Monday, December 12
On Sunday, Manyok presented me with a printed invitation to the school's year-end closing ceremony. The invite was for 10 am Monday, so like an American I arrived early, and like an African I watched and waited. Young boys carried school desks from the school to the church for the assembly. The one-piece desks consist of a bench seat and a 10" plank writing area. Designed to seat two or three, the children squeezed together four or five to a desk.
On Sundays, each member of the congregation must bring their own seat, and the church is populated with colorful plastic chairs and large bent tin cans—mostly for seating children. Today the church is more orderly, the benches lined up in neat rows. One of the teachers gestured for the kids to stand and reordered them from class one to seven, right to left and back.
Another teacher ran a cable from an outside power source to hook up a sound system—amp and speakers, music and mic. Chairs had already been set up for the invited guests and teaching staff.
The program was further delayed with an announcement that we were waiting for 91-year-old Gideon, the guest of honor, but when another twenty minutes passed without him, they started up. He arrived soon after.
There was much singing and celebration, and the top ten students in each class were recognized by name and invited to the front of the church. The young primary students received a notebook, a pen, and soap—the soap here comes in long bars, scored to break off into individual bars of soap. I don’t think first graders in the US would prize soap the way they do here. The pen and soap supplies ran out, and the older students received only notebooks and certificates.
Two of our ASAH girls, Achol in class six, and Ayen in class three, were number nine in their respective classes, as was Daniel, the boy who has assisted me with videotaping and other tasks over the last year.
One student was asked to speak to the assembly—Achol, graduate of class six. She took the mic like a pro and, in Dinka, translated for me by Manyok, told the crowd how important it is to let the girls stay in school and not to marry them off when they are too young. She spoke in a strong and confident voice, turning to looking at the assembled students as well as the teachers and invited guests. She said, "If you let us stay in school and get an education, then you will see what we can do for you in the future."
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Undies--Big and Small
Sunday, December 11
After church, the women came to the church office compound where we had set up to distribute panties and pads. I often distribute through the school, but last week was exam week, and now school is out until February. An announcement was made at church, and the crowd that arrived was mostly mothers and smaller children, but very few teenage girls—our target population. We will distribute theirs when school reopens.
The panties distribution can easily deteriorate into a mad grab, so I asked Rhoda, a former teacher who speaks English and works with our program, to line the children up by size and age. Lillian, the clinic midwife, helped me hand them out. The little children came first—both boys and girls and babes in arms left with four pairs of panties each. A few teenage girls showed up, and then came the mothers. Thinking that South Sudan teens resemble American teens, our donors often donate women's sizes. The teens here are very tall, but thin as rails. Still, the underwear is welcomed by adult women, too.
Things started hopping before dinner when John Dau, who started the JDF Foundation Lost Boys Clinic here in Duk, arrived with a group that included Michelle, a filmmaker who will be with him until the end of January, documenting the peace initiative which he is here for, and the cataract surgeries which will begin in a few days when the eye surgeons arrive from the US. Also in the entourage were armed policemen. Nine people in a Land Cruiser plus baggage and weapons. Due to the bad roads, what might have been a five-hour drive took two days from Bor to Duk.
The arrival of special visitors means meat and potatoes along with the traditional beans and rice for dinner. They didn't know, however, that we'd been treated to fried fish at lunch. The fish is mudfish, which I usually disdain as it is stewed and rank—I'm not sure if it's rotten or what, but the whole dining room stinks to high heaven. This fish was fresh and pretty tasty with lots of tiny bones. The initiated were able to peel the flesh back and leave the skeleton behind. I wasn't so skilled.
Michelle brought a two-person tent donated to her by Marmot, who is a sponsor for her film project. Moses was gracious enough to agree to sleep there, and Michelle moved into my tent. I don't know how she would have managed in that tiny tent. She has a huge amount of film gear. It would certainly have been more difficult for her to manage, and I'm enjoying the female companionship.
After church, the women came to the church office compound where we had set up to distribute panties and pads. I often distribute through the school, but last week was exam week, and now school is out until February. An announcement was made at church, and the crowd that arrived was mostly mothers and smaller children, but very few teenage girls—our target population. We will distribute theirs when school reopens.
The panties distribution can easily deteriorate into a mad grab, so I asked Rhoda, a former teacher who speaks English and works with our program, to line the children up by size and age. Lillian, the clinic midwife, helped me hand them out. The little children came first—both boys and girls and babes in arms left with four pairs of panties each. A few teenage girls showed up, and then came the mothers. Thinking that South Sudan teens resemble American teens, our donors often donate women's sizes. The teens here are very tall, but thin as rails. Still, the underwear is welcomed by adult women, too.
Things started hopping before dinner when John Dau, who started the JDF Foundation Lost Boys Clinic here in Duk, arrived with a group that included Michelle, a filmmaker who will be with him until the end of January, documenting the peace initiative which he is here for, and the cataract surgeries which will begin in a few days when the eye surgeons arrive from the US. Also in the entourage were armed policemen. Nine people in a Land Cruiser plus baggage and weapons. Due to the bad roads, what might have been a five-hour drive took two days from Bor to Duk.
The arrival of special visitors means meat and potatoes along with the traditional beans and rice for dinner. They didn't know, however, that we'd been treated to fried fish at lunch. The fish is mudfish, which I usually disdain as it is stewed and rank—I'm not sure if it's rotten or what, but the whole dining room stinks to high heaven. This fish was fresh and pretty tasty with lots of tiny bones. The initiated were able to peel the flesh back and leave the skeleton behind. I wasn't so skilled.
Michelle brought a two-person tent donated to her by Marmot, who is a sponsor for her film project. Moses was gracious enough to agree to sleep there, and Michelle moved into my tent. I don't know how she would have managed in that tiny tent. She has a huge amount of film gear. It would certainly have been more difficult for her to manage, and I'm enjoying the female companionship.
Slaughtering the Calf
Friday, December 9, 2011
One obstacle in this remote place is the dearth of skilled local workers. One local has carpentry and welding skills and the equipment to do the work. As the only game in town, he prices his work accordingly. We can bring Kenyan or Ugandan workers from Bor or Juba, but that is costly, too, and with the long rainy season it isn't always possible. Manyok and Dau are learning the art of negotiation. They know what things should cost, and they don't give out the contracts until the price is reasonable. Our most recent negotiation was for welding of the elevation structure for our water tank and the gates for our fence. At this particular time, we have an advantage as the Kenyan plumbers and electricians now working on our site are capable of doing this job as well.
We now have a hand washing sink on the outside wall of our ablution blocks. Not a novel concept—use the toilet and wash your hands right afterwards—but there aren't any sinks at the clinic, for example. The faucet at the clinic is a trek from the latrine through the clinic and from there to the dining compound. The water that spills from this knee-high faucet is drinkable, splashes onto broken concrete and trickles down a shallow mud ditch. From this single outdoor faucet we fill our water bottles, basins to wash clothes, buckets to wash dishes. We also wash the dust from our feet and legs and rinse our toothbrushes.
Earlier in the week, a small cow walking outside our fence managed to climb over a pile of concrete blocks and tumble into the hole dug for our septic tank. One of our crew was working on the ablution block roof, and he got down from the roof, jumped into the hole, and lifted the calf to another worker. Unfortunately, the calf sustained spinal damage of some sort and wasn't able to walk or stand, but remained alive. Someone went to notify the owner and ask him to come and determine what should be done with the cow. He declined, so Manyok and Dau went to visit him. He was angry and verbally abusive but would not offer a resolution. They expected him to send someone to examine the animal. Cows here are not sacred as in India, but they are prized and people will starve before slaughtering them. The idea is to have them and to accumulate more like money in the bank. Of course they breed them, and they use the milk, but beef is saved for celebrations and weddings.
The crew carry the cow to a grassy area and offered water. On Friday, as no one had come on behalf of the owner, they put it out of its misery. It served to feed them all. I can't understand it. If these animals are so loved, how could this calf be left to suffer by the owner? The septic tank was finished and covered. No other animals (or children) will suffer such a fate.
One obstacle in this remote place is the dearth of skilled local workers. One local has carpentry and welding skills and the equipment to do the work. As the only game in town, he prices his work accordingly. We can bring Kenyan or Ugandan workers from Bor or Juba, but that is costly, too, and with the long rainy season it isn't always possible. Manyok and Dau are learning the art of negotiation. They know what things should cost, and they don't give out the contracts until the price is reasonable. Our most recent negotiation was for welding of the elevation structure for our water tank and the gates for our fence. At this particular time, we have an advantage as the Kenyan plumbers and electricians now working on our site are capable of doing this job as well.
We now have a hand washing sink on the outside wall of our ablution blocks. Not a novel concept—use the toilet and wash your hands right afterwards—but there aren't any sinks at the clinic, for example. The faucet at the clinic is a trek from the latrine through the clinic and from there to the dining compound. The water that spills from this knee-high faucet is drinkable, splashes onto broken concrete and trickles down a shallow mud ditch. From this single outdoor faucet we fill our water bottles, basins to wash clothes, buckets to wash dishes. We also wash the dust from our feet and legs and rinse our toothbrushes.
Earlier in the week, a small cow walking outside our fence managed to climb over a pile of concrete blocks and tumble into the hole dug for our septic tank. One of our crew was working on the ablution block roof, and he got down from the roof, jumped into the hole, and lifted the calf to another worker. Unfortunately, the calf sustained spinal damage of some sort and wasn't able to walk or stand, but remained alive. Someone went to notify the owner and ask him to come and determine what should be done with the cow. He declined, so Manyok and Dau went to visit him. He was angry and verbally abusive but would not offer a resolution. They expected him to send someone to examine the animal. Cows here are not sacred as in India, but they are prized and people will starve before slaughtering them. The idea is to have them and to accumulate more like money in the bank. Of course they breed them, and they use the milk, but beef is saved for celebrations and weddings.
The crew carry the cow to a grassy area and offered water. On Friday, as no one had come on behalf of the owner, they put it out of its misery. It served to feed them all. I can't understand it. If these animals are so loved, how could this calf be left to suffer by the owner? The septic tank was finished and covered. No other animals (or children) will suffer such a fate.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Harsh Light, Blue Shadows
Thursday, December 8, 2011
I'm pretty adaptable, but heat fatigue and hunger take a toll. I use "hunger" loosely—though I might yearn for a meal here, I have no idea what it would be like to suffer hunger. In this village, I'm surrounded by people who have an intimate relationship with the pain and anguish of malnourishment, the experience of starving, and of watching people they love die for lack of food.
Moses and Daniel and I traveled to the site for a meeting with the guardians and the girls, arranged by Dau and Manyok. The meeting was at nine, so naturally the guardians came at 10:30. Before they arrived, we heard the plane overhead, which caused Dau to head toward the airstrip to organize carriers for our materials, leaving the girls, Manyok, Rhoda, Moses, Daniel and me to set out chairs and greet the guardians.
Materials began to trickle in, but I felt bad about the guardians with nothing to do, though they were less concerned. My Western desire for punctuality and my own personal difficulty of sitting quietly without always having to "do" is continually challenged here. Manyok didn't want to start the program without Dau who had been the one to meet with the guardians when the girls were first chosen before Manyok was hired, but we had planned to serve tea and fruit, so we began preparing that.
Rhoda and Tabitha (pronounced Tabeesa) brought trays with cups of tea while Achol, one of our ASAH girls, worked at slicing two fresh pineapples and apples. Milk tea is a special treat. Though common in Africa, nothing is common in South Sudan for people who have no food, no money, and no place to buy food even if they had money. Their faces lit up, and there was much chatter as they consumed the dripping pineapple, a food they had never tasted before.
I'm frustrated taking photos. The sun is bright and harsh, the shadows deep and blue. To shoot the very dark faces of Sudanese, the darkest of Africans, light is essential. But this light is not flattering, it's hot—both in temperature and appearance—and the shadows are deep and dappled as they filter through the trees. Group shots often result in faces that are almost silhouettes.
Dau arrived and the program began. The guardians were introduced. Manyok translated for me as Dau spoke to them in Dinka about our opening date—January 15, and our expectations for the girls—that they be released to our care and allowed to remain until their education is complete, which today means primary school, but we hope to get many of them through secondary school and beyond if funds allow. We will encourage visiting and interaction of the girls with their families and the local community. They will attend the local school during the mornings and church on Sundays, and we will enlist teachers, villagers with talents and skills, and even clinic staff and visitors to share their knowledge with our girls.
After I thanked them for allowing their girls to join us and talked of our desire that they stay in the program and not be forced to marry at puberty, several guardians rose to comment. Each of them reinforced their happiness that the girls would be under our care. They told me they are unable to protect the girls from forced marriage in their households. If a potential groom—even a 50 or 70-year-old man—presents cattle dowry—the girls would be given. With us, they will be safe.
I'm pretty adaptable, but heat fatigue and hunger take a toll. I use "hunger" loosely—though I might yearn for a meal here, I have no idea what it would be like to suffer hunger. In this village, I'm surrounded by people who have an intimate relationship with the pain and anguish of malnourishment, the experience of starving, and of watching people they love die for lack of food.
Moses and Daniel and I traveled to the site for a meeting with the guardians and the girls, arranged by Dau and Manyok. The meeting was at nine, so naturally the guardians came at 10:30. Before they arrived, we heard the plane overhead, which caused Dau to head toward the airstrip to organize carriers for our materials, leaving the girls, Manyok, Rhoda, Moses, Daniel and me to set out chairs and greet the guardians.
Materials began to trickle in, but I felt bad about the guardians with nothing to do, though they were less concerned. My Western desire for punctuality and my own personal difficulty of sitting quietly without always having to "do" is continually challenged here. Manyok didn't want to start the program without Dau who had been the one to meet with the guardians when the girls were first chosen before Manyok was hired, but we had planned to serve tea and fruit, so we began preparing that.
Rhoda and Tabitha (pronounced Tabeesa) brought trays with cups of tea while Achol, one of our ASAH girls, worked at slicing two fresh pineapples and apples. Milk tea is a special treat. Though common in Africa, nothing is common in South Sudan for people who have no food, no money, and no place to buy food even if they had money. Their faces lit up, and there was much chatter as they consumed the dripping pineapple, a food they had never tasted before.
I'm frustrated taking photos. The sun is bright and harsh, the shadows deep and blue. To shoot the very dark faces of Sudanese, the darkest of Africans, light is essential. But this light is not flattering, it's hot—both in temperature and appearance—and the shadows are deep and dappled as they filter through the trees. Group shots often result in faces that are almost silhouettes.
Dau arrived and the program began. The guardians were introduced. Manyok translated for me as Dau spoke to them in Dinka about our opening date—January 15, and our expectations for the girls—that they be released to our care and allowed to remain until their education is complete, which today means primary school, but we hope to get many of them through secondary school and beyond if funds allow. We will encourage visiting and interaction of the girls with their families and the local community. They will attend the local school during the mornings and church on Sundays, and we will enlist teachers, villagers with talents and skills, and even clinic staff and visitors to share their knowledge with our girls.
After I thanked them for allowing their girls to join us and talked of our desire that they stay in the program and not be forced to marry at puberty, several guardians rose to comment. Each of them reinforced their happiness that the girls would be under our care. They told me they are unable to protect the girls from forced marriage in their households. If a potential groom—even a 50 or 70-year-old man—presents cattle dowry—the girls would be given. With us, they will be safe.
Friday, December 9, 2011
Portage
Wednesday, December 7
Dau and Manyok and I met. They had prepared and printed (using the printer we bought in Juba) spreadsheets detailing the labor costs over the last few months. Some of the labor involved is portage of materials. There are three vehicles in the village, but they can't be driven during the rainy season. The roads and paths between the high ground areas flood and the vehicles get stuck. Thus men, women, and children carry things—on their heads, their shoulders, and their backs.
The most expensive portage was bags of cement carried from storage at the school (inside a classroom and protected from the elements) to our site. It takes about 15 minutes to trek this distance during the dry season, it takes longer to walk through the water, and it is particularly important not to drop the cement in the water. I'm sure few readers could easily lift, let alone carry for a long distance, a bag of this cement. I know because I loaded and unloaded these same bags into and out of a vehicle when we stored them in the first place. Some of the bags were opened and dumped into buckets or sacks and carried by women. A few men were able to carry a bag on their own. It's dirty work.
To bring the sand for building concrete block, three wheelbarrows were each loaded with sand 400 times and pushed to the site and back at a cost of 1 Sudanese pound per wheelbarrow. One Sudanese pound is about 31 cents. And, until my arrival last week with the materials to run water to our site, women carried the necessary water from the well on their heads. Many items on the spreadsheet are listed by the number of "backs" required.
Dau and Manyok and I met. They had prepared and printed (using the printer we bought in Juba) spreadsheets detailing the labor costs over the last few months. Some of the labor involved is portage of materials. There are three vehicles in the village, but they can't be driven during the rainy season. The roads and paths between the high ground areas flood and the vehicles get stuck. Thus men, women, and children carry things—on their heads, their shoulders, and their backs.
The most expensive portage was bags of cement carried from storage at the school (inside a classroom and protected from the elements) to our site. It takes about 15 minutes to trek this distance during the dry season, it takes longer to walk through the water, and it is particularly important not to drop the cement in the water. I'm sure few readers could easily lift, let alone carry for a long distance, a bag of this cement. I know because I loaded and unloaded these same bags into and out of a vehicle when we stored them in the first place. Some of the bags were opened and dumped into buckets or sacks and carried by women. A few men were able to carry a bag on their own. It's dirty work.
To bring the sand for building concrete block, three wheelbarrows were each loaded with sand 400 times and pushed to the site and back at a cost of 1 Sudanese pound per wheelbarrow. One Sudanese pound is about 31 cents. And, until my arrival last week with the materials to run water to our site, women carried the necessary water from the well on their heads. Many items on the spreadsheet are listed by the number of "backs" required.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Feast
Tuesday, December 6
We're on Africa time. Like other hot places I've visited where clocks don't govern the day, I went to find Manyok at the site at 10 am, expecting to meet with him before our feast with the girls scheduled for one o'clock. Manyok was overseeing the workers and Dau was catching up on his end-of-term duties as head teacher. I worked on photos and the blog at IRD, the adjacent NGO site, taking advantage of their electric power and Internet access.
At 12:30, Daniel and I went to the site, but still no Dau or Manyok. The girls started arriving, and I gave them a tour. Much has changed since they visited last July. We interacted as best we could with our limited shared language. By 2, I saw that Tabitha and Rhoda hadn't started cooking the goat and knew this would be a full day affair. I figured I would miss lunch altogether, which isn't an actual hardship in a place where entire families consider themselves lucky to share one small meal in a day, and often have nothing to eat but leaves they've gathered. But it wasn't to be. The cooks had prepared a lunch of goat liver in a stew with carrots and onions for Moses and me. Not used to the heat, Moses had returned to the clinic for a nap, so I was expected to eat alone inside the tukul. Though some of you may not be fond of liver, this meat was quite tasty, and it was a treat to eat meat that wasn't tough, stringy, and accompanied by bone slivers and gristle. I could eat only a small portion, and I asked Daniel to finish it up.
Dau and Manyok arrived with the fruit I brought from Nairobi. We retrieved a knife from Tabitha—a piece of metal with a long pointed triangular blade, fairly blunt edges and a makeshift shaft. Slicing the mangos attracted hundreds of small blue flies. The mangos had been bruised in transit and storage and weren't in perfect shape, but the girls devoured them with gusto. Tabitha is saving the seeds to dry and plant on our site. Likewise, we saved the pineapple tops. The abundance of ripening fruit allowed for an orgy of eating, juice dripping from our fingers and faces. Thank goodness we now have easy access to running water at our site.
We filled the time until dinner playing games and singing songs. Dau asked me to tell them a story. Goldilocks and the Three Bears came to mind, and I drew on storytelling skills acquired in high-school speech tournaments, and honed telling stories to my children. I remembered that I have this book on my IPad and treated them to that version when I finished. The IPad entertained them for a good hour as they explored the interactive children's books and other kid stuff I've downloaded on that wonderful machine.
Finally dinner was ready, and what a feast it was. Tabitha, Rhoda, and another cook carried the dishes to our table. The girls dished up mounds of rice, goat stew, stewed chicken (also donated by Moses' uncle), and a delicious dish of pasta with goat meat and carrots. I've never seen an American child devour such a large quantity of food at a sitting, but these girls are accustomed to a single meal in a day, which often consists only of sorghum.
Since most of our supplies are in storage, awaiting completion of our compound, we had 11 girls but only six spoons. The adults, including me, used our fingers. Five groups of two girls sat knee to knee and shared spoons—a bite for one, pass the spoon, a bite for the other and so on.
Our meal finished, we brought out the sweaters I brought from Nairobi for chilly evenings, and they went home: their bellies full, their bodies warm. It was dark when we returned to the clinic, but Moses and I took a nighttime walk to the central village to meet with his sister's guardian. I have never ventured off the clinic compound after dark. Though I brought a small torch (flashlight), the bright moonlight was sufficient to light our way.
We're on Africa time. Like other hot places I've visited where clocks don't govern the day, I went to find Manyok at the site at 10 am, expecting to meet with him before our feast with the girls scheduled for one o'clock. Manyok was overseeing the workers and Dau was catching up on his end-of-term duties as head teacher. I worked on photos and the blog at IRD, the adjacent NGO site, taking advantage of their electric power and Internet access.
At 12:30, Daniel and I went to the site, but still no Dau or Manyok. The girls started arriving, and I gave them a tour. Much has changed since they visited last July. We interacted as best we could with our limited shared language. By 2, I saw that Tabitha and Rhoda hadn't started cooking the goat and knew this would be a full day affair. I figured I would miss lunch altogether, which isn't an actual hardship in a place where entire families consider themselves lucky to share one small meal in a day, and often have nothing to eat but leaves they've gathered. But it wasn't to be. The cooks had prepared a lunch of goat liver in a stew with carrots and onions for Moses and me. Not used to the heat, Moses had returned to the clinic for a nap, so I was expected to eat alone inside the tukul. Though some of you may not be fond of liver, this meat was quite tasty, and it was a treat to eat meat that wasn't tough, stringy, and accompanied by bone slivers and gristle. I could eat only a small portion, and I asked Daniel to finish it up.
Dau and Manyok arrived with the fruit I brought from Nairobi. We retrieved a knife from Tabitha—a piece of metal with a long pointed triangular blade, fairly blunt edges and a makeshift shaft. Slicing the mangos attracted hundreds of small blue flies. The mangos had been bruised in transit and storage and weren't in perfect shape, but the girls devoured them with gusto. Tabitha is saving the seeds to dry and plant on our site. Likewise, we saved the pineapple tops. The abundance of ripening fruit allowed for an orgy of eating, juice dripping from our fingers and faces. Thank goodness we now have easy access to running water at our site.
We filled the time until dinner playing games and singing songs. Dau asked me to tell them a story. Goldilocks and the Three Bears came to mind, and I drew on storytelling skills acquired in high-school speech tournaments, and honed telling stories to my children. I remembered that I have this book on my IPad and treated them to that version when I finished. The IPad entertained them for a good hour as they explored the interactive children's books and other kid stuff I've downloaded on that wonderful machine.
Finally dinner was ready, and what a feast it was. Tabitha, Rhoda, and another cook carried the dishes to our table. The girls dished up mounds of rice, goat stew, stewed chicken (also donated by Moses' uncle), and a delicious dish of pasta with goat meat and carrots. I've never seen an American child devour such a large quantity of food at a sitting, but these girls are accustomed to a single meal in a day, which often consists only of sorghum.
Since most of our supplies are in storage, awaiting completion of our compound, we had 11 girls but only six spoons. The adults, including me, used our fingers. Five groups of two girls sat knee to knee and shared spoons—a bite for one, pass the spoon, a bite for the other and so on.
Our meal finished, we brought out the sweaters I brought from Nairobi for chilly evenings, and they went home: their bellies full, their bodies warm. It was dark when we returned to the clinic, but Moses and I took a nighttime walk to the central village to meet with his sister's guardian. I have never ventured off the clinic compound after dark. Though I brought a small torch (flashlight), the bright moonlight was sufficient to light our way.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Sacrificial goats
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Manyok and Dau bought a goat to celebrate our arrival. The plan was to slaughter it Sunday and invite the girls for a feast. Alas, the clinic has no firewood. Shortly after we received this gift, before we left for church, Moses' uncle Kon stopped by with a goat for us as well. The he-goat and the she-goat are tethered, bleating pitifully, knowing something is up. They have a short respite as we won't be able to slaughter and cook them today.
Daniel and I walked to church before the two-hour service finished. Two hours is a bit long for me since all the preaching and prayers and announcements are in Dinka. The singing and drumming is quite enjoyable, as is watching and listening to the movement of people and children inside the church.
As in any church, when it's over, everyone gathers outside to greet friends. Many people know me now, and their greetings are warm. People call me Deborah Dit, though I didn't t know why. The addition of "Dit" to the name is a sign of respect for elders and for people in responsible positions.
After lunch we started our long walk through the outskirts of the village on our way to Daniel's home to meet his mother. She's in her 50s, but looks older. His father is nearly 70, blind, living in Juba. As often happens when you meet parents of kids that you are helping, I was designated his second mother. From there, we tried to meet Moses' brother, Akol, at his uncle Kon's, but when we arrived we learned Akol had gone to the central town, so we will meet him another day.
Continuing our trek we headed to the site. Walking cross-country through knee-high grass is uncomfortable now that things are drying out. Prickly grasses scratch my legs and tiny thorns end up in my sandals. Daniel, Moses, and Manyok are all wearing trousers and shoes. I'm wearing cargo shorts—not the traditional dress for women, but no one seems to mind. I wear dresses or skirts for church and when meeting with elders. It's too hot for pants.
Juma, the head medical officer at the clinic, came to me in the afternoon pleading on behalf of eight tuberculosis patients—seven women and a little girl, and one man who has lost his fingers to leprosy. They have no food. Their bodies can't utilize the medications if they're starving. He asked if I could help. ASAH has precious food supplies stored here. We had expected our compound to open last summer, but the onset of heavy rains delayed materials and the crew until this trip.
Since our facility doesn't open until January, when it will be possible to travel the roads again, Manyok feels we can part with some beans and rice and powdered milk. We organized a plan with Victor, the clinic pharmacist who oversees supplies at the clinic. It isn't certain that we will be repaid, but the Lost Boys Clinic has applied for renewal of a World Food Programme grant for just this situation, and they expect it to be renewed by year-end. They will repay the beans and rice with WPF lentils and sorghum—not as desirable, but we might be able to trade the sorghum for rice. This is a life and death situation for these patients, and right now, we're the only option.
Manyok and Dau bought a goat to celebrate our arrival. The plan was to slaughter it Sunday and invite the girls for a feast. Alas, the clinic has no firewood. Shortly after we received this gift, before we left for church, Moses' uncle Kon stopped by with a goat for us as well. The he-goat and the she-goat are tethered, bleating pitifully, knowing something is up. They have a short respite as we won't be able to slaughter and cook them today.
Daniel and I walked to church before the two-hour service finished. Two hours is a bit long for me since all the preaching and prayers and announcements are in Dinka. The singing and drumming is quite enjoyable, as is watching and listening to the movement of people and children inside the church.
As in any church, when it's over, everyone gathers outside to greet friends. Many people know me now, and their greetings are warm. People call me Deborah Dit, though I didn't t know why. The addition of "Dit" to the name is a sign of respect for elders and for people in responsible positions.
After lunch we started our long walk through the outskirts of the village on our way to Daniel's home to meet his mother. She's in her 50s, but looks older. His father is nearly 70, blind, living in Juba. As often happens when you meet parents of kids that you are helping, I was designated his second mother. From there, we tried to meet Moses' brother, Akol, at his uncle Kon's, but when we arrived we learned Akol had gone to the central town, so we will meet him another day.
Continuing our trek we headed to the site. Walking cross-country through knee-high grass is uncomfortable now that things are drying out. Prickly grasses scratch my legs and tiny thorns end up in my sandals. Daniel, Moses, and Manyok are all wearing trousers and shoes. I'm wearing cargo shorts—not the traditional dress for women, but no one seems to mind. I wear dresses or skirts for church and when meeting with elders. It's too hot for pants.
Juma, the head medical officer at the clinic, came to me in the afternoon pleading on behalf of eight tuberculosis patients—seven women and a little girl, and one man who has lost his fingers to leprosy. They have no food. Their bodies can't utilize the medications if they're starving. He asked if I could help. ASAH has precious food supplies stored here. We had expected our compound to open last summer, but the onset of heavy rains delayed materials and the crew until this trip.
Since our facility doesn't open until January, when it will be possible to travel the roads again, Manyok feels we can part with some beans and rice and powdered milk. We organized a plan with Victor, the clinic pharmacist who oversees supplies at the clinic. It isn't certain that we will be repaid, but the Lost Boys Clinic has applied for renewal of a World Food Programme grant for just this situation, and they expect it to be renewed by year-end. They will repay the beans and rice with WPF lentils and sorghum—not as desirable, but we might be able to trade the sorghum for rice. This is a life and death situation for these patients, and right now, we're the only option.
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