you were using the internet in a thatched roof hut. Weird. Be careful dude.