Thursday, June 30, 2011

The School, Thunder and Lightning

Monday
Now we're feeling the effects of the rainy season. It was only 80 degrees when I woke. Angie and I went for separate runs in the relatively cool air. By mid-morning the temperature had dropped and it felt like imminent rain.

At ten, during school recess, we met with the teachers in the large schoolyard while children played volleyball and soccer or socialized and horsed around. This was an opportunity for us to learn more about the staff. Though none them have more than a sixth grade education themselves, most have attended teacher training—a couple of weeks, three months, nine months. Mostly, they've learned to teach by doing it.

They teach in spite of tremendous challenges: lack of materials, no textbooks, and inconsistent attendance. UNICEF used to provide the students with writing notebooks, book bags, pencils, chalk and other materials, and remaining supplies are cherished, but they have nothing to replace them with so they make do with mostly oral work and sharing materials they do have.

The rainy season also means planting and cultivating, and much like it once was in the Midwest, children are kept home from school to help with the planting. They may be in school for a few days, or absent for a week or more. And when the rain comes, hard, they stay home as well. Last fall, as the rainy season ended, the school population was over 700, now it is only 500. Some families move nomadically between villages to follow the rain. If it's too dry in their area, they bring the cows closer to rain, then move them back when their area improves. So those children are be in school only when they are nearby.

Angie, who has a Masters in Special Ed, works with students and the teachers of her students in Minneapolis. She asked if there were village children with handicaps, learning problems, and other issues that require special attention. There is a deaf child, a hearing-impaired child, a number of children with learning difficulties, and there may be others who don't attend school because there is no way to help them in the current system. None of the teachers have had any training in working with children with special needs. Angie has permission to observe the classes and work with the teaching staff if she finds some areas where she could help.

Back at the JDF compound, we inventoried the bags and boxes that I stored in one of the containers last November. I recovered the seeds—maize, beans, peas, tomatoes, onions, zucchini, green onions, watermelon, lettuce, collards and kale. There are several tractors in the village that have tilled large garden areas. We'll find a gardener to get ours started as well. There's always a risk of losing the crop from too much rain or too little.

The temp dropped suddenly, the wind picked up, and the smell of rain filled the air. Angie and I zipped up the window flaps and lifted suitcases onto the beds, hoping to have a drier outcome than during the last rain. Then I realized that I'd never secured all the tent guy wires. There weren't enough stakes, and the ground is so soft that the stakes aren't secure. Abraham, one of the nurses, put concrete blocks on some and suggested I have Daniel do the rest. But it didn't get done, so just as it began to pour, with the wind whipping around me, I scrambled to the block pile—thankfully close to the tent, and juggled solid concrete blocks and wet, whipping cords to secure the tent. Then we grabbed our electronics and ran to the dining hall.

At one point, Angie thought our tent had gone down, so I went out to discover one pole had been flattened by the forceful wind. There wasn't much I could do but sigh and scoot back to the dining hall. After about three hours, it let up for a bit, so I checked the tent. Miraculously, the tent pole had righted itself. Inside the tent looked pretty good except that we had a large puddle in the middle of the floor where the plastic table had been (we took it apart before we left) and where the tent pole had lain, allowing the rain to pour in. Our foam mattresses are wet—the rain blows under the rain cover and drips in through the screened roof. The rain lasted close to four hours.

I mopped up a third of a bucket full of water from the large puddle on the floor; Victor brought us new dry mattresses from the container and we put the wet ones inside until it dries up enough outside to dry them out.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Laundry and Church

Saturday
Saturday is more relaxed at the JDF compound. The clinic opens if patients come with emergencies, but the staff have time to do laundry, relax, socialize and read. I did my laundry in a bucket alongside a couple of the male staff, who laughed because I wasn't getting suds the way they were. I told them I'm used to washing my laundry in a machine, which they thought was very funny. I got through it, rinsed them and hung them to dry. In the past, I've not been able to do it myself here because Mary, one of the cooks, always stopped me and washed them for me. But Mary is on holiday. However, Angie started to wash her clothes and one of the cooks took it from her. Angie marveled at the suds generated, and that the woman got the grimy necklines clean.

Sunday
We meant to go to church at nine and then visit with the women church leaders at 10. The service starts at eight, but the two-hour service is all in Dinka, so except for the drumming and the singing, it can feel a bit long. Angie was up talking to Mike, the JDF project manager, until about 1 am, so she slept in. I went for a run and showered. Then the Internet came on. We got there before ten and were mobbed by kids wanting their picture taken outside the church which we obliged for a while. Then we went in and the entourage followed. We were creating quite a stir in the back with the kids all chattering. The service was wrapping up so we retreated with the group of kids following and waited outside for the women.

I've met most of them before and know some of their names. Tabeesa, the matron who lives on our compound was married to a bishop, now deceased, and is a powerful woman in the church. John Dau's (JDF Foundation) mother and stepmother are part of the group as well. At least three of them are named Deborah (pronounced with the accent on "bor"), and they love it when I tell them my name is Debora Agot. I introduce Angie as Angela because it is much easier for the Sudanese to understand.

The women are so happy we're helping orphan girls. There are so many orphans here. Virtually all of them are widows. Most of them are caring for at least one orphan. They told us that when they were young, no girls received education and they didn't know there was any value in educating girls. They thought the only value for girls was to fetch water and firewood and cook and care for the children. But now they have seen the benefits for young women who are educated. They have more skills to help their families, to earn income, and to have more choices in their lives. These women want education for the girls in the village, and they think our program will set an example and encourage others to send their girls to school as well.

Monday, June 27, 2011

Building Challenges

Friday, June 25

We had learned just before we arrived, that the plumbers hired to plumb our site had come and gone without doing the work. A plumbing contractor at IRD helped us inventory the materials for the project, and we learned that many of the materials on the list were not here. We've relayed the message to Joseph who is following up on the materials list and hunting down the workers to find out what happened.

Another blow—the 5000 L water tank delivered from Uganda arrived damaged. Something sharp and metal punctured a hole and cracked the plastic near the bottom. The plumber didn't think it could be repaired, but Maduk will try putting a metal plate outside and in. I'm trying to hunt down some epoxy which my husband suggested might help it hold the water in. Transportation companies here don't take responsibility for their deliveries arriving intact, it seems.

The aggregate for the concrete blocks for latrines and showers and the fence posts arrived by truck on Thursday before the rain. Then the Kenyan drivers freaked out and refused to go to the bush to retrieve our short poles and to pick up the load of sand. We're sharing the truck, which was hired by IRD. Another truck will arrive Monday or Tuesday to finish the work. I write this on Sunday and it's been dry and humid since the first rain.

Friday evening, Deng Sam Majok, the Duk Country Coordinator for SSRRC (Southern Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission), came to meet with me. I first met him on our first visit in 2007. We discussed the ASAH project, and he requested an action plan and a job description for our project manager (not yet chosen), printed, by Saturday morning at 8 when he was leaving the village. So I was up late writing it, up early finishing it. Sam will circulate the job description to help us find the right person.

Our First Rain

Thursday, June 24

Happy Birthday to my granddaughter, Isabelle, who is in the US.

Yesterday our first rain fell as we began our second day of inventory at the school. When it started to sprinkle, Angie headed back to close up our tent (we'd left the windows uncovered) and to retrieve our raincoats and umbrellas. It rained for several hours, and we headed home in a downpour. Halfway there, the IRD car came down the road and gave us lift the rest of the way.

We mopped up the water that had run under the beds and separated wet items from dry. We flipped Angie's foam mattress, which had soaked up some water, since she didn't yet have a bed frame. Then we spent some hours in the tent reading, catching up on email correspondence, and planning our next moves while the rain pelted the rain cover above our tent.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Site Progress

Wednesday morning, Angie and I visited our building site with Dau John Awuou, the head teacher at the village school who acts as our project manager, overseeing the construction and setting meetings with local elders and administrators. Though there's not been as much progress as we'd hoped, the two girls' tukuls (adobe thatched huts), which will each house five girls, and two staff tukuls are nearly complete. The walls have been mudded; the roof is thatched. We're waiting for the mud to dry so it can be "plastered" and for the screened windows and doors to be built and installed by Maduk, a local carpenter and former teacher from Kakuma Refugee camp. Two other tukuls are awaiting a truck to recover the short poles for their foundation walls. The poles have been cut but were left in the bush as a truck hasn't been available. We expect them to be delivered Monday or Tuesday.

Then we went to the school, where the cargo we brought from the US and Nairobi has been stored. We inventoried the items in the bags and boxes and reorganized and marked the boxes for easier access.

Later Dau and I hitched a ride to Rubb Hall, one of two huge metal-framed vinyl-covered storage units put up by World Food Program (WFP). The food, mattresses and bed frames Joseph purchased for us in Bor are stored there. We picked out two twin bed frames, so that we could lift our mattresses off the tent floor. There seemed no rhyme or reason to the selection of side frames, head and footboards. They're all handmade of mahogany (termites leave mahogany alone) but there was no consistent design, and a number system that we couldn't figure out.

Dau and Daniel worked on the pieces we selected past sunset by the light of our battery-powered Coleman lanterns, but only succeeded in putting together one frame—wrong. Then we discovered the numbers did have a purpose. Unfortunately, we had selected the wrong size for only fancy bed—the one with tooled bedposts. So Angie spent another night on a mattress on the tent floor, graciously giving up the finished bed to me.

Staking the Tent

Tuesday June 22

After initial greetings with JDF staff at the compound, we set up our eight-man tent alongside the clinic army tents that serve as their long-term temporary housing. Mike Wagner, the new project manager for JDF, and Daniel, the 15-year-old Sudanese student who has helped me on past trips with translation, videotaping, and getting messages across the village, helped.

It's a Coleman tent with full 8' height across the top, fairly unclear directions attached to the bag it came in, and an insufficient number of stakes to stake all the tent poles and guy wires. A small number of the clinic's supply of concrete block for their new housing project, which is stored only feet from our tent, is now in use holding our tent secure. The tent has great ventilation from big screened windows, we're under the shade of a tree, and it's a comfortable as it can be in a hot climate like this. JDF staff took the car to pick up a couple of our mattresses for us.

Saturday, June 25, 2011

Arrival in Duk

June 21

Our chartered AIM Air flight allowed for 1000 kg of cargo and passengers. We filled it to the max with our cargo, Joseph, Angie, myself, and Boniface, a Kenyan Internet serviceman flying to Duk to repair International Relief Development's (IRD) dish misalignment.

Our flight was delayed which allowed us to savor some African tea (heavy on the milk and sugar) and samosas at Wilson Airport, and to chat with a gentleman preparing to leave for South Sudan on a huge (in comparison to ours) Samaritan's Purse plane.

We stopped in Lokichoggio to drop off an AIM staff member and refuel, then to Bor, the capitol of Jonglei State, South Sudan, to drop Joseph. As we approached Duk Payuel our pilot agreed to circle our building site so that I could shoot some aerial photos, though he warned that if the large birds (I don't know what they're called, but they're huge) that make Duk home were soaring overhead, he would have to abort.

The John Dau Foundation (JDF) Lost Boys Clinic staff awaited us with a car along the airstrip, and IRD (International Relief Development) staff were there with a car to pick up Boniface. When I landed last fall, car travel wasn't possible due to the flooding, so all my cargo had to be carried on the heads of women or the shoulders of men and boys. (The position of the burden is cultural.) It took several round trips to ferry the cargo to storage at the school. The community and our other NGO partners, JDF and IRD help us out, which makes working in this difficult environment easier and more pleasant.

Kenya, Kiberra Slum Orphan school, Rift Valley

Our driver, the personable and dependable Mumias, who has become a friend during my three trips to Kenya since November, took us to visit his family in their tiny two-room apartment where old airline seats, complete with unused ashtrays, serve as a loveseat. Charity, his wife, served us tea and chapatti, and his children—Ayela, Walter, and Marcy—showed me their excellent school marks and took turns reading aloud from children's books on my IPad. The baby, Dominique, was content breastfeeding and being passed around to the siblings.

With Mumias, we made two visits to Kiberra, the largest slum in Africa. Home to a couple of million people, Kiberra is a city within a city. The slum is built along hillsides offering tremendous views of a sea of colorful tin roofs. In an effort to improve conditions, areas are being razed and families moved into concrete apartment housing. While the apartments include two bedrooms, kitchens, indoor bathrooms, and subsidized rent, the $250 per month is still higher than many can pay. Built as apartment blocks with center courtyards, no provision was made for businesses, so many residents trek back to the slum to fry and sell chapatti, style hair, sell their wares, fix machines, and attend church, which we were invited to do on Sunday.

Below steep banks runs a railroad track. A recent rain made the narrow, uneven paths even more treacherous. The mud is slippery, and the path is soft underfoot, comprised of garbage pressed solid by millions of footsteps.

We visited Little Steps Academy, a school for orphans run by one of Mumias' friends. Mary oversees four classrooms of children from nursery through primary school. Packed shoulder to shoulder in two classrooms 40 preschoolers and 50 kindergarteners entertained us with singing and pantomime. We left a donation that they used to buy flour for chapattis and a blackboard.

We finished our days in Nairobi with a drive outside the city to take in a view of the stunning Rift Valley, arriving just before the fog rolled in. Later, we enjoyed dinner with Joseph at Habesha, the wonderful Ethiopian restaurant where we ate on our first visit in 2007. Without realizing it was the same restaurant, I ate there last November with Jeremy Groce, one of our board members, who was in Nairobi on business. We arrived after dark and were seated inside at a low round table designed to hold the platter of injerra, a spongy, sourdough flatbread used in lieu of utensils, served with lentils, meats, and vegetables.

This was the end of our time with city living. In the morning, it's on to the village of Duk Payuel.

Thursday, June 23, 2011

Kenya Procurement June 16 through June 19

Nairobi is a city of odors, noise, and action. The belching smoke of busses and matatus (minibuses) mixes with the acrid smells of garbage, sweat, and sewer, and the aromas of chapatti (flatbread) cooking on a roadside stand. Pedestrians dodge traffic to cross streets where vehicles ignore stoplights and force their way through roundabouts by intimidation.

Angie Ostbye, a special education teacher, and I arrived late evening June 16 with nine duffle bags of supplies for the ASAH Home for Girls. Our first few nights we stayed at the Country Lodge, a contemporary-style budget business hotel. This allowed us a comfortable transition from the US and access to the Fairview Hotel restaurants.

Then we moved to Mayfield Guest House, owned by Africa Inland Missions (AIM) and populated by missionary families and other humanitarian workers. Toilets and showers and tubs down the hall, mosquito net-draped beds, in-room sinks and wireless Internet. Meals are served family-style and dinner companions may on leave from their work translating the New Testament in South Sudan, piloting evacuees from the border areas during this difficult transition to independence, teaching pastors how to use media developed for remote areas to serve their congregations, or teaching the Gospel to isolated tribes.

We spent our time in Nairobi procuring additional supplies for our boarding facility for orphan girls in Duk Payuel, South Sudan. Joseph Akol Makeer helped Angie and me bargain for shoes at one of the markets with hundreds of stalls and shops selling every kind of goods. The transactions were lengthy, but our prices were still higher than what a local would pay. Just the presence of a couple of white women starts the bidding higher.

At Tusky's, a large department store, we purchased everything from garden tools to bed sheets, from cooking supplies, food, and toiletries to plastic tables and stools. We spent many hours over three days there, leaving our goods for them to box and transport to AIM Air the day before our flight.

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Fellow Blogger Angie Caruso blogged about ASAH

Ripple Affect: Awareness Leads to Action.

You can find her post here: http://rippleaffectawarenessleadstoaction.blogspot.com/