The town of Pagak is literally in the middle of nowhere. To get here, you either need to hire a private plane, bum a ride on a cargo flight, or drive across Ethiopia to the border and hop on an ATV or a dirt bike for the rest of the way. If you can manage to get here, Save the Children has a pretty permanent looking compound here right next to the dirt airstrip.
From the airstrip you walk down a dirt "road" that has been gutted with deep channels from our LandCruiser as it tries to avoid getting stuck in the mud. You walk down said muddy path for about 30 seconds and knock on the corrugated tin sheet metal that forms the compound gate . Eventually a guard will wander up, unlock the door and let you in.
Inside, we have about 10 or so little buildings, tents, huts, or other forms of enclosed space to work out of or get away from the rain. The largest is the Dining Hall (or Dining Hut). Its a sweet wood and mud room covered with grass and topped off with a giant UNHCR tarp. About once a month, some of the local staff re-muds the walls to fill in the cracks and crumbled exterior. Outside are the two satellite dishes that provide communication with the outside world. Provided there are no clouds or rain, that is. Inside, we have our meals (Spaghetti, rice, and baked beans--everyday!) as well as a TV and dart board. I've been hitting the darts pretty hard. When the generator kicks off at noon, in the evening, and at night, there's not much else to do. I've unwisely already long burned through my supply of books. When the office gets too full of people, the overflow head into the dining hall and set up shop.
The office itself is actually pretty small--just a one room tukul. But inside we have five desks, printers, and most importantly--wireless internet. Although it becomes impossible to use once more than a few people are using it, its one of those things that you don't fully appreciate until the generator kicks off. Because of the presence of the mighty internet, we usually are in the office until about 11 at night officially working on projects, or unofficially just messing around.
From the door of the office, you can take the network of rock paths (as the rain turns all of the mud into a deep deep soup) to either the kitchen or one of the several rooms in the compound.
Breakfast is usually pancakes or mandazi (fried bread--like an unsweetened donut) and always some hot tea with powdered milk. Nyamone cooking up some pancakes:
There are two types of living quarters--brick rooms and tukuls. I suppose three types--we also have two small two-man dome tents covered with tarps for overflow. All of the rooms are arranged around the perimeter of the compound, which means that at night you can hear just about everything outside--blasting
Teddy Afro music, local police on patrol, and people chatting away in their tukuls.
The winner of the compound amenities game is the hot water. That's right, hot water. A while back, someone had the presence of mind to cut in half one of the many old oil drums that we have and use it to heat water throughout the day.
All you have to do is take your bucket walk over to the oil drum, scoop up some of the water, add some disinfectant to kill of all of the worms, bacteria, and all the other crap living in it and...bam! You've got yourself an instant shower my friend.
With all of the crazy moving around that I've been doing lately and the old luggage crisis at the beginning of my trip, I didn't realize until today that I've been here for over a month now. I've started to settle in pretty well--hot water, mud, wandering goats and all. Seven weeks to go!
-b
