Judith in the Jungle: Backlog, August 2, Paddling my Own Canoe.

I really couldn't have picked a more appropriate day to re-read
Slapstick, Vonnegut's wry, satirical auto-biography about the tiresome
boredom of humanity and how often those of little power or fortune are
the bearers of the most resplendent pleasures, than today, my first
day out of South Sudan.

In the crumbles of a future Manhattan – Skyscraper National Park -
plagued by death and stupidity all around him, he talks about how the
time flew and how we're all really fighting against a virulent
lonesomeness, and how family neglect is the bane of civilization. He
jokes of the future deference we will all pay to the miniaturized,
flying Chinese: "I await your instructions. You can be anything you
want to be. I will be anything you want me to be." And all I can think
of is the complexity of relief and development and what we are trying
to prove and who we are trying to serve and why we are doing what we
are doing in this industry.

In my journal I wrote about the idea of not spoiling the
"neanderthaloids," Vonnegut's self-description of futuristic
simpletons, lest we destroy all the simply joys of existing. It feels
particularly salient to me at this hour. Maybe it's because I spent
the whole two hours on the quadbike laughing as mud hit me in the
face, birds flew past me, and kids smiled at seeing a white person
turned brown. The people seemed fine. I felt fine. And I didn't even
care (for about two hours) that I couldn't take the airplane and that
I didn't have a visa to legally enter nor a flight out of Ethiopia,
and that I had no computer. I felt fine living simply (ok, the moment
was barely there, but it counts!), and the people around me were so
much happier than any of you reading this at your air-conditioned desk
with high-speed wireless. Accordingly, and as a result of all these
other experiences this summer, I can't stop nurturing my internal
crisis in accepting the post-conflict reconstruction model. I find
myself deeply quizzical of the ethical trajectory of this engagement.
Are we really helping these people 'improve' their lives somehow? What
does improvement really mean in a society where the people don't
really want to live as the rest of the west or the rest of the world?

More than one person has told me that the Nuer consider their culture
to be 'the best' in the world – something that kind of makes me and my
anthropological background laugh a bit. When a child is orphaned, he
is immediately absorbed by the community. Despite that husbands and
wives don't talk to one another after their wedding night (I'm being
100% literal on that…) family units are cohesive. People know each
other. Even if there were more than one 'bar' in Pagak town, everyone
would feel like a living episode of Cheers or a to the Max or the
Peachpit. As I sit here thinking about how emotional my departure from
Uganda was and how different this has been, I can only wonder how 20+
years of violence halts the desire for forward-thinking change, and
how, just maybe, the people don't see our oil-dependence, and our
gender-equality, and our commercial exploits as something desirable.

I'm certainly not sad to be leaving. I don't see myself paddling my
own canoe here in the bush, nor in Morningside Heights for that
matter, as particularly enviable. If nothing else, Sudan has been a
trip. A brain shaking, heart-pounding nightmarish-at-times hoo-haa
trip. And now I've arrived in Ethiopia. More adventures forthcoming.

Hi ho.

Enjoy my final pictures from Sudan and the journey.

Princess of the Mud, Elated by departure: