Nimule

Nimule lies in the homeland of the Madi, farmers of the Nile valley on both sides of what is now the border with Uganda. In the nineteenth century the Fula rapids just downstream of the town blocked boats, so traders, soldiers and explorers moving between Gondokoro and the lakes travelled overland around them, and Nimule grew as the place where the river route and the road to Uganda met.

Because it sits on the frontier, the town has been shaped by every conflict in the country. In the two Sudanese civil wars it lay on the corridor between southern Sudan and Uganda along which refugees, supplies and fighters moved, and control of the road and the crossing mattered to both sides. Nimule National Park, on the river beside the town, was established in 1954, and the fighting of the decades that followed left the area insecure.

After the 2005 peace agreement, many people returned from refugee camps in northern Uganda, and the upgrading of the paved road to Juba turned the border into the country's principal supply line. Growth brought its own problems: returning Madi landowners and displaced families from other parts of the country have disputed land in and around the town, and the crossing was again crowded after fighting resumed in 2013 and 2016 and people moved south into Uganda.

The Madi give the town its character. They are settled farmers rather than cattle herders, growing cassava, maize, sorghum, groundnuts and simsim, and their villages spread along the Nile on both sides of the border, so families and clans commonly have relatives in Uganda. Madi is the everyday language, with Juba Arabic used in the market, English in offices and schools, and Acholi, Luganda and Swahili heard from traders and drivers.

Churches dominate community life, as across Equatoria, and choirs, youth groups and church-run schools organise much of the town's social calendar. Traditional authority still counts: chiefs and elders mediate disputes over land, inheritance and marriage, and customary practice works alongside the formal courts. Drumming, dancing and communal work parties mark weddings, funerals and harvests.

Being a frontier town shapes manners as much as anything else. People are used to outsiders, Ugandan goods, music and football are part of daily life, and many residents spent years as refugees in Uganda and returned with its habits and languages. At the same time the question of who belongs, and who owns the land, is discussed carefully; it has been the most sensitive local issue since the returns began.

Nimule's population was estimated at 45,000 people in 2006 and no recent figure is published; it is swollen by displacement and by the trade at the crossing, and fluctuates with events elsewhere in the country. The town is low and spread out: tin roofs, compounds of mud brick and concrete, churches, schools, fuel stations and the long line of lorry yards along the road south.

The border is the economy. Customs revenue, freight, clearing agents, money changing, loading work and the guesthouses and eating places that serve drivers all depend on the traffic between Juba and Uganda, and when the road closes or fighting interrupts trade the town feels it immediately. Around that, most households farm plots outside the town or fish in the river.

The day starts before dawn with buses leaving for Juba and lorries queuing for clearance, and slows through the hot middle of the day. Water comes from boreholes and the river, power from generators and solar panels, and mobile phone signals often work better on the Ugandan network. Malaria, floods in the wet season, disputes over land and the price of fuel and food are the recurring concerns of local life.

The food here is closer to northern Uganda than to the cattle country of the north. Cassava is the everyday staple, boiled or dried and pounded into flour for a stiff porridge, alongside maize meal, sorghum kisra, the thin fermented flatbread, and sweet potatoes. These are eaten with stews of beans, okra, pigeon peas, boiled greens, simsim, sesame paste, or groundnut sauce.

Fish from the Nile is the local speciality, since the rapids and pools beside the town are productive: tilapia and Nile perch are grilled whole over charcoal, fried, or split and sun-dried for the market. Goat and chicken appear at celebrations, and roadside grills along the transit road serve meat to drivers at all hours.

Cross-border trade fills the market with Ugandan produce — matoke bananas, tomatoes, onions, rice, sugar and cooking oil — and with it Ugandan dishes such as posho and chapati. Sweet black tea is drunk from early morning at stalls under the trees, bottled beer and soft drinks come up from Uganda, and local brews made from sorghum, maize or cassava are made at home for gatherings.