Gotta love the rainy season

Here are some pics from my recent trip to Mundri. More specifically, the road between Mundri and Juba after it had rained overnight. Fun fun! As you can see the roads are seriously messed up. At one point our vehicle had to be pulled out of the mud by a crane (!!!) Plus there was gorgeous scenery along the way. And we bought some freshly-collected honey.

The trip itself went ok, it was just for two days so nothing too hard core. I went there with one of our donors to assess the VCT services provided by another organization to see if we can potentially support their work to expand services. What was there on the ground was appalling. Worse than Tambura. This org claimed to run 4 VCT sites, but upon further inquiry we found that one site was closed because they had no counselor to work there, one was closed because the roof had blown off the structure back in March 2008, and a third site was actually funded and run by another organization - this org just does supervision to the counselor. So they really only have functional operations in one place. Not to mention that they brought us to the site that was run by the other org as one of "their" sites. There were test kits which had expired in 2007, a sharps container that did not contain disinfectant, no confidential filing system, and it goes on and on and on. And that site was even closed because the counselor was away for the past 3 weeks for training! Their compound was literally built on top of an anthill so there were ants EVERYWHERE (outside, in the mess area, etc), their generator had blown up so there was no electricity, both their vehicles were grounded pending repairs, and all 4 of their motorbikes were also not functioning. Plus the entire 2 days we were there I didn't see them actually doing any work. It's like they just sit around and let their clinics run themselves. If you ever hear me complaining about Juba again, just remind me of the fact that I work for an organization that is able to get things done, whether it is running programs or fixing vehicles, I don't live on an anthill, and I work for a boss who actually provides support to the org instead of sitting around doing nothing.