This blog contains stories, reflections, sketches, and analysis collected by Andrew Shaughnessy in South Sudan.
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This blog contains stories, reflections, sketches, and analysis collected by Andrew Shaughnessy in South Sudan.
South Sudan - Shaughnessy 
Andrew, you and I met a couple of times briefly during my trips to Lynchburg over the years that I worked with your father. I left the company over a year ago after a long assignment in China (5+ years) and have been living in Arizona since then. Your father sent me the link to your blog, an act for which I am now in his debt. I just finished reading everything and I will back for updates.
As you carry forward with the work of the rural water tech team, you are chronicling the birth of a new country in dangerous and challenging times. You have impressive writing skills, but one of your real gifts lies in your ability to capture the heat and the grittiness; the tastes and the smells; and your understanding of the lives and spirits of the people you are helping there. In a sentence, you froze an image in my mind of “eyes young and tired, feeling of isolation and horrible potential that comes with a gun and human nature”. And you have described the South Sudan so well that, for a change, I felt no need to search for photos of the places you mention — you painted a very clear picture with your words.
You are doing a great thing by being there to help where so much help is needed, but I think you are doing an equally great thing by so well recording the early days in the formation of a new country. Few of us participate in things like that, and fewer still have the talent to describe it for everyone else. The people you are helping will have reason to thank you for this for generations to come.
Keep up the great works – stay safe – and thanks for a good read!
Jay Murray
Jay,
thanks so much for your comments. If I have managed to show a bit of the beauty and truth and grit of South Sudan, and if I can do so vividly, than I am accomplishing my goals for these posts. I hope you continue to get something worthwhile out of these writings.