Greetings from Juba, Southern Sudan. I am here on a one- month job working on a U.S. government funded development project. The task is to work with villages along a 192 kilometer roadway the US government has contracted for reconstruction - replacing a dirt road with an asphalt road. The task is to ensure that the villages work with the contractor to facilitate some of the work and also that the contractor hires local skilled and unskilled workers to the extent possible. Most of the people along the roadway are recent returnees from refugee status in Uganda.

Whatever you've heard about the problems of Sudan, they're all true and probably worse. Darfur is a special case, dating from about 2003, and nowhere near resolution.

Southern Sudan has been involved in a civil war with the north since about 1983. A peace agreement was signed in 2005, but there is still sporadic fighting, particularly in a disputed border area between north and south. The problem is oil reserves in the ground in the disputed area. Both sides want the oil. No surprise.

Another problem stems from the north being mainly Islamic, as is the central government. The south is Black African and has felt abused by the northern government for decades - probably since independence from Britain in about 1954. So the animosities run long and deep.

Also, the infamous Ugandan- based Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) is running around southern Sudan. These guys are probably the lowest on the scum ladder, kidnapping and using kids as soldiers, looting, killing, raping, and generally causing havoc in Uganda, southern Sudan, northeastern Congo, and sometimes in the Central African Republic. How these scum bags can continue to survive is another depressing story.

Juba is a city of over 100,000 people, mostly new returnees from refugee status in Uganda. Most of them are as yet reluctant to return to their villages and are sort of squatting wherever they can find space. This was never much of a city and is now somewhat of a shabby- looking place. There are only a handful of two and three story buildings.

Juba is the highest priced city in Africa and the highest priced for value in the world according to some surveys. A not very decent hotel room will cost $200, and a "tent" hotel room can run $185 per night.

Corruption is rampant as there is very little in the way of government revenues. They are supposed to receive some revenues from the oil, but the government in Khartoum very rarely provides any. If the international donors departed Juba, the city and the government of Southern Sudan would go under in a matter of days. The government is also short of trained and qualified people so that the "bench strength" below the minister and deputy levels is not very deep.

There are soldiers everywhere, particularly along the roads outside the city, based in small community- like encampments. They are often looking for handouts and rides. Drunken soldiers are a big problem. They are surly and not very nice to women, and basically they are men who started fighting as boys and have known nothing else for most of their lives. Post traumatic stress disorder is probably a fact of life for many, if not most of these guys.

Cleanliness is not seen very much. Every disease known to mankind is available. Cholera breaks out occasionally but doesn't seem to spread very far from the isolated cases.

The Nile River runs past Juba and is so filthy and polluted. The city's sewage and waste gets dumped on the ground some miles from town but, unfortunately, close enough to a feeder stream that seepage eventually gets into the Nile, never mind what already comes from upstream. And this is the source of bathing, household use, and washing for the city population.