happy new year!

I've been MIA for a while but there is a perfectly good reason for that, actually two: evacuation and Christmas.

But now I'm in Cairo, waiting to fly back to East Africa and I thought I could explain what happened.

Well as some of you might have heard/read South Sudan is not in a really good place right now.  what happened is that 5 days before we were all supposed to fly back for Xmas holidays soldiers started shooting at each other in Juba, the capital, the place where THE AIRPORT IS LOCATED (really Murphy? Couldn't you have just waited for one more week?).

Anyways we all thought it was gonna calm down soon, it always does. But again Murphy decided we just needed to live it up. so there we were, locked in our compounds, waiting for updates and news from Juba.

I was frenetically going to the UN security meetings secretly hoping they were gonna say: You re good to go anna, things are great in South Sudan. Yes, I'm a dreamer and that's so not what happened. fightings went on, situation got tense and bad episodes happened (wish I could tell more about SS political situation but I somehow feel this is enough).

In the end we were told to evacuate the country on Wednesday the 18th, 7 days before the merry merry xmas. So basically all we had to do was grab documents and stuff, lock them up, close everything, talk to the staff… it was a very long wednesday, needless to say that. On thursday we left Torit at 7 am and drove to the border with Uganda. the roads were actually fine, they always have been in our area, so we had no problems in going to the other side and merrily riding in the car for another 8 hours to reach Kampala. We then booked new flights and flew home for the merry merry xmas.

As you might have understood, we were not exposed to any kind of troubles or problems: roads were fine, we reached Uganda without any problems and things were good. Nope, my worst was still to come.

At home they thought I was a soldier coming back from Afghanistan: I mean I understand everyone was scared and everything but I am wondering a lot about what the media said about the whole situation (I never really had time to sit down and read stuff). So the next three days were the welcoming of the hero from Africa: I was so not. that did not stop local journalists from calling me several times, asking me to give them interviews and tell them what happened. Again there was nothing to say and yet they made it sound like I was under the fire. It's fascinating really how journalists can transform words! 

But then again Cesena, is a small town in a rural region.. everyone loves whatever is different from the ordinary.

Now I'm waiting for my flight to Kampala (4 long hours of stop over) since we cannot immediately go back to South Sudan. We need to assess the situation and see whether things are actually ok now or if the turmoil is still around the corner. exciting life, I know :)

So sorry for the very long digression but Cairo airport is very boring and I thought it would be good to post my first 2014 creation now.

oh and for the record this is my merry merry xmas summary: FOOD (I didn't know it was possible to physically introduce so much food in one's body).

happy new year!