Sudan weekly Standard - 2

Welcome to Sudan,
welcome to the most beautiful nature,
welcome to more stars than you ever imagined,
welcome to trees bigger than a church,
welcome to malnutrition,
welcome to Leper,
welcome to the most absurd place on this planet!



Welcome to the Dinkas,
they let you know:
"Brother I'm very much suffering -
Bring food!"

Ok, first of all, sorry to all those of you to whom I haven’t answered – yet. I know it is not entirely fair, first to call on you to write and than not answering. But … well, there is no but – I could say something about being busy or that we only have a satellite-modem, but that would be excuses and I’m beginning to hate excuses - , except my usual laziness and maybe that I couldn’t always think of what to say. Which in a way is not cause by not having something to say, but simply by the amount - I don’t know where and with what to start. I could tell you something about being busy, because I’m working as a teacher in the local secondary school now for three days a week. Today I wrote an exam for them for next week – interesting experience. Writing an exam for some students I hardly know, and whose level of knowledge I have most definitely no clue about. It’s either going to be a 100% exam for all (which would surprise me) or a 0% for all (which would horrify me – but I followed along the guidelines I got). To be honest what these guys are doing in school is a bit of a surprise to me. They don’t have any books. I as a teacher am the only one who got one and as I figured out by now am supposed to write every single chapter word for word to the blackboard (that seems to have been the method they used so far) and then, I assume, they are supposed to learn it by hart. Now having said that, the stuff in the book is pretty absurd! They are learning more details about glaciers than I ever heard of – and I actually had the advantage of having seen a couple of them in my lifetime – having seen Ice, they haven’t. What-for they should learn the exact definition of: Bergschrund crevasse, Roche mountanee, Erratics, Drumlines or Eskers – to name just a few of them – is beyond my comprehension. Just as it is beyond their comprehension what they are learning. School here means learning details by hart – no understanding, nor transfer, no application required! If you do cut deeper you find that this is to them like for me learning the Koran in Arabic without translation – pointless. And I still think these guys (including the one female student) could be among the best students any teacher could ever have, despite having a constant fluctuation of them coming and going throughout the lesson and other lacks of discipline – that is what the teachers here complain about ‘no discipline’ – such as spitting in class, not turning up regularly (I still don’t know how many students my classes actually have) ect. But what do you expect of a 27 year old who spent most of his childhood as soldier in a bloody war? However if you gave them the chance – they really wanted to know something! Well, in any case they have exam next week and then the holidays start – for how long? Who knows – time is a very relative phrase in Africa!

The remaining days I either work in some IDP camps, drive out 30km – 4 wheel driving on these roads is incredible fun - to a Leper station to screw together some benches for their school – actually I’m supervising the work of our local employees and fixing the drilling machine if it stops working (now I finally know how one looks from the inside and that it actually contains graphite-contacts that can be finished – and that you can temporarily fix them with a bit of wire) – which have been donated and dropped of there a couple of month ago. Since they were lying around there happily rotting in the rain! Reading and writing. I never knew how much I enjoy writing – if my former teachers knew that! Writing about all kinds of things – time makes creative!

Well, and every now and then, when I find a new camp of people who live under some leaves, finding food in the jungle, I try to mention them to the government – yes I met the governor for southern-Sudan and pretty much the whole cabinet so far. Around twenty people, who do bugger all! But that with a relaxedness that is amazing! Apart from these 20 people there is nothing remotely resembling the workings of a state around here. Apparently we are in a bad enough situation that we will get – they should already be here – some Blue-helmets in the nearer future.

Chapter 7 mission – allowed using force, if they find a crime! That’s at least what the Canadian liaison officer said in the last UN security meeting. And I guess they will also implement the 40mph speed-limit the UN introduced, hehe.

In any case, I’m still a bit lost about what to think of all this here – maybe the next time I will be a bit less sarcastic – but for the moment that is all I can do. Laugh! Laugh - to avoid facing the full absurdity that is constantly around me.

Oh and while the people here laugh more than at home – they hardly ever seem to smile!

Have a good day!

OK here we are again – new year new try! Hopefully this time I will be a bit more consistent in my comments. Consistency belongs to the things that if they were sold in a supermarket, I would buy the lot! Any suggestions out there how to acquire consistency otherwise? Because I need some!!!!
Anyway, I do have a good starting story this year though, which will keep me bloging for at least some time as I spend my summer in Rumbek – temporary capital of southern (New) Sudan. A country that formally doesn’t even exist. While others spend their holidays on a beach trying to get as much sun as possible, I spend them in the fourth world trying to improve the situation (or at least pretending to try – not that I seriously think I could change something) and avoiding the sun as much as possible.
And as the entertainment industry of Southern Sudan isn’t particularly well developed I decided to entertain myself by writing a little weekly newspaper which you will have now the honour of reading. OK I admit, its slightly delayed by 2 month but to keep a blog updated was simply to expensive via satellite modem. However to make up for this rather time-delayed publishing I will also add some commented photos of my journey after each weeks article.
But enough of an introduction, lets start our virtual journey into a world that for most people in the west simply doesn’t exist.

Flight over the Kenyan/Sudanese border. Until recently this border was
virtually impassable because of the civil war in Sudan. For about 20 odd
years the people of Southern Sudan have been practically cut of the rest of
the world. It is a journey into the unknown - for me as the traveller just as much
as for the people there.

Weekly Standard Sudan – week one

Ok, Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Rumbek! How are you? I hope fine.
For a start I will try to give you some kind of description about the place, or to be precise, about the two places you will find in Rumbek. The 21st century world of the NGOs as well as the church, and the medieval world of the people around. My place, the Jesuit ‘Peter Claver Mission’, belongs to the 21st century world. This means I’m accommodated in a newly build brick house – secure atrium architecture – with almost everything you could expect. Electricity generated by a solar panel, capable of powering lights (German low energy bulbs – the ones you cannot find in the UK), a plug for each room, the water pump (filling the water tank above so we have running water in each room + shower ect.), a television complete with video and DVD recorder. In short just like a good holiday camp. Indeed the food I am getting here is probably healthier, tastier and offers more variety than my usual diet in Oxford – that’s what you go to Africa for, isn’t it?). The only problem is that I came totally ill-equipped. In my ‘I’m off to the jungle paranoia’ I took cloth for a month-long expedition – which is completely unnecessary, as I get my things cleaned each day by our ‘three women’ – when I should have brought some technical equipment, such as my notebook. Because this would have been the one item, which could really boost my productivity. But then, I got one from the mission now, so even this isn’t really a problem. And as I came here to learn, my first lesson was that all this fear about Africa is completely exaggerated – presumably to increase the salaries of UN workers here, but more about this next week.
Well, let’s shift to the second world of Rumbek – the one much harder to describe. Just try to forget about everything you know about your (our) world. Imagine a huge, flat junk of half jungle (humid Savannas to be precise) – beautiful mahogany and palm trees, a variety of bushes I don’t know the names of, a fascinating whether – at the time of this writing a massive tropical thunderstorm pores down - with flashlights that could supply the hole country with more electricity than they ever could use – a night sky with more stars than I have ever seen. Can you picture this? Then imagine some huts build out of a meter high mud-wall (circular with a radius of about 1.5 meters) and a roof out of dry grass. Scatter some of these huts (a few hundreds, maybe a thousand) over an area of approximately 25 square-miles, put some tracks – along the lines you would find in a off-road training area – in between, add about two, three dozen bombed out stone ruins (some of which are being rebuild right now) and some shapeless agricultural plots – far too small to be able to ever feed anyone – primarily for sweet corn. Finally place around 20 NGO compounds, just like our house – all of course fenced and guarded, with all sorts of communicational parabolas and antennas – an airport, consisting out of a mud runway, but frequented very highly (at least 20 flights a day – mostly UN Hercules planes), a lot of UN jeeps, that always drive around, but never seem to do anything. If you can imagine this, and to be honest I couldn’t if I hadn’t seen it, then you have an Idea about where I am. And in this chaos, without any sanitary installations, electricity, no architecture there are hundreds, thousands of people. Some dressed reasonably smart in western clothes, others in rags, children usually mud-covered and half naked (mostly children by the way) some carrying their Kalaschnikovs, some trying to sell food rations, cigarettes or Chinese bikes – that is the luxury item that is affordable to at least a decent number of people around here.
And still, all these people in their misery seem to laugh a lot more than the people at home!
Have a good day!