I absolutely, without a shadow of a doubt hate all
motorcycle riders in juba. ALL of THEM. I feel like they really don’t give a
shit about their lives and have never heard of traffic rules (granted, half of
juba has no clue what these are either).
But I’ve been lucky so far… until today.
Was driving to KonyoKonyo market after work- quite excited
because I had bought some plants at the State nursery and was looking forward
to buying some pots to repot these. Come
up to the round-a-bout that leads to Juba town and Juba Teaching Hospital
when…. I hit a motorcycle rider and his passenger. This quickly escalates into one
of those moments where I ask myself- why the ckuf im I in this country…
I get out of my car, the cop is yelling at me in Juba
Arabic, I don’t understand a word… he motions me to get my car out of the
round-a-bout because I am causing traffic… there’s a small crowd gathered at
this point- motherfuckers just yelling shit in a language I don’t understand,
body language all aggressive- I think someone (including one of the cops) is
about to hit me. And when I try to get
into my car… one of the guys involved in the accident slams the car door
against me in anger. (Of course I immediately have napoleon’s complex- my 5’6
frame leaps out of the car as though I can actually do something about the
situation. We have a brief stare-down before one cop again yell somethings at
me -this is one of those moments where I think… I really need to learn this
bloody language)
Long story short- I have to drive these guys to traffic
police… the motorcycle is following as is a cop car. I’m driving dude that slammed the car door
against me and acted like he was ready to throw a punch…im sorry I hit the guy
but im also a quite livid
At the police station… *&^%%* more Arabic I don’t
understand. so I call up a friend to
come help…. We have to fill out a form 8 incidence report, Initially the cops
want me to sit at the police station while these guys go to the hospital to get
checked over but my friend convinces them that since he’s driving, we should
all go together. So we drive these guys to the hospital (Aweil dude had actually
told my friend that he could’ve easily fucked me up. He asks my name… and my father’s name (ein ng’a??)
I’m from Aweil, malual bai/… he is like, she’s lying…. Turns out he’s from
Aweil too and knew my father/ his family)
Drive to Juba Teaching Hospital, the two guys get checked
over… one of them is told… there’s nothing wrong with you except a minor
bruise.. Aweil guy.. we gotta get x-rays cause he’s had a previous surgery and
says he thinks its gotten exacerbated. So we have to drive to a private clinic
to get the x-rays (the teaching hospital doesn’t provide x-ray services? Something
is off, south sudan). After >1hr of waiting, these come out… normal, nothing
wrong here. By this time he’s calmed down because prior we had to stop by Home
& Away restaurant- he had to meet someone to pass a message- and I met up
with my bro-in-law- and his Northern Bahr el Ghazal crew- and they were
basically telling Aweil dude… yo, this is so and so’s daughter and y’all come
from the same place...
Have to drive back to the police station… on arrival there, Aweil
dude receives a call from his uncle whom he tells, I got hit by xxx’s daughter-
so I get handed the phone and the uncle is basically like, listen, y’all are
family, I’ve told him to drop any charges and you guys can take care of
whatever issues without involving the police (basically Aweil dude wants me to
replace a phone he lost during the drive to the police station). I cant get my car yet cause the other guy
(the owner of the ride), didn’t come back to the police station from the hospital so we’ll have to continue
with that case.. bukra. (Meaning I could easily have slept in jailwaiting for
him to come back and resolve the issue.) But for this half? At least its all
sorted out… mainly because my father’s name still carries a lot of weight in
Aweil/ Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal.
I guess I should feel lucky- I could easily have spent a
night in jail. But damn. And I have insurance?
