"Good morning khwaja!"

So shout the little kids as I run down the dusty roads of Juba.

We've been here two weeks, and have had a full spectrum of experiences both in and out of work. Peter, Francisco and I are helping facilitate the budget planning processes of the nascent Government of Southern Sudan, and find ourselves doing anything and everything in an environment that will be recovering from decades of civil war for decades to come. As much as I recoil at using the phrase, I now know what "capacity-building" means in a very real way, as we're working with people who in many cases had to forgo formal education completely to fight in what was Africa's longest running (and most deadly) war. We're also getting involved in other projects like the design of the first household expenditure survey in Sudan, and are brainstorming how to start a modular subsistence agriculture scheme.

A sample of our activities outside work include:

• getting a jeep stuck in a pothole four feet deep on a random corner at 11pm
• accidentally driving down the President's driveway, with much shouting and a smattering of AK's pointed our way
• Francisco being stopped by the police demanding $200 in bribes, and getting out of it (courtesy, in part no doubt, to the negotiations course he took at HKSG)
• singing along to Dinka hymns in a local church service
• eating hamburgers and talking politics in an unreal expat hideaway
• etc.
  

Francisco hasn't photographed for real yet, but he's already taken a few fantastic photos that should appear here quite soon. Until then, here's a shot outside our hotel. We call it paradise...