Wau

Wau is the main town of the northwest, set on the Jur river in the wetter Bahr el Ghazal belt, and it looks unlike anywhere else in South Sudan. It grew as a colonial railhead and administrative centre, which left it a brick cathedral from before the First World War, an old Greek and Levantine merchant quarter and a station at the end of the line from Babanusa where nothing has run for years. The town is unusually mixed, with Fertit groups, Luo and Dinka living alongside each other, and Sunday mornings in the churches are the social event of the week.