PPPPoker Face reflected in the Nile

As the blistering hot air from the sun starts to subside and the star-blanketed night sky emerges, I turn to new types of entertainment. My evenings have consisted of trying to watch “The Blind Side” on SurftheChannel for about a week now (I’m able to get about 15 minutes downloaded/night) and playing inordinate amounts of solitaire on my computer (I’ve even played about half the games with my left hand, just to switch it up). SO, you can imagine my absolute thrill when the friend of a friend I’d met a couple nights before, Pete, invited me to join him and some others in a game of poker by the Nile. There are hundreds of rivers that constitute the Nile, each with specific names, but in the most general sense, Juba is situated along the White Nile which originates at Lake Victoria, joins up with the Blue Nile near Khartoum, and feeds into the main Nile we all know from our 6th grade history classes on Egypt.

Having been re-assured by my grandmother (Bubby) on Skype that learning poker is pretty easy, I got picked up by the clan and we headed to AFREX, a tent/bungalow camp which accommodates most

of the USAID workers in town. Right along the Nile, there is a buffet area with a kitchen serving pizzas (pizza is really big here), a pool table, large flat screen TVs, and of course a bar. You knew almost everyone who was there was American since the Africa Cup (soccer) was on TV yet no one was paying attention

We ordered pizzas and plopped ourselves down at a large table right on the bank of the Nile. Over the course of the night I decided to try three major local/regional beers, Tusker, Nile Special, and White Bull (the last a Sudanese beer). Tusker tastes like Budweiser, While Bull tastes (if you can believe it) like a watered-down version of Budweiser, and Nile Special was actually pretty good… With 5.6% alcohol and a claim that it is brewed at the source of the Nile, Nile will prove to be my Special beer of choice. I love their website, which attempts to link the Nile and Beer: “The Nile River has also played a unique and historical role in what is now a multi-billion dollar industrybeer. The oldest known evidence of beer brewing is a 6 000 year old carving on a clay tablet, depicting beer drinking scenes. It is from waters of the Nile River in Ancient Egypt, that the humble beginnings of beer brewing took place.”

At the poker game I was able to meet a number of expats who work at different Ministries within the government (Planning, Education, Finance) by means of various groups (Deloitte, ODI, UNICEF) and was able to hear lots of interesting stories about the Government of South Sudan (GoSS) which appears to lack a significant amount of capacity needed to deal with the huge amounts of outside aid and support pouring in. Joking about corruption and scandals, we managed to play a pretty honest game of poker of which, I’m happy to report, I won (i.e. I didn’t lose any money)… Hopefully this will become a regular occurence as the prospect of excelling at ambidextrous solitaire, albeit noble, has a tinge of deep concern attached to it, don’t you think? Yes, yes, I do know reading is a possibility as well…

Have now got a couple more contacts through other friends so have a feeling I will a-okay! Let’s see what the weekend brings….

Cheers! Miriam

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Submited at Friday, January 29th, 2010 at 3:00 pm on Africa by jessica
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