It’s a Bumpy Ride For South Sudan’s One And Only Limo
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The elite pay $110 an hour for a chance to be seen in the stretched Lincoln Navigator.JOCELYN EDWARDS/FOR THE TORONTO STARSitting in the back of a limousine at South Sudan’s main airport, Latjor Mayul shows off the car’s flat-screen TV and sound system, loaded with gospel music.
As he flicks on the disco lights behind the passengers’ heads, passersby cross the red dirt parking lot for a better look.
The white 2003 Lincoln Navigator is the first and only limousine in South Sudan. In the youngest nation in the world — and one of the globe’s poorest — the car is a display of luxury that doesn’t fail to turn heads.
“When I unloaded it. . . it brought a lot of crowds,” says Mayul, who rents the car for $110 an hour.
He imported it to the capital, Juba, just before the country’s declaration of independence from the north last July, and recalls that “People were very amazed. They said, ‘This city has become a real city now that it has a long car like this.’”
Mayul bought the car in the Netherlands. At first, he says, the dealership was skeptical about the inquiry. “They were shocked that this car was going to Africa,” says Mayul. “It was the first time for them to sell a car to Africa.”
But the businessman, who also has a car rental agency in Juba, paid £26,000 (about $41,000) cash for the Navigator and had it sent by container ship to the nearest port in Kenya.
From there it was a five-day journey over dusty, bumpy roads to bring the limo by car carrier to Juba. Mayul had it covered with a plastic sheet for the journey. “I had to cover it because it could have caused an accident on the way. People would have been staring,” he says.
Though most of the country’s 8 million inhabitants can’t afford its rental rate, the limo has been fully booked since its arrival. A boom in weddings and other celebratory events among Juba’s elite — generally wealthy businessmen and politicians — is driving demand.
The car has been so successful that Mayul is already planning to import another limo, this time a Hummer, to keep up with requests. “People have been fighting (over the limo). If they have two events the same day, people come and tell me, ‘I will give you double,’” he says.
A potent symbol of wealth and power, the limo has a visceral appeal in a nation that has only recently emerged from decades of civil war and deprivation. “People like to show off here,” says Kevina Aber, an event planner. “Because we have been oppressed for so long, it’s almost like a way to win respect and prestige.”
Back in the parking lot of Juba airport, the limo’s driver executes a series of complicated turns to get it back into its parking spot.
In a city with roads marked by deep potholes, Mayul has to send out an advance team to scout the route to clients’ houses. If the roads are impassable, passengers have to meet the limo elsewhere.
South Sudan has fewer than 100 kilometres of paved road. “(The limo) can go on the dirt roads,” says Mayul. “But we drive slowly.”
Jocelyn Edwards is a freelance writer
http://www.thestar.com/article/1114644–it-s-a-bumpy-ride-for-south-sudan-s-one-and-only-limo
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