Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
but sometimes they would swim across the river in search of better grazing and trample
Ugandan crops, uproot Ugandan trees, and generally leave destruction in their wake.
The first sign of Nimule, as with many other African villages, was the phone masts
reaching into the sky. The tower rose out of the scrub but, before long, I could hear the
rumble of trucks coming from the south, the buzzing of motorbikes and the barking of
feral dogs. 'Must be a main road near here,' said Boston, and before we knew it we had
stumbled onto the track. Soon, we were standing among the shanties. Nimule was as busy
as Adjumani before it; the refugees who hadn't yet made it to the camps were lingering
here and some, it seemed, had even made the frontier their home. Juice sellers lined the
road and radios blasted out the latest news from the frontline. Somali truck drivers sat
around chewing
khat
and Sudanese Arabs in white
jellabas
smoked
shishas
. People of all
nationalities crowded the street, dodging lorries full of Ugandan supplies bound for the
empty stores of Juba, the capital of South Sudan.
'It's the Wild West,' I said as Boston and I made our way to the checkpoint. My nerves
were already intensifying, because neither of us had the appropriate visa to get into the
country. I hadn't been able to get one before leaving home because of the outbreak of war,
and Boston had decided too late that he was accompanying me this far. Not having a visa
isn't always an issue in a continent where a fistful of dollars still goes a long way, but I
was feeling increasingly on edge.
'It's enterprise,' said Boston. 'Opportunity. An African knows where to make a fast
buck. There are people who specialise in it. The second they hear of war, off they go.'
It wasn't just Africans, I reflected, as we joined a queue at the checkpoint. Businessmen
from all over the world were here to make a quick buck. So were the NGO workers - it
was a mistake to believe some of them weren't here for the money as well. As the traders,
merchants and soldiers headed north, the refugees - some in rags, some in shiny new suits
- headed south. Nimule was a place in constant flux. Slowly, we made our way down the
line.
It took a long time to reach the front of the queue at the checkpoint but, when we handed
over our passports, our entry to South Sudan went without a hitch; the border guard didn't
even look at our visas before stamping the pair of us out and barking for the next in line.
There was no turning back now. Without looking back, we walked across a stretch of bar-
ren no-man's-land where Ugandan soldiers mingled with their South Sudanese counter-
parts. On the South Sudan side, the immigration building was virtually empty - there could
not have been too many tourists looking for visas, and, within five minutes, we had been
granted a two-month entry stamp and were being welcomed by a beaming equatorial offi-
cial. 'Welcome to South Sudan,' he said, with a smile that spoke of a thousand things.
In the scorching light of the South Sudanese morning, a figure was waiting. Outside the
immigration office, he watched us through dark glasses, reflecting the sun. Wearing boot-
