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.
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