Independence Day!

July 9th, Tuesday, was South Sudan's second anniversary of independence, and let me tell you they celebrate as only people who still vividly remember the struggle for independence can.  Nobody works, everybody celebrates, and a general sense of exuberant joy covers the entire city.  Since I got here three weeks ago they've been building up to the celebrations with billboards congratulating the government and people on their progress.  Abruptly yesterday all the radio commercials almost exclusively turned to companies offering their own congratulation messages to the country.  Slogans here often revolve around the country's new found status, for instance White Bull a common beer here has the tagline 'the taste of progress' and Vivacell's (a cell phone company) motto is 'we believe' and there were people in shirts everywhere on independence day sporting the slogan on patriotic themed shirts.  Here's me in the back of the truck that took us part of the way:

As for the actual celebrations we had to walk most of the way since the roads were shut down by the hundreds of police men and women on the streets, whether for actual protection or simply as a show of force remains unclear.  But the walk was a part of the party as we approached an area that is just a giant field built with grandstands for this purpose is my understanding, although perhaps it is used for other events, but most of the time guards stand watch and don't allow anyone to stop on the road that runs by.  I think part of it serves as a war memorial as well, but I could be misunderstanding exactly what it is.  On the road people were waving flags, dressed in flags, and the mood was one of general celebration.  I was with my boss, a British friend, and our South Sudanese driver/logistician/friend, meaning that everywhere we went cries of 'gowaja!' followed us.

Gowaja (a poor transliteration of the Juba Arabic word for foreigner) is how small children greet us here, and Tuesday cries of it followed us everywhere.  People saw us and pointed, and then wanted their picture taken with us.  I took so many pictures with random South Sudanese people who were just thrilled to see foreigners at their celebration.  Usually it would be a group of twenty something guys, who would hand us flags and then crowd in around us and force their other friends to take pictures of them with us.  It was fun, and maybe I should have felt more awkward, but if taking a picture with some foreigner who came to celebrate made their independence day better, or more amusing, or for a good story later, then who was I to argue? It was their independence day after all, and I was just lucky to be present.  Here are some shots of me with random people celebrating:

The actual celebrations occurred in a giant field where the many tribes of South Sudan had amassed to put on their best traditional dances, sing, play music, and generally have a good time.  We'd walk up to a giant crowd of people and inevitably in the center would be a circle of men or women or both dancing in colorful traditional dress, usually to drums, and there was often singing.  Each tribe had their own dress, music and dances, and when we walked up we were often whisked (or slightly manhandled) to the front of the crowd to ensure the gowaja had a first row view of whatever celebration was going on.  We were also pretty short compared to most of the people we were standing around, the Dinkas (one of the area tribes) are notoriously tall, and for some perspective I was the tallest person in our group of four, so we needed whatever assistance we could get in terms of seeing what was going on.

It was a wonderful time walking the field, seeing all the people celebrating and just generally enjoying their day off.  As we walked back people zipped by on boda bodas (the local term for motorcycles) with giant flags held by the passengers streaming behind them, cars with flags tied to their hoods or tied to polls on the back hitch were ubiquitous, and I would wave a little South Sudan flag I'd acquired as they went by, which led to much cheering from the occupants.

Here's one last picture of the gowajas I was hanging out with that day:

By the time we made it back from our expedition I was exhausted from the heat and the walking.  I spent the rest of the day relaxing with some American TV and avoiding the somewhat rowdy bar crowd that was sure to make an appearance in the evening hours.  It was an excellent day and the city seems to be recovering from it's celebration hang over slowly today, military personnel and police are still everywhere, but slowly the dignitaries that had arrived are leaving the city and traffic is returning to normal.  I managed two meetings on Wednesday and to get a decent amount of work done so I'm hoping the entire week won't be a loss in terms of work as my boss feared it might.