Word by Word

Why do the ASAH girls need our help? Because even though they range in age from 10 to 17, most of them can barely read. The national language in South Sudan is English (with a British accent and usage) and school is taught in the immersion method with all instruction in English.

For the younger kids and those who have not attended school regularly, I imagine it as Leek Sam, Manyok, and Dau have described their experience in refugee camp schools - learning outside, under the trees. The first couple years they hear so many unfamiliar sounds, it's gibberish, but eventually, they begin to understand. So it is here.

The ASAH girls can understand some English, but they have virtually no conversational skills. Comprehending comes first. Speaking is tough because they have little opportunity to practice - no memorized conversations such as I remember from French classes in junior high school and high school. No time in the "lab" to listen to native French speakers repeating conversations and reinforcement with the written word in a book.

The fact that our girls and many girls in the village have not attended school regularly, day after day, year after year has delayed their acquisition of skills. The school day is also much shorter than ours in the US, ending at noon or one so the children can return home for perhaps the only meal of the day. And once they return to their homes. there are no books, no workbooks, no educational programs on television, and no one speaking English in the home, and even if there were, many kids, especially girls, are busy cooking, cleaning, carrying water or firewood, or taking care of younger children.

Students from Woodland Middle School in Duluth, Minnesota learned about our program and decided they wanted to write letters to our ASAH girls, with the hope that the girls would write back. I arrived here with a packet of close to 30 letters, some addressed to individual ASAH girls by name, and some written to the group. 

We broke the girls into three groups, and read a few of the letters to the girls. They were excited to receive them, the first letters of their lives. (Although some of our sponsors have also written to the girls). Though the girls have learned the rudiments of letter writing in school, their writing skills are hindered by their limited English vocabulary, and their inability to spell.

Since we have only twelve girls, we had them each write to a group of students. The process began with the teachers writing the names of all the children in the group for our girls to copy. The real labor began as three of our ASAH teachers and myself hovered over the groups to assist them with vocabulary and spelling. Word by word, letter by letter. When they finished, each girl recopied her letter so that I would have a nice, neat copy to bring back to their pen pals in Duluth.

What did they write about? They wrote about the games they like to play here at ASAH - netball and volleyball. They wrote about the local foods they like to eat. They wrote their names, their ages and their classes. Each letter was individually composed. It took about three hours for each of them to complete a few paragraphs.

That's how it begins. Word by word.

Thunder and Lightning - Oh My!

June 24, 2012

It's the rainy season here in Duk Payuel, so it isn't surprising that it's rained during the night a couple times since my arrival June 11. I left the rug on my doorstep the first time, and it was soaked. We had rain once when I was at the JDF Lost Boys Clinic using Internet to communicate with all of you, delaying my return to the ASAH School until it let let up. One other time, I walked back and enjoyed the sprinkle of cool drops.

Just after we finished our lunch, cracks of thunder chased us all into our respective tukuls, except for Toy, who is gathering up the deserted plastic chairs in the yard. Toy works with Zablon, our skilled and personable Kenyan builder/mason/maintenance man. They put up our beautiful and straight fence, built our toilets and showers and our new office/housing building,  

The thunder has been roiling and breaking without a drop, then suddenly, as if it had cracked the cloud, the downpour began. I'm assuming there's lighting, but I can't see the sky from inside my tukul, and it would likely not be visible even through our canopied trees during the day. Perhaps at night it lights the sky.

My first week here was beastly hot - not Saudi Arabia hot, but it can reach 100 and was sometimes 90 or more as I willed myself to sleep (my will is not very effective in this respect). This past week has been delightfully cool in the mornings and evenings. The midwesterners reading this will find it funny that Manyok wears a winter coat when I'm comfortable in a t-shirt.

It looks as though I'll be holed up in my Tukul here for awhile.

Awakening, Nourishment, Privilege, Humilty

At home, my morning routine is up at six, release the cats from the laundry room and traipse downstairs to the fridge for the canned food which they eat in the morning - two different special diets. The canned food is easier on Sniff, the cat with the sensitive tummy, though she tolerates moistened dry food later in the day. 

Destiny, my tiny, deaf, aged Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, is usually up by now, and I feed her as well. She's on several medications for a failing heart. Her arthritis meds have diminished her appetite so she's slow to eat. 

I make myself a cup of coffee and retrieve the newspaper. I walk the dog. Outside is down six flights from our third-floor condo. I generally carry her (I prefer the stairs to the elevator) because of her creaky joints and labored breath, though sometimes she sets off on her own. 

Here in South Sudan, there's less urgency in awakening. No dependent pets, (my husband has that duty alone when I am gone) no early morning appointments. I've showered the night before. My hair is usually a wreck, but my vanity has learned to lower its expectations here.

Now lying on my foam mattress under the pale green mosquito net, I listen to the tweets, buzzes, croaks, bleats and bellows. I do the bed exercises suggested to me after my disc surgery. My husband isn't here, so I won't disturb his slumber. Waking up my spine in the early morning helps me feel stronger and more flexible, and it allows more time with my eyes closed to wake slowly, something to which I am unaccustomed.

What I miss most about my early mornings inhum Fargo is the coffee and a small square or two of dark chocolate and the newspaper. Here tea isn't served until around eight. When school started back up last week, after my horror that first day when the girls left for school without tea, the cooks prepared the hot water in a thermos the night before (as they have done in the past, they just forgot!) and place it in our pink geodesic dome. In the morning the girls prepare their sweetened milk tea or drinking chocolate before school. We have no biscuits left, so the milk tea is all they have in their stomachs, which is more than for many children at the school. I expect biscuits will arrive on the next AIM flight.

I'm spoiled by the ease which has marked my life. The two-hour wait for me is an eternity. On previous trips I've brought protein bars and treats to supplement the beans and rice two-meals-a-day diet here, but I honestly forgot, and the few foods I did bring are in the bags that were left behind in Nairobi. I'd like to say my whining for earlier tea was on behalf of all the staff, but it seems they don't feel the deprivation the way I do. I can skip dinner with no problem, but my coffee and oatmeal are sacrosanct. And LUNCH. By noon. Here lunch is at 1:30, or sometimes two.

There's an issue with getting firewood timely and an issue with the length of time it takes to cook beans and rice and other foods from scratch to feed 20 people. 

Two nights ago, just before bed, Martha Achol appeared with a tray. On it was a thermos, a cup and spoon, a cup of sugar, tea bags, a can of powdered milk, and a jar of drinking chocolate. I thanked her but told her no, that I was about to go to bed. She insisted and was so sweet, that so as not to disappoint her, I prepared a small cup of hot milk and said she could take the tray. With hesitation, she picked it up, but then gestured to Manyok, our program director. Laughing,  he explained, that the tray was for my own tea in the morning and throughout the day, and they will bring it to me each evening.

Heavens. Now I feel as though I'm a complainer. I don't really want special treatment, but I must admit, the last two mornings, it has been a real joy to make myself a cup of tea shortly after six a.m. And then a second. Today (the 23rd) I had a third which wasn't enough to keep me from getting cranky when our first meal was served at two.

Sometimes they make special food for me as well--chicken or rice instead of ugali. I share the extra and tell Manyok that I can eat what they are eating. I don't love ugali, but I can eat it. It's bland but not horrible. Mudfish is where I dry the line.

Like most Americans reading this, I was raised with more food available than was required, more frequently than I was hungry. Uncountable varieties of many different types of food - meats, legumes, vegetables, starches, seasonings and sweets. And flavors - sweet, sour, salty, bitter and umami, the sense of --- on the tongue.

Our staff and our girls have experienced malnutrition, and some have nearly starved. Some have developed ulcers from the abuse their digestive systems have suffered. They are happy and grateful for any meal that comes their way and eat thankfully and heartily whether it is one meal put in front of them or three (which would be very unusual). 

It makes me feel a little small, but I'm glad I haven't had to cope with actual hunger. I'm embarrassed that my lowered blood sugar makes me lethargic and cranky. 

Humbled here in Duk Payuel.

Seeking Sunrise and Sunset

June 21, 2012
It shouldn't be that hard to see the sun rise and set in a place where the rising happens after six am and the setting happens around seven pm. When I used to stay at the JDF Lost Boys clinic, the rising sun greeted me through my huge tent windows. I used to cover my eyes to stay in that dreamy just-awakened state. Soon the unzipping and zipping of tent doors, the creak and clang of the supply container doors, and the voices of the other early risers announced the day. At dusk, the expansive view to the west offered a gorgeous sunset except when the overcast sky obscured it.

I've been at the ASAH School compound for 11 days, and today was the first time I witnessed either. I've been meaning to rise early enough to catch the rising sun, but my tukul is dark dark dark, and though the light peeks through the two tiny windows, it isn't enough to rouse me, and there is no colorful view to entice me from my bed. I am generally wakeful early mornings, but I haven't been willing to brave the early a.m. mosquitos. Until today.

I jumped up at the first hint of light, grabbed the videocamera, and found I had to walk all the way to our garden to see the sun rise. Our housing area is completely surrounded by trees which makes for lovely shade - a comfortable respite from the often-blazing sun, but it also blocks the view. Today's sunrise was unspectacular for Africa. It can do better. So I'll take another shot tomorrow.

The sunset, however, did not disappoint, though I had to walk to our volleyball court which is near our temporary kitchen, the security guard's tukul, and the gate to see it. Still, that meant viewing through the fence, and I wanted a picturesque "framed by trees" view. Through the gate just ahead to a spot where a couple of palms, one silhouetted in the foreground, one in the middle ground, shaped color around the gorgeous flaming orange ball as it sunk into the horizon.

I Thought the Bats had Deserted Us

June 19, 2012

In March, after dusk, they swooped in and out of our tukuls, all stealth and speed, eating the bugs before they could get us. It was easy to see they knew what they were doing, their radar never wrong. When I used to stay on the JDF Lost Boys Clinic compound, the bats darted around us as we sat outside the dining room. The wind whistled beneath their wings. 

But now, in June, at the ASAH School, the bats aren't so prevalent, though we have plenty of flying bugs for them to eat. Last night, my door open, the light out except for my computer screen, a lone bat visited, like old times. I almost hated to close the door.

I'm beginning to like the cocoon. The net over my bed is a filmy pale green with a pale pink tie. Now that I've figured out how to drape it so I can sit up and read, or type on this IPad which lights the net in an eerie manner, I'm quite comfy. 

Catching up on business: our 5000 L water tank which arrived from Uganda a year ago with a large puncture - in the shape of a thumb and forefinger sized "7," was repaired on set up on its platform last fall. The repairs held for a while, then failed. Zablone and his assistant "Toy" (that probably isn't the correct spelling - they're both Kenyan - few Sudanese have skills in plumbing, electrical, building, etc.) have repaired it repeatedly with epoxy and pieces of plastic. They empty the tank. Toy climbs inside, Zablone on the outside. 

When I arrived this June, the tank was leaking badly, requiring refilling twice a day instead of every three days with the normal use - twelve girls, five staff, and myself living onsite. They fixed it again. Now we are waiting to see if we can use a loaner - an asset left behind by another NGO. It's final resting place is in dispute, the county government having "seized," though not taken possession of these assets. By rights, they should go to the JDF clinic. If all turns out all right, they'll loan us the tank until we can get a new one after the rainy season, or find a more permanent type of repair.

On the Maintenance To Do list for the compound:
1. Tukul repair: Taking down the lovely fabric lining the walls and ceilings, knocking off the termite soil. Painting the wood with anti-termite solution. Replastering the adobe inside and out where it has been damaged by rain or just plain use. Sometimes it simply falls off in chunks. Replacing the fabric on the walls and ceilings. Touching up the white and blue paint on the outside of the tukuls.
2. Adding a door to the iron sheet storage building that was added to our temporary iron sheet kitchen.
3. Adding a concrete apron around the new two room building, which includes one room for accommodation and one room for the office. Tiling the office floor with the tile leftover from the toilets and showers. Finishing the windows. Staining the mahogany doors.
4. Putting new plumbing parts on some of our fixtures. Some of the  parts we installed originally were procured by an "experienced" logistics guy who worked for IRD, the NGO that is now gone. The parts are low quality and aren't holding up well. 
5. Continuing to develop our large garden where we are raising greens, ground nuts, maize, watermelon, okra, beans, and other goodies.
6. Our new tailor, just hired, will get our sewing machines running and start teaching the girls to mend, sew, and tailor clothing.
7. Figure a way to keep, Chill, our gazelle, initially raised by Andrew and Miriam Mara, and now devoted to our matron, Daruka, out of the garden. She's particularly fond of the groundnuts (peanuts).

Stuff I've been doing with the girls at night:
1. Showing them ASAH videos on my computer. They love to see themselves.
2. Making and showing slideshows of the pictures I've taken of them since I arrived, of my family, and such. There will be more slideshows to come. I've pictures from all my visits going back to 2007. I've identified some of our girls in those pictures from five years ago, when they were pretty little.
3. Fetching a magnifying makeup mirror so that Martha Ayen could get the bug out of her eye, and being treated to giggles, guffaws, and chortles, as they moved their heads from side to side, and around, drawing the mirror in close and pushing it away. It was a hot potato in their hands and made the trip around the twelve of them five or six times in fifteen minutes. 

It rained during the day, and in the evening, I swear the frogs were calling out "Globe Hold," not that that means anything, but it sounded very clear, deep and low but enunciated. 

Day of Rest

Sunday mornings are busy at ASAH. The girls are up early, fussing, and giggling, and singing and getting ready to go to prayers at the Episcopalian Church, the only church in the village. The church is an enormous tukul. Several hundred people can easily fit inside. Massive metal columns hold the tremendous thatched roof that reaches 20' (or more?) at the center.

Congregants bring their own chairs. The girls carried a few with them. Two or more will crowd into one plastic chair, their tiny thin bottoms don't take up much space. Prayers begin at eight and go until 10. I attend sometimes, but usually not for the full service. It's all in Dinka, and even the hymns are unfamiliar in both word and tune. But it's wonderful to experience the fellowship. I'm warmly welcomed, and often led to the front to sit on the platform with the pastors and elders and lay leaders, usually next to Gideon, the oldest member of the village - more than ninety years old now. He's walks with but is healthy. Had more than 40 children with four or five wives. More than 20 survived the war, but a good number did not.

But this was no day of rest for me. Manyok and I had work to do: updating job descriptions, policies and procedures for staff. Though I will be here more than two weeks, the time flies.

When the girls returned it was time for compound cleanup, which Daruka organized at my request. Skinny little Debra Akon, age 12, manned a wheelbarrow and the gaggle of ASAH girls with Daruka leading combed the compound for discarded soap boxes, toilet paper wrappers, old cement bags, random pieces of wire, palm fronds, broken branches, bits of plastic detritus. Four wheelbarrow loads full. The old garbage pit was flooded, so we started a new one, and set the trash ablaze. The air was calm. The flames crackled and the smoke licked the air above.

Much of Africa has been civilized quickly to a modern throw-away culture without the infrastructure and education to deal with the garbage culture now produces. And even when things are used many times in many ways, beyond the life we might give it in the US, it may one day just be left to die on the ground somewhere the little bit of life it has left may take centuries to expire.

I've walked on paths in Kiberra slum in Kenya that are built of trash. People set up shop on ground that has give to it when you walk. Layers upon layers of plastic bags and discarded clothing, paper, food and packaging.

How do we keep that from happening here? We train our girls and staff not to drop things on the ground and to pick up trash they see instead of leaving it for someone else. We help our girls and staff care about the place they live and work and go to school, to have pride in it, to want to show it off to visitors. And they will teach someone else one day.

Did I Mention the Butterflies?

June 16, 2012

It's easy to concentrate on the nasty biters and disregard the butterflies. But they share the airspace here. Those I've seen are small and yellow or white. I'll pay attention and see what else I can see. They're dwarfed the moths, of course, Oh, there I go again. Some of the moths are exquisite.

There's been no rain since my arrival and the paths are beginning to dry. That's not to say they're dry. It is still necessary to roll your pant legs or life your skirts, to pull on the awkward gum boots, which aren't always as tall as the water is deep, or to remove your shoes or sandals and walk barefoot through murky water that conceals the bottom which may be sandy and firm, or marshy swampy gooey silty mud. Sometimes the grasses under the water give firmer footing. Sometimes the ruts dug by desperately stuck vehicles can twist an ankle. A road grater and fill would be a blessing.

I prefer walking Sudanese style barefoot through the water with a long slow gait. In reality, my gait is slowed in the heat in South Sudan,  but my steps through the water are methodical, careful, anything but the easy stride of the people around me.

The water ranges from warm to very warm, depending on its depth. As a child, I rarely wore shoes at the lakes, no matter the path, though my routes were never flooded. My grandmother was horrified that my feet and those of my sisters would S-P-R-E-A-D without the confines of a sole and uppers. I never saw her bare feet, but my toes are as wide and spread apart as she had feared. 

I like the contact with the earth. The mud squeezing between my toes, my step cautious, feeling for the occasional large snail resting at the bottom of the flooded paths. The first few days when the water was deeper and clearer, I waded through schools of tadpoles. If they didn't swim far enough, they may already have dried up and died in these receding streams. In a day or two, the puddles may have evaporated. If it doesn't rain tomorrow, I will wear the dreaded gumboots as the receding water is not very fresh anymore. We share the paths with cattle and goats.

In November of 2010, I arrived in Duk at the end of a bad rainy season to find the paths and many huts flooded. Just like Fargo, some had been diked. Some dikes failed, or the water came too fast. There are no sandbags here. But this year's flooding is months earlier than usual. It's too early to say how the season will go, but some have already lost crops planted a month ago.

Our own garden plot fed okra and kale and spinach and other good things to our girls for two months until it flooded. And now we have a new, higher garden where the maize is nearly two feet tall, groundnuts have sprouted, and the seeds I brought last week are being planted. The old garden will be planted again in the dry season. It's close to our water source, so we can pamper it, a luxury most in this village do not have.

A note for those who know about our badly leaking water tank. Repairs have been completed. Now the leak is a small trickle instead of a gusher. We'll keep repairing it until we receive the anticipated "loaner" tank. After the rainy season, we'll have to get a new one, if anyone is interested in helping us acquire one. The tanks are expensive and so is the transport.

Welcome to Fargo and New York, South Sudan-Style

June 15, 2012
An awesome day. The girls are becoming bolder. More talkative with me. Starting conversations of a sort. In March, I taught them to say "May I come in?" before entering my tukul because they used to just barge in. Now, with due respect, I hear their little voices - some of them have big voices, I must admit. Some are 6' 2," angular and thin like super-models. But mostly quiet, they say, "Mommy, may I come in?" It seems they are all calling me "Mommy" now.

In March I brought many skeins of yarn and crochet hooks. Daruka, our matron, has taught them to crochet. In the afternoons, they pull chairs in a circle and crochet as a group, each with her own choice of yarn and design. I asked, "What color is this?" They didn't know. But soon we learned red, and green, and yellow and blue. And the chair is blue, the ASAH shirts are pink, but they think them red, so I showed them a pink stool, the pink geodesic dome, and then the red yarn, the red beads on the necklace. I'm not sure if they've gotten it yet.

My nature is to set things down and walk away, mindlessly. I've trained myself to pay attention to where I set something--the mental note--it's on the counter. It's in the bathroom. I'm overstimulated here with so many sights, sounds, people. It's constant greetings and my fumbling of the language--kudwal, chirwon, achine kerach--the greeting words, never sure exactly which one is correct. I lose things in my tukul and often spend minutes searching for something that was just in my hand. I set my water bottle down and when I'm thirsty I have nothing to drink.

I told Daruka, if you see my water bottle. . . . It isn't necessary to look because I have another, but if you see it. . . . Soon I hear, "Mommy, may I come in?" It's Achol Majok, our oldest girl. She has my water bottle. Fourteen-year-old Martha Achol brings me highly-sweetened milk tea in the early afternoon, or a Coke, or a sugary powdered drink. I don't even want them, but I drink them obediently. I'm a water girl. At home, it's black coffee in the morning, and after that it's mostly water, or the raw milk Ron Saeger brings to me every two weeks. I love the milk tea here, since it's all there is. When I stayed at the clinic we had biscuits, but our supply is finished here. And I have no chocolate. Usually I bring some treats for myself and to share, but this time I brought only one large bag of peanut M&Ms. The M&Ms withstand the heat, but they are with the cargo still in Nairobi that won't arrive until after I leave. So I appreciate the morning sugar tea.

The girls were pulling down their mosquito nets for the night just after dinner. I fetched the videocamera. "Girls, may I come in?" "Yes, Mommy." They mugged for the camera and posed in their beds, on their beds, in groups, and singly. They began to say, "I am sleeping in my bed." Though some said, "I my sleeping in my bed." Or they hopped into each other's beds, and began to shout to outdo each other, "Two girls my sleeping in my bed." I corrected them and made them repeat and asked them to talk more quietly, but they couldn't help themselves.

Then we went through a series of "Mommy, welcome to Fargo." They initiated this on their own, then pulled me to the next dorm tukul for "Mommy, welcome to New York." They have named their tukuls, and proudly claim the cities. In their experience of life in the village, the refugee camp, or even Bor or Juba, Fargo or New York would be unimagineable.

I started out of my tukul to take a shower about eight, but a gaggle of girls laughed and giggled in and around the shower block. So I retreated. In a while I heard, "Mommy, may I come in?" It was Achol Majok again. "You may come for bathing now." I hadn't known that they saw me.

Tonight I purposely left my soap in the shower. Daruka gave me my own bar when I arrived. I brought a small bottle of body wash. but each evening there has been soap in our lovely shower. Lovely, aside from the bullfrogs and the various insects. No bats in our shower, though. There was only a tiny sliver of soap, so I opened my box and left the soap on the shelf. Akuol was waiting outside wrapped in a towel. Fifteen minutes later, she said, "Mommy, may I come in?" And she handed me my soap, for which I said, 'Thank you very much. I let her stay a bit and watch me flat iron my curly-in-the-humidity hair and touch it to see how hot it was. And then we practiced some colors. And days of the week, which I wrote for her and gave her to share with her dorm-mates.

Elections of Chiefs

Wednesday, June 13
As part of the effort to reduce conflict between tribes, the Jonglei state government has called for election of the chiefs. Following results of a census, they determined how many people were in each chief's area. From that information, they consolidated some areas and reduced the number of chiefs and the number of sub chiefs. In the past, chiefs have been born to the spot. The elections are to determine who remains in their post and gave the opportunity for others to run for the position. As far as I'm aware, no women ran.

I probably could have watched the process, but I didn't know about it until it was underway. Each voter stands behind the chief of their choice and they are counted by head. Most elections were decided the first day, but one was carried over for a couple days to allow the constituents time to travel for the vote. Most are satisfied with the result, though there is some grumbling among the losers.

As part of the voting process, a group of women went dancing and singing through the community. As they approached our compound, I was told they would pass us by, but they came toward the fence, and we opened the gate. I stood in the middle with my camera and the women rushed past me on both sides. Leek Sam, one of our teachers, had the video camera, so we captured this.

They formed a circle, running, jumping, carrying long sticks or umbrellas and thrusting them up and down. They chanted and some ululated. Someone encouraged me to join them, so I did. Daruka, our matron, was very impressed, that I, a kawaja, would join in, and the women were thrilled. Then the speeches. The head woman spoke and welcomed me and talked of their happiness about the ASAH School. I thanked them and talked about the importance of educating women and protecting girls from forced marriage which elicited cheers.
Later, I learned from Manyok that this visit was a type of entertainment and the women's group would like a contribution. So ASAH and each primary staff person will contribute. The women will typically use the money for something to benefit a large group of women, or to buy goats or a bull and then share a meal with all who contributed. JDF, the election group, and others also add to the kitty.

Thursday, June 15 Solar panels and batteries. Fred, the clinic electrician and technical guy, showed me around their new solar power system. Four panels, four batteries, and all the breakers and systems required to manage the power. The panels are installed on the roof of their new nutrition center, and they have a small mechanical room for the other components. A full system such as theirs runs about $6800 in Nairobi.

When we build our kitchen and dining/classroom compound, we will be getting a solar power system along this line. Our program director, Manyok, would like to have it now to reduce our reliance on the generator and diesel fuel, and allow us to run the lights later into the evening so the girls can study or read. It isn't in the cards today, but I hope we can afford it too.

Eventually we will need our own generator as well. We are relying on the generator at the abandoned compound near us. The NGO that was there until April lost their grant and their is no one to take over management of the site, so the government has taken charge of the assets. The assets are supposed to go to JDF clinic, as the NGO's charge was to provide support to them, but they are currently in dispute. A few of those assets have been given to us, but we are unsure whether we will be allowed to keep them or not: a refrigerator and a television.

As I write this, Chill, our gazelle, is nibbling at the gum boots outside my door. When I called his name he looked up and stared me down. When I looked away he resumed, so I called his name again more sharply. He looked up, then urinated right outside my doorway. Returned to the boots. I called his name, he released his little pellets. I found this disrespectful, so when he bent down again to nibble the boots I got up and walked toward the door. He doesn't let me pet him, so he sidled away. He allows only Daruka, our matron, and Abul, our youngest girl to stroke him. With Daruka he acts like she is an antelope and jumps up slamming his chest against her thigh. It's very funny. He's so tiny he couldn't hurt her. She responds by gently boxing the top of his head and he braces to lock antlers.

Throwing Out Best Laid Plans

March 5, 2012

The plan was: Leave Fargo March 1. Arrive Nairobi late evening March 2. Fly with AIM Air to Duk Payuel on the 3rd. Move into the ASAH Boarding School for Orphan Girls and help orient the first twelve ASAH girls into the place they will call home during the school terms. Stay until the 16th and fly with AIM to Juba, where I will stay for a week with Manyok to procure materials and supplies for our compound, and the Maras and Jef will fly JETLINK to Nairobi.

Soon enough it became clear that if we wanted the ASAH girls to move in while we were present, Manyok and I needed to go NOW to Juba to procure the materials to fix the water tower. If you watched our exciting video of the raising of the tower, you know that I left Duk Payuel expecting that very soon we would have functioning toilets and showers. It was not to be. The steel tube platform on top of the tower had been welded with the four -inch side of the 2 X 4 inch tubes laying flat instead of skinny side up, which offers greater strength. When our tank was filled with water, the tubes began to bend. The tank was taken down. It still provides water but is not at a height to provide water pressure to run the toilets and showers.

As it seems to go, as the need arises, opportunity presents itself. IMA World Health, the new medical group that may or may not take over the neighboring NGO compound now being vacated by IRD, had a car traveling to Bor, the capitol of Jonglei state. This is about 125 miles, I believe, though the drive takes five or more hours. I'm not sure that 125 miles is an accurate measurement, but that is what people have told me, and it seems about right. The road conditions are so bad, the vehicle is sometimes traveling at only 10 or 20 km per hour. This is the kind of ride where the handles above the doors and on the dash are held.

When I asked Mike Wagner, former JDF clinic manager, if we could hitch a ride—he said, "Are you willing to sit in the back?" As it turned out, I shared the middle seat with two men, and Manyok sat with the luggage and a Sudanese woman on the bench seats in the back of the Land Cruiser.

During the long and rough ride, I got to know Kon, one of the clinic staff, a little better. He's a quiet guy amongst a lot of boisterous Sudanese at the JDF clinic, so we hadn't talked much in the past.

My other seatmate, Jacob Nuer Deng, who works for IMA World Health in Juba, asked me where I lived in the US. When I said "Fargo," he said, "My sister lives in Fargo." "Who's your sister?" "Sarah Deng." "I KNOW Sarah," I said. "She spoke at our Get Your Panties in a Bunch Lunch in 2011, and she attends Christ the King Lutheran Church in Moorhead which is currently raising money so that we can bring more girls into our program."

You don't know how small the world really is until you meet someone new in South Sudan whose sister lives in your community in the United States—especially when the community is the size of Fargo-Moorhead. Miriam remarked that it's strangely comforting, and I agree.

We had intended to get hotel rooms and fly in the morning, but Kon was planning to get public transport. He was on his way to visit his wife in Juba. We elected to share the cost of a taxi and keep going.

The road from Bor to Juba is longer—about 153 miles, according to a Google search—but somewhat faster at around four hours. Improved in some stretches, undergoing construction in others, but still potholed and difficult to navigate in places. We had to pull over at a bridge near Juba as a convoy of about 100 military vehicles crossed the one-lane bridge. They were part of a deployment of 150,000 soldiers heading to Jonglei state to begin disarming the tribes, to reduce the tribal violence, particularly between the Murle and the Nuer tribes, that has plagued parts of the state since independence, causing deaths and destruction of villages.

The Journey Begins

March 1- 2, 2012

Jef Foss, ASAH board member and architect, and I began our journey to Duk Payuel on March 1st, leaving Fargo on Delta airlines at one pm. Once again, Delta's service proved both charitable and helpful, allowing us to check 15 bags of supplies for the ASAH Home and School for Girls including the panties and washable sanitary pads donated to us at our recent "Get Your Panties in a Bunch" lunch in Fargo. These panties and pads will be distribute through the school in Duk Payuel and to neighboring communities as well.

We flew Fargo to Minneapolis; Minneapolis to Amsterdam; Amsterdam to Nairobi. Nearly 24 hours later with an eight-hour shift in time we arrived at Jomo Kenyatta. At 9 pm local time, we proceeded to immigration for our transit visas—available instantly at the airport, retrieved all 15 bags and headed toward customs at the exit. The agents asked a few questions about the contents and destination of the bags and waived us through.

The driver took us to Mayfield Guest House run by Africa Inland Missions, a mission organization that flies religious and humanitarian groups into remote areas with inadequate or unsafe roads like Duk Payuel, South Sudan. Jef was to share a room with another guest, who was already in bed for the night. We stay at Mayfield on most of our trips through Nairobi, and they are often bustling with missionaries and their families and others working on projects in South Sudan and Kenya. When they are full, they ask if we are willing to share rooms.

At Mayfield I saw Samuel, one of the drivers I met on an earlier trip. Samuel procured Moringa (Olifera) seeds for us to plant at the ASAH Home and School for Girls. The plant has tremendous nutritional and medicinal value. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moringa_oleifera

From Mayfield, the driver drove me down the street to the Fairview, where Andrew and Miriam Mara, NDSU professors in Nairobi on sabbatical, are staying. Andrew and Miriam sponsor two of our Sudanese students in boarding school in Kenya. They had invited me to stay in the guest bedroom in their apartment. We all rose before dawn to travel to Wilson Airport by 6:30 am for our flight to Duk Payuel.

Let There Be Light

Monday, December 5

Juma greeted me with enthusiasm and thanks for the food supplies at breakfast. He wants a photograph of me with the TB patients. What can a bag of beans and rice, a little salt and sugar do? It will keep people alive so they can benefit from the medications for their TB and Leprosy.

Breakfast at the clinic is even more sparse than it's been on previous visits due to the exhaustion of food supplies. There used to be two or three thermoses on the counter—one with milk, one with hot water, but they have only a single thermos now. There are no morning biscuits.

Occasionally someone remarks to me that our country has hardships and our efforts should be concentrated at home. But if you could see what I have seen, you would understand that the situations are not comparable. We have poor and sick people in the US, but it's uncommon for us to see people stricken with TB, leprosy, malaria, and other treatable or eradicated diseases, and one in five small children aren't dying of malnutrition and other illnesses prior to age five. The JDF Lost Boys Clinic here in Duk performs minor miracles daily, caring for up to 100 patients a day, some of whom walk up to 100 miles for care. Medication alone isn't enough to help them, so the clinic provides basic food to many patients.

Today Reuben, a 19-year-old young man from Patuenoi, walked to Duk Payuel for medication with a fever. He has been looking over my shoulder as I type this in the clinic office. I asked him how large Patuenoi is compared to Duk. He told me that Patuenoi is a village and that Duk Payuel is a town. Moses had also told me that he was surprised by how large Duk was—that it was not a village, but a town. It still looks like a village to me. Duk has a population of about 3000 people spread out a great distance across pockets of high ground, as the lowlands flood during the rainy season. There about 500 of these households, though the population is fluid, people coming and going between villages seasonally and with their cattle. Manyok and Dau tell me that Duk is only a village, but because of the clinic and IRD compound, (and our developing program and site) it looks like a town to many from smaller communities.

My trip to the site today was rewarded by the discovery of light in the tukuls. Long single-tube fluorescent lights are installed in the large tukuls, and smaller energy-saving bulbs in the small ones. Though so far the power is only turned on to the tukul where the crew is sleeping, it was wonderful to see the light.

The she-goat was slaughtered at the clinic this morning—fortunately out of my eyesight--and roasted for lunch. Any kind of meat is a real treat at the clinic, and goat meat is prized by Sudanese. The staff is always pressing me to eat more, but I tried to satisfy them by gnawing the fibrous meat off one bone while chewing with care to avoid bone slivers—a given when the meat is butchered with a hatchet.

Some of our ASAH girls came by in the afternoon as we were preparing the pineapple I brought from Nairobi, so we shared it with them and the clinic staff. None had tasted pineapple before, but more shocking to them was that it was straight from the refrigerator. They could hardly manage to chew as they had never had cold food in their lives.

After dinner one of the cooks lit the enormous trash pile. The resulting bonfire was a treat for us all, the night cool without wind. From my bed in the tent—I'm close enough that it could have presented a problem if it were windy—I enjoyed the crackling of the fire, the flames still burning bright as I went to sleep.

Day Two with ASAH Girls

Thursday, July 7

We could see our ASAH Girls approaching from afar, all of them dressed in the hot pink ASAH logo t-shirts we gave them. The names of ten of our girls start with A, and only one starts with N: Achol, Akuol, two Ayens, Adau, Akur, Abul, Akon, Aleul, Abuk, and Nyadak.

It was hot, so we held class outside in the shady area in the center of the clinic housing and dining area. The clinic staff doesn't begrudge us the chairs we take from under them. Everyone is supportive and proud that Duk Payuel has a program to help the most vulnerable, the orphan girls.

After the ritual hand washing and name exchange, Angie and Gina led the girls through If you're happy and you know it, clap your hands, and Head and shoulders knees and toes, which is guaranteed to generate hysterical laughter as we speed up. The highlight was making beaded bracelets. Angie brought a wonderfully colorful assortment of various shapes of plastic beads, and each girl made herself a bracelet.