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.

Wish I could have seen this

The glory of seeing green growth in the dry months

One of the distressing things about my 2010 observations in Northern Bahr el Gazal was the lack of agriculture in the dry months.  Virtually no one made the effort to carry water to plants and the majority of the district (and I discovered later, the whole country) waited until the rains to plant.  The country has been dependent on UN food drops for years and a whole generation of people have been almost wiped out so that many farming practices need to be relearned.

This visit, because of Bert's friends within Winrock, we were able to set up an appointment to be introduced to the Winrock Bridge program based in Aweil.  A cheerful and gracious Abebayehu Haile hosted us with a Dinka translator and driver.  The Bridge program is driven by the desire to see good governance implemented in the new nation and they have worked with local communities to bring training and structure.  The hope is that communities will see a need and meet together to formulate potential solutions and work upwards through government channels to petition for support for their idea.  The Bridge folks specifically meet needs for health and water education, and agricultural training.  We saw a granary project (notice the anti rodent shields on the legs!)

 and, at Agor, the model for a dry season garden.  It was balm to my eyes.  I am praying that the idea 'takes.'

This prototype is very close to the river.

We took a lot of pictures because I was so excited!  From a distance all you can see is the vague outline of ragged poles.  When you get closer you can see that it is a carefully erected fence to keep out animals who would love to get their teeth into some succulent greens.  The fence was a prerequisite that the local community had to put in place.  The Bridge program provided some training in how to set up the beds and fertilize, the foot pump and the long hoses up to the vegetable plots, ox plows and training in how to repair them.  All the labor was provided by the community.  Cutting the poles for the fence and setting them up in the dry ground was a lot of work.

The folks harvesting greens January 4, 2012, were, besides feeding their own families great fresh vegetables, taking sacks of the vegetable to market and making a very tidy profit.  At this time of year the local market generally only has garlic, onions and dried okra. The dried beans, dried fish, and tins would all have been schlepped from a distance and available only to those with significant funds.  January 4 evening was the only time we got fresh vegetables to eat and that was because we were staying in the village next to Agor.  It was really thrilling to see so many vegetables growing and ready for harvesting at a time when most folks  were still months from planting seeds.

Abebayehu demonstrated the simplicity of the foot pump which pushed the water up the ten foot bank to the vegetable plots which clearly took a great deal of work out of the daily watering.

In a truly providential coincidence that the model vegetable plot is literally 5 minutes down the road from William Deng's family home so our gracious host of the day was able to drop us off at Gugic (Goo-gich) where we spent the next two days in the Deng compound.

Hallelujah chorus in the Marial Bai Episcopal church, January 6, 2012

This method of getting everyone listening and focused was repeated at almost every meeting we went to.  A little like a dance step: slow, slow, quick, quick, quick.  The first two Hallelujahs are punctuated with three slow claps, and then the last claps are a series of 5 in the same time it took to do the 3 slow ones.  A kind of quintuplet, if that exists, like the triplet we're used to seeing in our music books.

The church is a lovely new building that Samaritan's Purse helped to fund.

The South Sudan National Anthem

So my recording still isn't very brilliant, but this is one it would have been hard to edit.  The words seem so poignant, and the tune murderously difficult, but neither words nor tune seem to daunt the crowd.  Just a bit different from God Save the Queen.

Oh God!

We praise and glorify you

For your grace on South Sudan

Land of great abundance

Uphold us united in peace and harmony

Oh motherland!

We rise raising flag with the guiding star

And sing songs of freedom with joy

For justice, liberty and prosperity

Shall forevermore reign

Oh great patriots!

Let us stand up in silence and respect

Saluting our martyrs whose blood

Cemented our national foundation

We vow to protect our nation

Oh God, bless South Sudan!

Aweil

school house

Aweil Cathedral

Bishop's House

We learned that to establish a new dioceses for the Episcopal church of South Sudan the people must provide a cathedral, a house for the bishop and a car.  The cathedral and house can be quite modest, but still that seems quite a tall order for such an impoverished nation.

It turns out that Samaritan's Purse has helped build the new Aweil Cathedral.  Bishop Abraham Nhial, Trinity Seminary graduate 2011, is the new bishop.  William Deng had asked permission for us to stay on the Cathedral grounds.  We planned to put up our tent in one of the compound buildings.  Most buildings have open windows or ventilations gaps between walls and roof and unwanted four legged visitors make the zipped up tent very desirable.

After we had  greeted the cathedral staff and dropped our bags by the building designated for our night's repose, we walked back into town to do our shopping.  William knew we had to buy food - it was one thing to sleep in an empty building and quite another to expect food  from our hosts, so the custom was to bring the ingredients and allow the host to cook it for the whole group.

We walked to the Hotel South Sudan which was a rather grim series of small cabins around a large shaded open square.  The square provided a welcome bit of breeze and many locals came here for a drink or a business meeting.  The latrine was slightly nastier than the usual.  The service distinctly unenthusiastic.  When we asked what was for lunch, it was clear we were pushing our luck.  The rest of the team Fran and I were with two years ago spent a memorable night at this hotel when it cost close to $200 a night!!  The price has since dropped to a mere $100, but I would still prefer my tent over that hotel any time.  There were local monkeys scampering about to entertain us and the whitewashed truck made us smile.

We wandered off to find lunch elsewhere.  We ordered and were given a handful of different sized and colored wooden chips which we handed to the cashier and he, having taken our money, handed the chips to a waiter.  No need for written menus or ordering pads.  The sit-down part of the restaurant was a bit like a large tent with trestle tables.  They didn't think we'd fit in the crowd, so when our food arrived they marched us across the road to an abandoned lot with a small hut in it.  The hut had a table and chairs for special clients.  William's enthusiasm to let us try several dishes left us with far too much food.  We stopped a thin young lad and asked him to come and eat with us.  He was cautious, but his hunger won.  He did a magnificent job finishing off everything.

Mid afternoon we found the football field packed with spectators for a match.  Enterprising women had set up around the perimeter with improvised hearth and kettle and sold tea by the cup.

By the time we returned to the Cathedral compound the light was failing and I completely failed to recognize that Bishop Abraham was in the group.  He was another quiet man in a T shirt in the fading light.   I assumed he was one of the men we had been introduced to earlier and I merely couldn't recognize exactly who, and all the names were beginning to tumble together..."I should introduce myself, Bishop Abraham Nhial."  O dear, of course, we should have introduced ourselves.  To heap embarrassment upon us, Abraham invited us to eat with him and then to take his room and not put up our tent in the school house.  We tried to explain that we had thought he was out of town doing pastoral visits and we had set up meetings for the next day with Winrock to view an agricultural project in the area.

Bishop Abraham spoke movingly of his visits to the army men stationed on the border with the North.  He mentioned that they were very touched that he came to visit them and to encourage them when none of their government officials had.  He also spoke of their hunger to read the Bible and their awareness of their need of God and His comfort in such a volatile situation.  It was nice to have several packets of the Gospel of Luke to give the Bishop to pass on.  I hope to find a way to ship a box of Gideon New Testaments to his office in Juba.

We had a very pleasant evening together.  I was so glad that Bert was there to appreciate all that Abraham shared.  It is so clear that the new bishop has a great heart for the sheep in his fold.

Hunting for John Kudusay

Aweil has quite a maze of market.  It is a vibrant few square blocks with banks, clothing merchants, food stalls, telephone repair, tailors, bike parts and repair, CDs and tapes, batteries, shoes,  restaurants and one (almost two) hotels.  For a price, you can find a lot in Aweil.  We were told that an ordinary fleece/synthetic blanket would cost 120 Sudanese pounds (we got about 3.4 pounds to the $).  Most of the store keepers were Arabs.  When I thought about it, most of the traders in Juba had been Arabs too.

William had his shopping list, and we needed to exchange some money, so we had plenty of time to look at the goods for sale.  A showcase of perfumes caught my attention. "Immensity pour femme," "First Touch pour homme," "Star People by Carlton Anthony, Paris," "Ambiguous," "Adorable pour femme," and "Attitude" no longer seem quite so funny after spending a few minutes walking through Heathrow's duty free last week.  Fragrance makers need something more memorable than Channel No. 5, or O de Lancome, to hook us these days, apparently.

We asked at the music selling spots if they had any John Kudusay.  One chap had a tape recording.  Not the best option, so the salesman kindly pointed Bert to another place that had some music and was the Aweil internet cafe.  Bert went over to the cafe and asked the fellow on duty if they had any John Kudusay.  Communication wasn't great, so he repeated the name.  The man nodded vigorously and pointed behind Bert.  John Kudusay, himself, was seated at the only computer checking his emails.  So Bert laughingly was able to ask the artist directly where we might find his music.  I think we actually had a better chance of finding his music in the expatriate South Sudanese communities than in Aweil.  We ended up buying that one cassette, and since getting home have found far more available on line.

Juba to Aweil

Just after 6a.m. the second of William Deng's friends arrived at the Jajaj Inn and swept us up to drive us to the airport, just a few minutes away.  We weren’t the first ones there and a queue had already formed.  After a 20 minute wait Mr. Kush Air, of the ticket office the day before, arrived and told us all we were queuing in the wrong direction.  He lined us up again and an airport employee dragged a huge old scale out to the front with metallic screeches.  Our bags were weighed and the information passed to Mr. Kush Air.  He calculated our baggage fee and labeled the bags and handed us each a numbered (black Sharpie ringed numbers) boarding pass.  (We guessed this was his way of guaranteeing he didn’t have more passengers than seats, as he had possibly sold more seats than available in the week before. ) We then faced the bottleneck of ‘security’ again.   I walked through the metal detector with my backpack on and observed that no one was actually looking at the monitor for the security belt.   We were then asked to go through a second security point  where security personnel searched our hand luggage and passed us into the waiting room.  The room was charmingly filled with the  well worn living room furniture of several homes and plastic garden chairs.  We had quite a good crowd when our Aweil flight was announced.  Mr. Kush Air was back again and scuttled ahead of us onto the tarmac to collect in the numbered boarding passes.  The Focker, F-50 propeller plane was a bit noisy, but  did its job brilliantly and the pilot landed us smoothly on the single strip in Aweil.  The last flight I'd made over  South Sudan had been in a much smaller plane and we flew closer to the ground and could see far more of the countryside than we were able in the F-50.

The flight's arrival in Aweil's modest 'airport'  (two sheds by a tree) didn't create much attention.  There were half a dozen motorized rickshaw taxis and several vehicles waiting for passengers, as well as passengers for the return flight.  William Deng was patiently waiting for us, and as we have grown used to, he also knew and greeted more than half the passengers on the flight, including James, a Dinka PhD student at Amherst writing about developmental economics, who had flown in for some regional meetings.  James pointed out another fellow passenger, John Kudusay, a well known South Sudanese singer.  He adopted the name 'Kudusay' because when he introduced himself to foreigners they always asked him "Could you say that again, please?"  http://madingaweil.com/MadingAweil.com_John%20Kudusay.mp3  Given Bert's eclectic taste in music and my desire to have Dinka/South Sudanese music for whatever video material I put together, we now had a focus for our stroll through Aweil's market.

As far as we can make out, the rickshaw driver really was using a frying pan for a rearview mirror!

Costs of Development

Lying awake in the small hours in the Jaja Inn I reflected on how it seems inevitable that development brings with it those who are interested in getting rich quickly, and profiting from the influx of the aid community, who don’t intrinsically care about the country.  Even the aid community has mixed motives and presents a very confused message to the host community with its social interactions, alcohol consumption and stewardship of resources.

Later reports of daily violence and theft in Juba re-awakened the need to pray earnestly for this new nation.  I had taken Slvvia Gunter’s prayers for nations with me and began to pray with new understanding, “Pray for political leaders and decision makers in all areas of influence (media, business, medicine, education, etc.) to repent, receive salvation, and govern righteously.  Pray for the “most unlikely” unrighteous persons to be converted.  Pray for Christian decision makers in all areas to have God’s wisdom and courage.”  Prayer Portions, p. 304.

The AFRECS report in my email inbox when I returned included this report:

Murder of AMREF Head

Monday the South Sudan country director for the African Medical Research Foundation (AMREF), an NGO active in providing medical relief and development in the country, was killed by gunmen in a town just outside Juba. They took his car and personal possessions. AMREF says that the vehicle was found one the Yambio-Juba road occupied by one person, who has been arrested.

Although we did 'lose' two boxes of medications up in Northern Bahr el Gazar such an act of violence and theft seems unimaginable in the rural and remote areas we visited.  May it stay that way.

First impressions of Juba

The Jaja Inn has a good location close to government buildings, NGOs, and on a main road.  Their nightly rate of $35-$45 (depends on your skin color or accent) is far below others offering accommodation. Mayan needed more than an hour to negotiate our room rate, initially the establishment stated that we would each need a room as the beds were so small.  After the first attempt we all left for a drink across the road. Refreshed, we returned to complete the deal.  We could after all squeeze into one bed, and money in the hand was worth more than an empty room.

We left our bags and headed for a walk in the area.  Bert commented that Juba seemed like a city of villages as the place is a series of compounds.  The NGOs and government departments are built in the same style as family compounds are all over Sudan, the building materials are just different.  Simple dwellings sit alongside high tech complexes, hard packed mud roads run into the few asphalt roads.

It was Sunday and a lot of people were walking and chatting in groups.  In the villages everyone would greet another on the road, but here in Juba folks avoided eye contact.  The small children, however, were the same: they swarmed us strangers and loved having their photos taken and being able to see the frame on our camera immediately.  Garbage was very evident, but not as bad as I had anticipated.  Lone light bulbs and ads for Oxford cigarettes seemed oddly misplaced and a pole with a blue mosquito net tied to it in the middle of one road suggested someone pulled his bed out in the open (given the somewhat hostile feel of the city, not something I'd expect either).

Bold street placquards echoed the pride of independence and flora and fauna added to the awareness of the newness of the city's growth.

 Back at the Jaja we headed to our room through  the courted open dining area and the darker indoor area around a bar and a small courtyard that looks deceptively tame.   The room was sweltering and sordid.  Toilet didn't flush, but at least a large container could be filled with water to compensate.  The fluorescent light bulb flickered and petered out and the electricity in this sector cut in and out so that air fluctuated between noisy breeze and absolutely steaming.  We were alarmed by a knock at the door at 8.00.  It was Majok, another of William's friends who was coming to take us to the airport in the morning.  He wanted to introduce himself to us so that we'd know him in the morning.  (Afterwards we were doubly grateful for his thoughtfulness.)  Marieke's experience with bedbugs in Spain nudged me into buying bedbug spray to take to South Sudan.  The foam mattress at the Jaja got a liberal dose of bedbug spray and we prayed cleansing over the whole room.  We were across the road from a complex of flats and restaurants, Home and Away, and they boasted a disco.  The disco blasted music into the small hours of the morning.  There were small pauses in the music in the interludes between the electricity dying and their generator kicking in.  The night life of the inn woke us repeatedly until 3 and we had to be up at 5.30 to leave at 6.00.  We had checked earlier with the bartender that we could get out at 6.  "No problem."  At 6.00 the place was locked up tight and not a soul was stirring.  We managed to wake someone who woke someone else who had keys and waited a few seconds for Majok to pick us up for the 10 minute ride to the airport.

Nairobi to Juba

We travelled December 31 to Nairobi and flights were few over the holiday weekend.  We had to take a very early flight from Nairobi and then had to wait another 24 hours for a flight from Juba up to Aweil.  We were unable to buy the Juba to Aweil ticket ahead of time.

The primary Nairobi airport terminal is always surprisingly small and seethes with waiting passengers.  As we waited to leave on Sunday morning we were taken with the enormous diversity of people and languages traveling through.  Bert's shots of our fellow passengers to Juba suggest a fairly strong Chinese presence in South Sudan.  Despite having assigned seats for the flight to Juba there seemed some urgency to ensure each got his place, or perhaps it was our uncertainty about which flight was being called (several flights seemed to be called simultaneously at one gate!) that created a jam and waves of intense human body odours.

Landing in Juba a new terminal building looked promising and the airport seemed to be functioning well as we walked across to the old arrivals building. The old building is far too small for the volume of people and  buzzes continually with an extraordinary mix of Sudanese and NGO expats dressed in everything from evening gowns to track suits.  We were a bit surprised that our baggage was sent through the screening machines as it went into the arrivals 'hall'. We are more familiar with screening ahead of a flight.  There were two officials at two different counters to whom we showed our passports and visas, and then we turned around to pick up our bags.  I'd taken a bright yellow North Face backpack for each us - if we had to carry our stuff it would be easier in that form, and how many people have bright yellow bags?  I managed to confidently lift one bag down before realizing that someone else had had the same idea. :)  When I'd identified our bags a pleasant man asked us if we were William Deng Deng's friends.  William had asked Mayen to meet us and take us to the hotel he suggested we use.

Mayen is typical of so many brave Dinka men.  He walked through the country as a boy to Ethiopia and then back through South Sudan to Kenya and in the refugee camp there he he drew a lucky straw that provided a ticket to, and settlement in,  Canada.  His wife and children are still in Canada but he has returned to South Sudan and found a job.  The strong desire to return to South Sudan and the hope to see the country build constructively are strong enough to endure the burden of separation from family and substantial hardships while seeking employment.

Very surprisingly, Juba has no regular taxi service.  Anyone who is anyone has his own car and probably driver too.  If you need to go somewhere you find someone who has access to a car or walk.  William, up in Aweil, had telephoned Mayen and asked him to help us.  Mayen owned no car, but he, in turn, had asked another friend to help us. They both graciously waited while we dealt with the urgent matter of buying tickets for the next day's trip to Aweil.

Thanks to Mayen we discovered that the Air Kush office was in an office close to the arrivals building.  The office was the size of a large garden shed and had a desk in it at which the Kush Air rep, an Arab by his appearance, hand wrote tickets while all the rest of the space was taken up with Dinka men sitting and standing trying to get tickets back home.  Bert waited outside while Mayen and I wedged ourselves into the throng and stated our goal of buying two tickets for the 8a.m. flight.  The Kush Air agent placidly continued to write Arabic notes on tickets and throw cash into a desk drawer as each client was served.  He made no list of tickets served, but continued, nonstop, to write tickets.  After a mysterious number of clients had been served, by no means all of them, he decided it was our turn.  He was willing to take dollars and quickly pulled his calculator to give me a quote.  It seemed fair.  I paid.  My dollars went onto the top of the cash pile in the drawer.  I stashed my, to me, completely illegible tickets and asked cautiously how we were guaranteed seats on the plane.  "Be here at 6.30 tomorrow!"  First come, first served?

Mayen and his friend then graciously drove us to the hotel William had suggested.

From After the Monsoon to Before the Rains

Water - It is essential for all of us.  Generally I don't give  a thought to my water source, its course to my bathroom tap, or the parasites it might be carrying.  A couple of weeks in South Sudan in January, before the rains, changed my perspective again.

The day time heat caused us to lose water constantly and it was hard to stay hydrated.  Bottled water is both expensive and contributes to the unsightly mounds of uncollected litter which now decorate the South Sudanese towns and villages.  I felt better about using my water filter bottle, but wondered if it really was filtering out all that the manufacturer promised.  When the whole team came in they brought an enormous water filter for the whole group.  That really helped us consume more, but the thought of trips to the iguana inhabited latrine was a psychological deterrent to drinking more.  Who could look forward to the trip to the pungent, dark, cramped quarters?  The boys in the orphanage quickly caught on to our dislike of the latrine lodgers and gallantly went noisily before us to shoo them out, and when our brave knights were absent I dramatically kicked the door ahead of me.  Iguanas were sure they weren't welcome and the loud crashing emboldened me to risk entry.

Mary, matron of the orphanage, chief of the kitchen staff, member of the PTA (in South Sudan the Parent Teacher Association is the bottom rung of local government), was often the first person in the whole compound up and supervising the start of water collection and tea making.  She kindly even allocated boiled water for our 'kawaja' (white faces) showers.  We had one bucket of hot water, one bucket of water straight from the pump (luke warm) and an old bottle to use as a scoop.  It is surprising how satisfying this modified showering could be.  It is also surprising how difficult it is to wash off Sudanese dust.

There is now a water pump within the orphanage compound which means that the women and children (usually girls) only have to walk a couple of minutes for the heavy containers of water instead of the 15 minutes that it used to take to the village pump.  It is remarkable that even little girls learn to carry and balance the large loads.  Often one or two others will help lift the vessel onto the carrier's head, and many of the women wear a circled rag on their heads to make the head a bit more comfortable.  I was humbled when I walked off to the pump with a mother and daughter and I was given the equivalent of the little child's bucket to carry home and the small daughter gracefully balanced a huge container.

In my attempts to stay under permitted weight and maximize volume of materials for the orphanage I took in only two sets of clothes.  This led to a constant need for laundry. (I'll allow myself three sets next time. :))  I felt too awkward to ask Mary and her staff to do laundry every day and so trotted off to the water pump with my soap and dusty clothes.  Ideally you'd go to the pump with another person.  Just lining up the bucket or container with the spout is easier with a second person.  The first day I didn't even take a bucket and provided much entertainment as I tried to clean my clothes without dropping the wet garments  back onto the dusty ground.  Someone kindly trotted off and got me a bucket and after that I managed to snag one on my daily laundry excursion.  No trouble getting laundry dry in this season.  I followed the local trend of laying my wet clothes on the compound fence of woven grass.  There were a couple of disasters when a gust of wind blew the fresh laundry back into the dirt, but eventually I managed to anchor large pieces and kept the smaller ones inside our tukul.

Day 2 at home and I am luxuriating in long hot showers and delighting in the convenience of my washing machine.