Excellent!

Denied the Thai Saturday night, I decided to go for it tonight. Came around the roundabout smoothly, cruised up one of three tarmaced roads in the town and took the right onto the smooth dirt road that takes you to the fine establishment that is Home and Away.

As I took that right hand turn off the tarmac road I noticed the 'splaaaaahh' presence. 'Splaaah' as in SPLA, Sudanese Peoples Liberation Army.

"Not again", I said aloud to myself as I straightened out from the turn and moved down the road ( I talk to myself a lot these days. I am good company if I do say so myself).

I took the left to head towards the gate and was surprised to see both sides of the street were lined with cars.

"This does not bode well", I thought as I parked the Land Rover.

As I walked toward the gate I noticed one side was open, a positive sign that was not there the other night. Lots more 'splaaaaah' but no heavy artillery tonight, just the AKs. I ask if I can eat and they wave me through the metal detector. It goes off, no one cares, I have nothing metallic besides my zippers on my person.

I go walk up to the Thai restaurant area and notice a 'Reserved' sign. I walk back down looking for someone to ask whether I can eat up there or not and they say yeah, so I walk up there and get the stares. I see some randoms and ask them. They indicate yes, so I go back up there and the looks begin, yes I have ridiculous hair people, it's the cold water, dust and lack of Aveda products. It's not polite to stare. Stop it. I ask the Rwandan waitress what the story is and she shoos me down to the patio a level below and tells me I can order from there because the upper area was indeed reserved.

I went and sat down and was actually able to order, off the menu even--Tuesday's are generally buffet night, so that was a small miracle. I generally don't like buffets unless they are composed of items I want to eat.

I was unconvinced that I was actually going to be served, but as time went on I started to believe.

While I was waiting. I noticed a nappily attired fit young guy with a walkie talkie come up and plant himself in the fenced in patio entrance way. After a couple of minutes everyone around me, about 10 people rose to their feet, I anticipating what was to come next at this point and rose to my feet as well and low and behold His Excellency, Lt. General, First Vice President of the Sudan, President of the Government of South Sudan, Salva Kiir did indeed appear, resplendent in his signature hat and beige suit!

There he was, my boy Sal. If only I could have joined him for dinner, said hello. All in good time. We're clearly going to cross paths since we've both decided this is the best eatery in town, which it is, at least as far as I am aware.

Again, very amazing that one can circulate in the same basic area to a rather important political figure, let alone literally be less than 20 feet away. Is he in the same league as a Gorby, Reagan, Bush, Mitterand, Sarko-Fascist, or Blair? No, but still in this neck of the woods where all these people are essentially omnipotent, it is rather amazing you can get that close.

Clearly I am not threatening looking.