On the Banks of the Big River

We've been here in the big city of the south for only a few days now, but it has been long enough for me to begin suspecting that those first 30 minutes in the airport were moments spent in a microcosm of the city itself. We stepped off the plane and melted into the crowd swarming around the travel documents desk. Young development workers were exchanging their North Face jackets for aviator sunglasses. A local politician in pointed leather shoes was greeted by children in indigo school uniforms, singing and holding out a lei of tinsel flowers. Tall dark girls in denim and faux Dolce and Gabbana purses mingled against a wall adorned with anti-corruption posters while soldiers representing at least three different branches of the military smoked cigarettes up against another. Air conditioners blasted moderately cool air into the one-room terminal, patiently fighting a losing battle against the billows of dusty heat coming in from half a dozen open windows and doors.
Most of our days have been spent in the car, driving from one air-conditioned container-turned-office to another. We join the fleets of UN trucks, public transport vans and motorcycle taxis fighting for space on either incredibly nice paved roads or horrifically bad dirt ones. Piles of red and blue plastic bottles on the side of the road break up the colorless glare of glass-fronted banks. Men sell cut stalks of sugar cane in front of signs advertising "Snow Ball Ice Cream"(which I really want to look into). Herds of cattle with horns so long it seems that holding the weight of their own heads should be impossible push shiny black hummers to the side of the road. Our friend jokes that they are probably the ones cattle rustlers stole from his neighbors last night. He couldn't sleep because of the gun shots.
Although the registration process is quite daunting and more than a little time consuming, almost everyone in the many legal, governmental, political and developmental departments has been very professional and helpful. We're hoping the whole process won't take too long. We are anxious to get home. It's nice to have a pleasant place to come back to in the evenings though. Our hotel feels like the kind of place that was built by someone who realized they could make a fortune it they acted now. Everything from the prefab walls to the showerheads have company names like "Chang Hong" on them and our bedsheets are a lovely shade of bright eggplant. The water from the shower is pumped straight out of the big river itself and pools at your feet in a color that makes you feel a little less clean than you thought. But the view of the big river from the hotel is so beautiful it almost makes you feel proud to have bathed in it. On top of that, there is a quasi-tame vervet monkey named Kakule that has a pleasantly unnerving habit of hiding under the metal stairs and grabbing your ankles as you walk down. Why would we want to be anywhere else?