I’d ended my previous blog noting that when we got back to Bahai from our first visit in Oure Cassoni refugee camp, there was a meeting for us hosted by UNHCR that brought together representatives of the World Food Program, the International Rescue Committee, Tchad Solaire and others.

On Tuesday, 5 August, our last day in Bahai and Oure Cassoni, we had the opportunity to see the solar cooking project, a water filtering project and gardening at the camp before driving on to the airstrip for the flight back to N’djamena and then later that evening to catch our various planes home. We’d heard about these efforts and more at our briefing.

I’m not going to cover all the points of our meeting at UNHCR Monday evening because if I did, I think I’d never end the blogging and now I’m sitting in my living room in Fredericksburg and I think it is getting to be time to wrap things up! I’d actually started the previous blog when I was sitting for hours waiting for a plane home in Paris and could have gone on and on with that one as well, so I decided to split it into two parts and this is the second part.

Last time I wrote, which was on Sunday, 3 August, we were sitting in the airport in Addis, waiting for our flight to N’djamena, Chad. Well, that one left about four hours late, but we still did get to the city in time to check in, freshen up a bit, and then go out to dinner with Serge Male, the head of the UN High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) for Chad. Actually, we’d met before when the UN Mission on Darfur I’d led the year before arrived in Chad. This was much very informal – and thus more fun, in my view.

We were well into dinner when the sky opened, as they say, and the rain came pouring down. We had to pull our table further under the thatched roof of the patio seating area because the backs of half of the table were getting wet. The waiters had to bring the meals to the tables under umbrellas. A few of us finished before the others and decided to go back to the hotel – well, the waiters escorted us to the vehicles under big umbrellas, but they didn’t help much. The downpour had already turned the roads into gushing rivers and we walked in water that came up to mid-calf.

It is Sunday, 3 August 2008, and here we are again in the VIP lounge at Addis’ airport. Weren’t we just here a few hours ago!?! Not that there’s anything wrong with being in a VIP lounge, but we’re getting kind of sick of this one. Thankfully, we’re heading out for Chad and won’t be back this way again – at least on this trip.

Our flight to N’djamena, the capital of Chad, is a little under four hours and we’re supposed to arrive early afternoon. At the moment, it is my intention to go right to my room and lay down. I’m worn out. This has been a long trip and very draining. Interesting and challenging every day – which is, of course, why we all feel a bit spent today.

Juba – capital of South Sudan – is quite a place (read that however you wish). I want to write “rising out of the ashes of the more than 22 years of war…..” except it isn’t exactly “rising.” It is more in some ways huts – tukuls – huddled together, while it is also sort of sprawling out along the Nile. The tukuls are the same round, single-room huts that are found throughout much of east Africa. The walls are made of packed mud and the conically-shaped roof is of thatching.