The bush and the one-armed pilot

"We'll be done in less than an hour... we don't beat the bush around". That's nice, I thought, at least the bush doesn't suffer.
"The bush" is an term you hear daily around these parts, usually used to refer to the area outside of "towns" or settlements. If you didn't leave the country during the war, that means you were "in the bush" and after the war, came "out of the bush". Now, if your vehicle gets stuck you can spend the night "in the bush"; the same "bush" where the Arab herders hang out. Sorry, all of you guys in DC must hear enough about the Bush, so I'll move on.
Life is highlighted by the adventures you have, but more than anything, by the cast of characters on these adventures. I met Abraham: the only member of his family who caught the last train out of South Sudan before the war broke out, made his way to Egypt, and eventually ended up in Raleigh, North Carolina, only to return this summer to his home town to help build schools. His life is in his adoptive home, but his life is devoted to his motherland. There is Andrew, who after escaping to Uganda, made his way to Australia with his family, and while his brothers and sisters are successful doctors and lawyers Down Under, and his father is in South Africa training SPLA pilots, he has chosen to return to his home. Why? Well, he's not a fan of the "white collar" life. But he's not thinking about settling here for good. Few are. For now peace is just temporary. So sounds like people aren't coming back. But then I meet Jacob. He tells me that now everyone is on their way back. Life abroad has not been easy for the Sudanese people; families have suffered, it has been difficult to adapt, "the Sudanese people never aspired to leave their country" but were forced to do so. Apparently many professionals have not been able to find jobs--the Indian lawyer driving your DC cab last night could probably tell you about that. But what about Andrew's brothers who are practicing law and medicine over in Melbourne? As always there are those who make it and those who don't.
But remember, some, many actually, never left... the guys in the bush. A guy just came into our office crawling on all fours. He's a finance officer for one of the local community organization. A smart guy, but can no longer walk. He doesn't really have a wheelchair, but even if he did it wouldn't help on these "roads". Maybe crutches would help, but actually they would get caught in the muddy ground... If only we had roads... By the way, I have also discovered that the lack of roads is the reason for no glass! You can't transport glass windows or glass anything on these roads, so there is no glass anywhere. Stood by the side of a vehicle this morning and used its rear-view mirror to shave.
I'm back at my site, but I wasn't able to catch a flight back here on Tuesday because I was the only one who wanted to fly to Kauda so they canceled the flight. However yesterday I managed to get on a plane...it was me, another passenger, the pilot and the first officer. As we were taking off I noticed the pilot was only using her left arm and kept her right arm in a bent position as if she had it in a sling, only without a sling. Turns out she had had a motorcycle accident. I didn't catch her name, but she'll forever be known to me as "the one-armed pilot". They call the planes up here "matatus", which is also the name given to the little mini-vans that drive people around Nairobi like taxis and compete with the public buses. For all of your French and Spanish speakers the name "matatus" should be as disconcerting as it is to me. Sounds like "mata" "tout", or in other words, "kill" "everything"... or everyone in our case. They real reason the flights are compared to the Nairobi vehicles is that they stop and go, stop and go. We landed after 20 minutes, took off, landed after 5! Took off again; were supposed to land after another 15, but as we came in for our landing the one-armed pilot saw that the landing strip was flooded and decided to reach over her right arm with her left and push the plane back up. So now the 3 guys who we were supposed to be dropped off at the flooded place got to choose where they wanted to go. What a treat. They were given a choice of five places, but the one they chose was quickly scratched by a radio communication. Kinda like a menu at a restaurant in a developing country; at the end, they had no choice, they were going to be dropped off in Rumbek, but not after dropping me off first.