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.
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