Ingenuity

It is always a painful time of decisions when we consider what we will take into South Sudan.  The weight and volume are very important and we try to maximize impact with what we bring in.  (I truly overdid it this time with only three sets of underwear though!)

Each shipment of medicine's costs are more than doubled by the cost of transport to the remote corner of Northern Bahr el-Gazal.  Soccer balls and volleyballs are leaped upon when we unpack them and disappear really fast.  Are they put away for the big occasions of soccer tournaments?  Do they just burst fast because of the thorn bushes?  (The more we know about South Sudan the more we know we don't know.  Every question seems to have as many answers as the number of people you ask - a bit like asking Italians for a pizza recipe!)  I'll take more soccer balls next time.  More games, more shoes, more clothes.  In fact I'll probably pay more to take another bag.

It was truly disappointing to discover that two boxes of malaria medicine had 'disappeared' somewhere between Marial Bai and Akuak Rak.  Hard to imagine how $1,500 worth of medicines could just disappear in that place.  It seems likely that a bunch of people must know something about it.  Transportation of, or hiding, large boxes, couldn't be done easily.  We are praying that God will use that medicine for good.

One afternoon as we sat drinking tea we noticed a frenzy of activity as a group of small boys scrambled for what looked like a large envelope on the ground.  Another older boy tossed another 'envelope' out and the original group broke up and tore off towards the second missile.  After the dust settled we realized that the older chap had gone into the clinic storage and found some surgical gloves (much thicker than the ordinary gloves used daily in the clinic).  The tossed envelopes were the sealed sterile packages of pairs of gloves. The younger boys blow these up and then use old clothing wrapped around the inflated glove to make a decent ball.  The original horror of seeing surgical gloves being taken for mere balls was displaced by admiration and the realization that surgery of any kind was highly unlikely.

Surprise!

Organizing photos today I was reminded of my TJMax super special plastic watch that I bought in the December promotions.  I normally wear a watch with metal strap and didn't want to take that to the heat of South Sudan.  When I was doing some Christmas shopping I noticed some of those 'slap' watches on sale.I felt rather smug about how quickly this particular $5 purchase would amortize itself.

Our first night in our rather shabby 'hotel' I noticed that my watch was gone.  I thought back through the day and when I had last noticed it.  I must have lost it during our walk in the government sector.  In all probability one of the children who swarmed me to look at the instant digital image of themselves got it.  Generally a rush of small hands come at the camera and each wants a chance to see his image so magically conjured up.  I wouldn't have noticed another pull on my watch, and, in fact, perhaps the lucky individual didn't even intend to take it, but found his grip fastened on the loose band that released so easily.  Imagine Bert and my entertainment when we looked carefully at our photos on a large screen.  It is a white plastic watch with a small pink face.

Was I being dared to spot it?  I think perhaps that two in this image knew something was up. :)  

Keeping small children clean

Small children are on the backs of older siblings, tied to the backs of their mothers or crawling in the dust.  Some of them have only a ragged T shirt on, some little shorts and singlet, and a few are completely naked.  There are so many mundane puzzles as I reflect on the complications of a day with my own small children.  I never went anywhere without that diaper bag and a change of clothes.  It took weeks of fairly intensive toilet training to persuade each child that going without a nappy was better than the earlier set up.  I have never seen a mother or older sibling in Sudan (or India for that matter) with soiled clothing because a small child had 'an accident.'  I have never smelled dry urine (or worse) on a mother or older sibling.  I have never seen a small child with fecal matter stuck to him.  Virtually all the patients at the little clinic in Akuak Rak had symptoms of dehydration, so perhaps tiny guys are also dehydrated and actually need to pee less, but it still seems somewhat miraculous that all of those body functions are dealt with so efficiently and invisibly.  I still have vivid memory of leaving one of mine for a moment without the standard one year-old padding: I had removed a sodden diaper in one room and literally headed into the next room to pull a fresh one out.  By the time I had returned there were horrible brown tracks on the white carpet where my one year old had rolled his walker toy through his fresh poop.  I think the Sudanese women could teach us a few things.

A moment of stillness

One of the profound differences in my observations between my first visit two years ago and this January was the increase in the bird life of the region.  Last time we had seen virtually only birds of prey and heard no bird song.  This time we saw lots of marabou and had several sightings of the beautiful Abyssinian roller and haven't yet identified a couple of others. (We are hopeful that Felix's well informed naturalist teacher, Mr. Atwood, is going to label them for us.) It seems as though life is being restored to this land after so many decades of death and destruction.  The brilliant blue flash of the roller, like the sight of crops growing in the dry season, brought huge hope.

Bert and William had a few moments together under one of the mango trees and as I photographed them I noticed a bird in the tree left of Bert and as I turned back to the family compound I snapped a series of pictures of the Abyssinian roller who seemed a local now.

Googic walk about

William was at the end of his South Sudan stay and had masses of loose ends to tie up and many people to say farewell to.  We walked a loop of the village with him.  Of course, William knows everyone and they all know him.  Like so many of the Lost Boys who have been settled in the Western world, William bears the weight of knowing that many look to him for inspiration, connections, financial help and advocacy.  Any visitor from the outside feels a bit of this and we certainly sympathize deeply with what must be a paralyzing difficulty of choosing how to use limited resources to help whom in what way.  William always offered others time to be heard and frequently the pleasure of one of their complex greetings with smiles and laughter.  The greeting reminded me of one of those handshakes that Felix occasionally tries to teach me.  Right hands shake, right hands pat the other's left shoulder, right hands shake, right hands pat the other's left shoulder...done together with repeated inquiries of 'How are you?' and replies of 'Fine! Fine!'  It seemed that the repetitions increased the more joyous the reunion.

In one spot the young mother was grinding her grain with the long pestle and the mortar which stands higher than the knee.  It is a whole body movement with graceful rhythm and considerable strength and flexibility. William and I asked to try.  The pestle is surprisingly heavy and aiming it correctly, or more properly, positioning oneself properly to wield it, was really difficult.  I was reminded of how one can pitch a baseball using only the arm, but good pitching has to be done with the whole body.  My attempts were so pathetic that those watching fell about with laughter.  It apparently made good copy as the next day meeting others for the first time they burst into laughter and mimicked my feeble efforts afresh.

Googic's copy of Agor

One of the very exciting parts of our trip was seeing the gardens that the Gugic community had started copying much of what Agor had done but without any of the technical assistance and support.  It isn't quite as big, the fence isn't quite as sturdy, the ground doesn't look as well tilled, and the beds are less well defined, but the Gugic people, too, were harvesting greens months ahead of others.  It was so encouraging to witness this spontaneous initiative.  They didn't have the advantage of oxplows and don't have any water pump to make the watering easier, but they have more food than others because of their efforts.

I asked William's younger brother, Kawaja, whether they were considering expanding the garden and selling some of the produce at the local market.  He looked at me as though I was crazy.   Did I realize how much work that had been?  Did I consider how long it took to fell all the trees to make the fence alone?  That was a little discouraging.  I asked why their community didn't speak to the Bridge program in Aweil and ask for some assistance.  Kawaja was the first of several locals to tell me that the Bridge program was being wound up.  (This was a possibility, but in fact the program has been extended.)  I will keep praying that various parties will connect so that initiatives of this kind are encouraged and supported.  

Gugic (Goo-gich)

Gugic is the village where William Deng's family have their 'compound' and land.  One of William's brothers is a fine tukul builder and one tukul  was specifically built for William as a 'guest room.'  Incredibly we, who had brought our tent in the full expectation of sleeping in it, still hadn't spent a night in it and now we had beds in a beautifully crafted tukul.  The bricks, the walls and the foundation for the grass roof is all done by men while the laying of the roof is assigned to women.  The 'storage' space and the photo of William with the Seattle backdrop shouldn't be overlooked.

The walls come within about 12 inches of the overhanging roof and there are usually two or perhaps 3 or 4 small triangular windows or ventilation holes in the walls.  In contrast to a tent with a zip, one has to be willing to share the space with fleet footed enterprising rodents and if the door isn't blocked during the night, a stray dog or goat is likely to come sniffing for some tasty morsel, or at least some extra warmth.  At the orphanage later we found blackboards served double duty as door barriers for the nights.

One night I did wake to some fairly agitated rustling.  Discretion won out over valor and it wasn't until two days later when I had to repack our bags that I found I must have left a bag slightly unzipped and had attracted a rodent to investigate.  The Trader Jo's bags of fruit leather destined for the orphans had been sampled!

One other structure I loved was a tiny tukul built as a henhouse that the proud owner allowed me to photograph.  (William had warned us in Aweil that the government had issued a warning that photographs should only be taken with the permission of individuals and we were careful to start with to ask permission everywhere we went.  The further out of the town we got, the more careless we were.)  I didn't work out whether there was a ladder for the chickens or whether they were lifted in each night.

We walked around to visit all of William's neighbors with him.  All the people are so encouraged to meet others from outside.  It is such affirmation that they are not forgotten and that they have value.  Everyone wanted their photo taken and each was delighted with seeing the shot on the camera.  They too have become accustomed to this miracle.

In William's compound it seemed as though there were his stepmother and two sons, a daughter-in-law and a daughter and two little grandsons that William's mother took care of as well.  I had given a lot of thought to gifts ahead of our trip, and tried to balance the need to keep baggage compact and light with things of value to those we'd be seeing.  The soccer ball was a clear success.  The children's books were less obviously popular.  The solar powered light was highly valued and although not much was said about the fruit leather (given before the night visit of the mouse) it disappeared quickly.  The Blink card game, however, was a delightful hit.  The adult young men had a ball with it.