Shadi Bushra |

When South Sudan was birthed after a long civil war, there was much its midwives had to do to bring it into its new status. Germany replaced the tents housing government ministries with buildings, fellow oil exporter Norway advised the government on the perils and prospects of petro-statehood, while everyone contributed to improving some of the world’s worst health and education statistics through the United Nations. China built the capital’s airport, Japan built bridges, and the United States, a country of Cadillacs and Chevys, built the country’s first highway.

The 192-km paved motorway snakes through the south of the country from the capital, Juba, to the Ugandan. It was built by USAID - at a quarter-billion dollars - to reduce dependence on north Sudan and deepen regional ties. The American ambassador in Juba, Susan Fine, called it the country's "road to prosperity." Despite delays and cost overruns, it was touted as the largest project in South Sudan, effectively doubling the amount of paved roads in the country. I chose to focus my project on the social effects of this new goliath road.

There were benefits, such as bringing distant schools and hospitals within reach and creating new drinking wells from boreholes drilled for the construction process. Meanwhile tukuls, mud-and-straw homes, can stock up on essentials from stores that are serviced by a stream of trucks. The road also brings home South Sudanese refugees who fled the war and now see an opportunity to resettle.

But a cash crunch amid a renewed civil war have made maintaining and policing the road a low priority, turning the Juba-Nimule road into one of the most dangerous stretches for accidents on the continent. East African drivers are on the road for days with no designated rest-stops, and are fatigued by the time they cross the border. Suddenly they have to drive on the opposite side, over gaping potholes, with zero streetlights and almost no police.

One telling story was that of a bus from Kenya that hit and killed a half-dozen and did not stop. Villagers up the road blocked the street, dragged the driver out, and stoned him to death. The chief explained to me that there would be no justice otherwise, as dozens of drivers who kill pedestrians simply drive away with no police to chase them. The bus is still parked in the village square, near the road, as a reminder to those who would drive recklessly.

Here a girl stops along the road to hitch-hike home after a day of cutting sugarcane for market. Sugarcane and other crops form the backbone of the South Sudanese economy. However, trade is highly localized in part due to a lack of transportation to get crops to larger and more lucrative markets. 

Parina and her children inside her tukul, the traditional mud and straw hut common throughout South Sudan, located along the Juba-Nimule road. Most along the road live without electricity and running water. Although the road has drastically increased public transportation, she still cannot afford to take the buses constantly passing by.

The carcasses of a small car and a lorry face each other after a head-on collision. South Sudan finished construction of its first paved inter-city road in September, 2012, linking the capital, Juba to the Ugandan border to increase trade. However, a side effect has been skyrocketing traffic accidents.

James Fega, who walks an hour and a half to his post selling coal along the road, watches as a car passes after buying its coal elsewhere. Most stores dependent on imports have seen profits boom due to easy access to factories in Uganda and the Port of Mombassa in Kenya. Businesses reliant on South Sudanese products, such as charcoal, have seen their sales plummet.

Trucks heading south towards the Ugandan border. The 192 km Juba-Nimule road is South Sudan's first paved highway, built by the United States government at a cost of $230 million dollars to support the young nation's development after a half century of war between South Sudanese rebels and the central government in Khartoum.

Maripani rearranges her children for a portrait in the roadside village of Baibai. There are about a dozen villages that the road bisects over its 192 km from Juba to the Ugandan border. Since the road was built, transportation has become easier, but residents complain of speeding, accidents, and an increase in prostitution.

Mobutu, a resident of Pageri village, inside his tukul, which has a number of minor amenities, like toothpaste and laundry soap, that would be much more difficult to obtain without the new road. The structure is popular throughout the region for its simple construction, cool temperature, and flexibility of use. A single man, Mobutu has about five square meters to himself. A wealthy man would have a tukul for himself, each of his wives, as well as separate tukuls for cooking and other uses.

Children pump water out of a borehole in Loa, near the Juba-Nimule Road. Many of the boreholes in nearby villages were installed by the construction companies building the road because the construction process is so water-intensive. Since construction ended, the boreholes have become necessary parts of people's lives.

The bus that killed five bystanders in Loa village. It was eventually stopped up the road in Pageri and the driver was stoned to death. Buses coming from Nairobi and Kampala are common on the road, as they bring migrants looking for work as well as South Sudanese refugees returning home after years of exile in neighboring countries.

A solar panel provides power to a store along the Juba-Nimule Road, South Sudan's first paved road. The overwhelming majority of homes and businesses in South Sudan do not have electricity, and those that do get it from diesel generators or solar panels.

Arego Simon takes a break from listening to BBC World News on his radio to reflect over the grave of his brother, Attore. At 76 years old, Arego lived through independence from Britain, and two North-South Sudanese civil wars. During the latest civil war, the grave was damaged by shrapnel from the Sudanese government's Antonov bombers.

Tabu Kalisto uses his motorcycle to ferry passengers from nearby villages to Nimule, sometimes packing as many as four passengers onto his back seat of his boda-boda, as the motorcycle taxis are called. The newly paved road has caused a decline in Kalisto's profits since buses and private cars now operate in greater numbers.

Adolescents walking along the road as they head home from cutting sugarcane to sell. Although cars are allowed to travel at 80 kmph on the road, many villagers continue to use it as a footpath since it is easier to walk on than the bumpy land along it.

The carcass of a crashed car lies in a forest after a man-made fire along the Juba-Nimule road. A common complaint is that crashed vehicles are not removed from the road, sometimes becoming a danger to traffic. The government responds that it has enough trouble getting the manpower to police speeding vehicles to prevent future accidents to focus on past ones.

Two men return from hunting along the Juba-Nimule Road. The Madi tribe that makes up about four-fifths of the population along the road often hunts by burning large swathes of forest and then ambushing the animals as they escape downwind.