Forty years of civil war between North and South Sudan, ended in 2005 with the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, has left the country and its people ravaged.

In the Second Civil War (1983-2005) alone, more than two million southerners were killed; of which only a minority percentage were combatants.  Another five million people were displaced to camps in Ethiopia, Kenya and Uganda.

Today, the people of South Sudan are at a crossroads.  As a term of the 2005 CPA, the South has a limited degree of autonomy from the North, and the right to vote over the next few years to expand its autonomy.  In April 2010, Southerners are expected to vote in a new and permanent Southern government.  Presently, the Southern government is an interim government organized mostly as is indicated here.

Following elections, in late 2011 Southerners have the right to vote to secede from the North altogether.

Secession would mean complete sovereignty from the North, with all the responsibilities associated with independence. Government would likely be unchanged from the structure set up in the 2010 elections; but the South would need to handle its own border control, diplomacy, trade agreements, immigration and taxation.

Registrations for next year's election are already underway in both the cities and the villages.  In an area largely without computerization, registration of eligible voters (documented citizens over the age of 18) are carried out by hand at places of public gathering in cities and villages alike. While officials said that elections are expected to go smoothly, some people on the streets expressed a greater degree of concern.

Concerns ranged from interference in the vote by the North to the registration lists being used to levy more taxes; and in more extreme cases, be used as political hit lists.  However, much of the South is happy and anxious to formally establish their own government.

But the challenges facing South Sudan are not limited to political struggles.  After so many years of war, very few modern buildings exist outside of the largest cities; and those buildings are rarely and unreliably served with electricity, sewer and water.  Outside of the cities, many people live a Stone Age existence with a few modern conveniences.

Villagers and city residents alike tend to live in round, mud-and-thatch huts similar to yurts.  The region lacks contemporary building materials, and a people used to living in war are accustomed to homes that can be abandoned on a moment's notice with little actual loss.

Additionally, the huts as constructed now are well-suited to the region's climate.  The mud walls tend to need repair after a hard rain, but the structures themselves make the heat and humidity tolerable; even without any kind of refrigeration-based climate control or electricity for fans.

Roads are the region's biggest weakness.  Southern Sudan is a resource-rich area of the world.  All along the Nile, fertile black farmland is available for cultivation.  The Nile itself is a vast fishery, and provides the potential for hydroelectric power generation.  The South also has uranium deposits and oil fields.

Of all of these resources, the oil fields are the only being exploited at the moment.  The single largest barrier to the successful collection of these other resources is the complete lack of quality roads within the country.  The cost of transporting materials either to manufacture or market is too great as a result of the road conditions.

A 100-mile drive from the Southern capital of Juba to Bor, two of the largest cities in the South, can take up to 10 hours due to the rutting, potholes and animals in the roadway. Often, vehicles traveling along the Juba road are required to travel in a military convoy to ward off bandits and insurgents making trouble along the road.

Driving the 25-or-so miles between Bor and Alian village routinely took us two or three hours, not counting any stops we made along the way.

People that can afford it often fly from city to city in smaller, regional aircraft. These flights are operated by Kenyan, Ugandan and Sudanese companies; although the Sudanese companies are generally regarded as unsafe. But while air travel may work for moving people, it is impractical for moving large volumes of raw material or finished goods.

Some companies have begun to lay the groundwork for a commercial fishery and cannery along the Nile in Bor; but difficulties in moving the heavy equipment into the region and a lack of skilled workers to construct and run the operation slows progress.

The lack of an infrastructure facilitating the movement of finished products to market makes goods expensive. Prices in markets for everything from food to batteries can be high, even by American and European standards. A bottle of water, though widely available, sells for $0.50USD -$1USD. A 50kg sack of sorghum, often sold illegally in a USAID bag, sells for $40USD-$60USD, and prices can skyrocket town-to-town when roads are closed. Residents offset the cost by raising their own goats, cattle (more so in the rural areas) and chickens, and by drinking non-bottled water.

Services for travelers, international or domestic, are also extremely expensive; especially relative to quality. $100USD per person per night generally buys a foam mattress in a block room with or without attached toilet facilities and limited electricity.

Many children do attend schools.  However, the quality of the schools can be lacking in terms of preparing children for either vocational careers or additional academic training.  To continue schooling after what we would consider grade school often necessitates parents sending their children to Nairobi, Kampala or other international destinations.

This international schooling in some cases leads to "brain drain" where educated Sudanese students choose to stay on in their host country after graduation.  In some cases work opportunities are better outside South Sudan; and quality-of-life can be much better.

Universities are in place in Juba and Bor, and administrators are working to make those schools a viable option for Sudanese children.  In the coming years, Sudanese universities will be in better position to compete with foreign institutions. As with nearly everything else in Southern Sudan, even where resource and opportunity are present, generally the money is not available to exploit it.

Some people do have an option to have the military pay for their university studies; provided they qualify through testing. Even still, if a uniformed soldier attends school at the military's expense, the military dictates the course of study.

Medical care remains the largest deficiency in the region.  Larger medical centers can be found in cities like Juba, but they tend to be woefully inadequate.  Infant mortality, as well as maternal mortality, rates are out-of-control.  Problems largely solved in other regions, like polio, measles and typhoid, continue to plague the region; despite UN-sponsored immunization campaigns.

Fevers, diarrhea and malaria are also endemic in the region.  Disease accounts for only some of the medical need in the area.  With urbanization comes trauma from car accidents, falls, construction mishaps, repetitive stress injuries, and the other traumas of life: burns, broken bones and lacerations.

Of course, as sporadic fighting and inter-tribal cattle raids continue, medical staff must also be able to handle gunshot and blunt trauma injuries.

At present, these services are provided with varying degrees of success in village huts.  In extreme cases, patients are moved to Khartoum or Nairobi for surgeries and more complicated treatments.

And once again, transportation is a monumental barrier to life.  A child, with burns over 40 percent of his body from an accidental hot water spill, had to walk 25 miles with his mother from a tribal village to the nearest medical center.  In Bor, he began his recovery under the supervision of a Cuban-trained doctor on dirty bedsheets and with a shortage of bandages.

Officials in the region have begun to reach out to the international community for investment, loans, gifts and grants to kick-start South Sudan's growth and development.

Starting with a trip in November, 2009 we'll be following South Sudan through elections and the referendum on independence.

Below, we have photos from the first trip, and will be adding more content to this page soon.