Awan was anxious to get to his destination before rivers began to rise. Passing through teak forests near Loka where most of the large trees have been cut down and exported, the narrow road turned north at Lainya through groves of bamboo. The terrain is largely flat, disrupted occasionally by 400-foot granite protrusions that jut from the forested plains. There was little commerce or traffic along this road other than Awan's truck. Several trucks bearing bags of peanuts from Mundri drove past heading into Yei, and the only other vehicles belonged to an aid agency patching the road.
People here get by with little.
Young men hunt rodents with bows and arrows, and many people wear tattered clothes. The markets have few supplies from the outside world - some plastic basins, a few cans of sardines, loose cigarettes and commodities such as salt. Everyone sells mangoes, but there are few buyers, as mangoes lie on the ground free for the taking. Before the civil war began between the Islamic government in Khartoum and the Christian and animist black Africans from the south, the villages along the route were more prosperous. But many of the schools, hospitals and churches built of brick have fallen into ruins as this region has traded hands several times during the war.