Emergency Response in South Sudan

After a week of training in at the Medair Global Support Office (GSO) in Switzerland, and a day at the team house in Nairobi, I finally arrived in Juba, South Sudan. Stepping onto the tarmac at Juba airport is the near equivalent of stepping into an oven set to broil. Juba is large by South Sudanese standards, but small by comparison to other capital cities around the globe. In the southwest, a lone mountain, Djebel, is the only disruption to the otherwise flat landscape. Juba has the feeling of people hurrying. It could be due to the relentless heat, or the memory of recent war, but people generally don’t slow down until they are safely behind the walls separating most buildings and houses. Our compound contains our team house, our office, and our warehouse. So the majority of living and working is done from within our walls. About 30 people are staying in the house, and many Medair staff members stopover there on their way to-and-from the field. It’s an incredibly int