Out of the Sud

I'm officially out of the Sudan now. We actually made it out last Tuesday, but I've been in transit all over the place for the last week and am now getting settled in Western Kenya.

After a month of heavy rains, the reliability of our airstrip in Pagak had become pretty questionable. There is a UN charter flight every Thursday that, for about a hundred bucks, will take you from Upper Nile to Juba in just a few hours. Before the plane touches down, the pilot does a once over to see if the dirt airstrip is muddy or has standing water that will foul the landing gear. Most pilots will just keep the party train moving if they see any sign of water. The Russian guys will land in a swamp. We had a heavy rain a few days before last Thursday's scheduled flight. It's not normally a problem, but the dirt levee guarding the channel that drains all of the water from the high end of the airstrip to the river broke down leaving the airstrip a bit ''marshy.''

At the same time, two of the other guys in the compound were making their exit on foot along the former repatatriation corridor between Pagak and Kuergeng, Ethiopia. In all it is about 25 kilometers or so and takes most of the local Nuer only about three or four hours to walk it. I decided to tag along--I figured that the UNDSS plan would probably leave me in Pagak for an extra week or two and that I would end up walking to Ethiopia anyway. It looked promising for an experience and seemed to be a fitting one for the end of my time in Sudan.

We woke up early, about 5 in the morning. I had my usual breakfast of tea with a half a mug of sugar and powdered cream. I lost my shoes about a month earlier on a previous supply run to Ethiopia and had been wearing blue "floaters", these puffy plastic sandals that I bought for a buck and a half that are moulded to resemble real shoes. They lacked an ankle strap so I fashioned one using duct tape, some nylon rope, and a couple of socks that I cut up for padding. I still had my gumboots, but the water level is too high and the boots would be useless for the trek. When the other guys saw my new homemade shoes, they laughed and Kenneth lent me his sneakers.

As we left Pagak, the trip went as previous ones had, stepping on broken maize stalks and grass to gain traction in the mud. We took a detour around the area with the crocodiles just at the edge of town and continued along the muddy path that leads to the Ethiopian border. Not long after we left the path disappeared and turned into a swamp. The luggage went on heads, and we started wading through it. Within about 10 minutes, the water, which was at about knee level was rising rapidly. For a shorty like me, eventually the water topped out at about my shoulders. Its slow going walking in water. You have to make sure that your feet don't get tangled in the underwater foliage or get snagged on thorns. With the wrong footing it would be easy to dump your luggage from your head into the muddy depths. The rains are also great for taking all of the crap, of which I mean in the literal sense, that usually sits on walking paths and int he bushes and turns everything into a muddy poopy mess.

The border is only a few kilometers away, though it took us about two hours to get there. At the border there is a collapsed bridge spanning a small river that separates two bored looking soldiers from their respective militaries. A month ago, the bridge was easily passable on quad bike but the water was now rushing over the top of it and when crossing, you have to sort of have faith that there will be bridge solidy beneath your feet.

The path that we normally take now looked like a stream. Althogh the fields around it were also flooded, its lack of foliage made it the easiest path for the movement of water. After some time, we reached an actual river that I had remembered from previous trips as a big depression that you drive through, down about 20 feet and then back up again. Now, on either side of the banks there were a bunch of people waiting to cross. Some girls had created a system, by which they would swim giant buckets across the river containing luggage or other carried items away from the water's reach. As you swim across it, you have to cut left hard and hug the tree-line. Immediately the strong downstream current whips you along with it and you have to power through to the other side before you get taken somewhere into what just looks like a tangled mess of trees, vines, and grass. After a few trips back across to pick up other guys in our party, it was back to walking along the flooded path.

About half way, the water level dropped from waist level to nothing and in some parts dried up completely. For these stretches it was punishing. Earlier, the muddy water would help to keep you cool and when you get overheated you just duck beneath its dubious surface. It was now midday and hot as hell. There is mud but, the steamy hot kind kind that you sink down to about your knees and have to pull your leg out with your arms. We only had a few litres of water between us and I was rationing my precious liter with mathematic precision.

After about 7 hours I saw a radio antenna in the distance that lets you know you are about to reach Kuergeng. I poured the last remnants of my water down the ol' gullet and gambled that we would get there soon. What an idiot. Turns out that it was one of those mirages, where you keep walking and it never seems to get closer. By now, the heat, no food, and no water was starting to take its toll. I was grateful for the final stretch-about 3 kilometers of waist high muddy water. I was starting to get heat exhaustion and needed the water to cool off. Only now the water had absorbed all of the midday heat and was like a muddy spa. It took all of my energy to get to dry land and as I staggered out into a village just short of the town, a pissed off Nuer guy started shaking his fist at me. I realized that I had stepped on his levee that kept his village area dry and water was now spilling into it. He saw that I was not really in much of a condition for anything, softened, and pointed out the direction I needed to go to town.

We finally made it. 8 or 9 hours later we reached a hotel restaurant where we had some water, soda, and crackers. My stomach was not really with it enough from the heat exhaustion to have much water, but I forced some in--took half an orange soda and waited to get the sugar levels back to normal. The ride from Kuergeng to Gambella is only about an hour and a half but it was enough to get me back into normal condition. We reached our hotel in Gambella, where I promptly ordered and ate two dinners.

I'll let you know how the trip to Addis, Nairobi, and out here to Nyanza went. The mattatu ride out here was a few hours on a horrible road and one of the wheels fell off, but rural Kenya is beyond sweet. I'm hanging out on a hill overlooking lake Victoria eating 15 cent samosas and giant deep fried Tilapia.

The Drug Shortage Continues

Yesterday, we met again at the PHCC to discuss the complete shortage of drugs.  The supply of the critical drugs like Quinine is no worse today than it was yesterday (Still nearly at 0), but tensions over it have been steadily increasing.  The clinic staff is anxious over the clinic's condition.  And rightfully so.  They've also been working without salary for quite some time now.  Last year, when the same issue came to a breaking point, one of our staff was arrested by the local police for not suppling the clinic with drugs.

I'm afraid, that this is where things are headed again.  That is, unless we get the drugs here very soon.  One of the community health mobilizers, a 20 year veteran of the war, likened the situation to sending soldiers into battle with no bullets.  It reminded him of the time when he was given only two bullets for his rifle before a large engagement, fired them off within the first few minutes and had to run away.  That's not something you want your operation compared too.  Another second problem is lights.  If a patient comes in at night--too bad.  Without a generator to supply electricity, the staff have to work by flashlight or tell the patient to return in the morning.  SC had provided the clinic with a solar powered lamp, but it has gone missing in action--likely stolen and sold in some market somewhere.  

The problem is a complex one.  It begs the question--what are the roles and responsibilities of NGO's in post-conflict countries?  Especially those that have long existed as a humanitarian emergency that required the direct distribution of aid.  Duncan raised an interesting point, that when John Garang signed the CPA in 2005, it signaled the end to most organizations relief operations in Sudan.  Many have packed up and left, but others like SC are switching their programming from relief to development.  Aid dependence is a legacy of that time that will continue to affect life far after the end of the conflict.  And that's why this drug problem is becoming so acute.  The bureaucratic foul-ups and transport issues that have prevented the drug distribution aside (and I assure you there have been many), the current problem highlights the increasing divergence of community expectations and the responsibilities of organizations as they view themselves.  Community ownership of NGO programming and aid dependence are competing values--you can't have both.  At the same time, with an infant government of Southern Sudann (GoSS), public goods are in short supply and organizations cannot entirely abandon certain relief efforts wholesale.  Although that was not the intention of the drug shortage at the clinic, it has functioned as such.  One day the clinic had drugs, the next day it didn't.

And yet, what happens if a shipment of drugs is able to get through in the next month?  What happens after the rush on drugs a month later when the clinic is again empty?  You are back to square one--and that seems to have been the case during the period when our staff was arrested over the shortage a year ago and the situation today.  Who is to say that won't be the situation again a year from now?  Whose responsibility is it ultimately in the long run to keep drugs stocked at the clinic.

We talked about our two-pronged approach.  On the one hand, we are trying to get the drugs here.  Some are sitting somewhere in the region, but apparently there is no way to get them here given the weather.  The roads are flooded.  The other is where the idea of a Village Health Committee comes in.  Curative medicine is critical.  A person becomes sick with a life threatening disease and they need drugs and treatment to recover.  Otherwise they die. However, so many of the diseases here are preventable.  Not entirely, but with better sanitation facilities, knowledge of the spread of disease, and basic precautions the rates of infection will decrease.  If you can involve community stakeholders to become directly engaged in managing and solving these issues than you have a program that is sustainable.  When NGO's eventually leave,or the drug supply again runs out again, the region will be less likely to plummet back into a health disaster.  The problem is, thats a hard place to get to.  

The drug supply issue is threatening to undercut the VHC program.  Why should individuals help us mobilize others to spread awareness of a clinic's services if the community can't receive treatment there?  The short answer goes back to the importance of shifting attitudes towards accepting and using good health practices.  This would continue to reduce of the burden on the curative side of managing endemic health problems and makes for a better, self-sufficient society.  Yet this is something that is, at its core, an exercise dependent upon trust-building.  Without resolving the drug issue expediently, this trust is going to be in limited supply.    

Drugless in Pagak

Today, Duncan, Titus, Jaffar, and I went to the local Payam administrators to try to get them on board with the creation of the Village Health Committee.  They gave us a tentative go ahead and agreed to call all of the local Boma (village) chiefs together tomorrow so we can discuss the process of selecting a man and woman to represent each Boma in the committee.  We were, however, lectured at length about the lack of drugs at the Public Health Community Center (PHCC).  It seems that not only has there been a complete lack of drugs at the clinic, but also the staff have not been paid salary in some months.  The drug shortage is starting to reach a critical level and risks jeopardizing the programs we are working on.

Earlier, I went to the clinic with Jaffar to check up on a woman who was admitted yesterday with a severe case of cerebral malaria.  The problem is that the PHCC is at a total lack of drugs, including the quinine that is necessary to treat Malaria.  Cerebral malaria is what happens when malaria goes from bad to worse.  The parasite crosses the blood brain barrier and the infected individual will no longer respond to a strong dose of prophylaxis (which can only treat malaria while it is still in the bloodstream.  Without treatment it leads to coma and eventually death.  Despite the lack of quinine, someone in her family was able to buy a dose in the local market.

Jaffar and I went to the two small shops where drugs are sold to see if we could track down some quinine.  You need about four or five doses to make a decent recovery from such a severe case (Each dose contains six mini-doses that are administered intravenously).  Although the woman had received one, the chances are high that she would soon relapse into a severe case or, even worse, one that is quinine resistant.  The first chemist we went to was not only out of quinine, but also most antibiotics and other drugs that would be helpful in treating severe cases.  The second chemist had a small supply of quinine at about 60 Birr (about six bucks) a dose.  I really wanted to buy the woman a second dose, but with my Ethiopian currency supply dwindling, I came up about a dollar short.  Hopefully the woman's family can come up with enough cash for her to finish the treatment.

Malaria season is just kicking into high gear.  Last August, of the hundred or so cases at the clinic, seven people died.  This August, I am going to try to increase my ground time at the clinic and cover the Malaria season in video.

The other case was a young girl who was bitten by a snake.  Again, the lack of drugs means that she will not be able to receive the anti-venom she needs to make a reasonable recovery.  They started her on a course of antibiotics to prevent infection, but once necrosis sets in she will have to be sent to a better clinic, perhaps in Malakal (quite some distance from here).  

The drug situation is a tough one.  Even if we were to have a ready supply of drugs in Juba, like most other supplies, it is near impossible to get them up here.  A better solution would be to purchase them in Ethiopia and transport them overland by LandCruiser and quad bike.  Unfortunately, the government has a seemingly unofficial policy of "Ethiopian drugs are for the Ethiopians" and it is impossible to get a large quantity of drugs cleared by customs.  What needs to happen is a huge stock up of drugs at a central field depot where the clinics can make a long (but possible) LandCruiser trip to pick them up as needed.  Especially in anticipation of malaria season.  Unfortunately, given the realities on the ground and the difficulties of transport, the drug supply issue is one that will not be resolved anytime soon

Home Sweet Home...at Least for Another Seven Weeks

The town of Pagak is literally in the middle of nowhere.  To get here, you either need to hire a private plane, bum a ride on a cargo flight, or drive across Ethiopia to the border and hop on an ATV or a dirt bike for the rest of the way.  If you can manage to get here, Save the Children has a pretty permanent looking compound here right next to the dirt airstrip.

From the airstrip you walk down a dirt "road" that has been gutted with deep channels from our LandCruiser as it tries to avoid getting stuck in the mud.  You walk down said muddy path for about 30 seconds and knock on the corrugated tin sheet metal that forms the compound gate .  Eventually a guard will wander up, unlock the door and let you in.  

Inside, we have about 10 or so little buildings, tents, huts, or other forms of enclosed space to work out of or get away from the rain.  The largest is the Dining Hall (or Dining Hut).  Its a sweet wood and mud room covered with grass and topped off with a giant UNHCR tarp.  About once a month, some of the local staff re-muds the walls to fill in the cracks and crumbled exterior.  Outside are the two satellite dishes that provide communication with the outside world.  Provided there are no clouds or rain, that is.  Inside, we have our meals (Spaghetti, rice, and baked beans--everyday!) as well as a TV and dart board.  I've been hitting the darts pretty hard.  When the generator kicks off at noon, in the evening, and at night, there's not much else to do.  I've unwisely already long burned through my supply of books.  When the office gets too full of people, the overflow head into the dining hall and set up shop.

The office itself is actually pretty small--just a one room tukul.  But inside we have five desks, printers, and most importantly--wireless internet.  Although it becomes impossible to use once more than a few people are using it, its one of those things that you don't fully appreciate until the generator kicks off.  Because of the presence of the mighty internet, we usually are in the office until about 11 at night officially working on projects, or unofficially just messing around.

From the door of the office, you can take the network of rock paths (as the rain turns all of the mud into a deep deep soup) to either the kitchen or one of the several rooms in the compound.

Breakfast is usually pancakes or mandazi (fried bread--like an unsweetened donut) and always some hot tea with powdered milk.  Nyamone cooking up some pancakes:

There are two types of living quarters--brick rooms and tukuls.  I suppose three types--we also have two small two-man dome tents covered with tarps for overflow.  All of the rooms are arranged around the perimeter of the compound, which means that at night you can hear just about everything outside--blasting Teddy Afro music, local police on patrol, and people chatting away in their tukuls.  

The winner of the compound amenities game is the hot water.  That's right, hot water.  A while back, someone had the presence of mind to cut in half one of the many old oil drums that we have and use it to heat water throughout the day.

All you have to do is take your bucket walk over to the oil drum, scoop up some of the water, add some disinfectant to kill of all of the worms, bacteria, and all the other crap living in it and...bam! You've got yourself an instant shower my friend.

With all of the crazy moving around that I've been doing lately and the old luggage crisis at the beginning of my trip, I didn't realize until today that I've been here for over a month now.  I've started to settle in pretty well--hot water, mud, wandering goats and all.  Seven weeks to go!

Gettin' Some Community Action

This morning, Duncan, Judith and I went to the PHCC to meet with some previously trained Village Health guys to talk about forming a community health group to be established and run by local people with our support.  As was the case with the women's group, its incredibly difficult to organize something like that within a community of people who have had public goods provided in an emergency relief situation.  It doesn't help that in a place where we are wondering if it is ready for ox-powered agriculture or not, basic needs are still so pressing that people need food before they are willing to talk about organizing for things such as a community education program.  And many are not getting it.  Likewise, its difficult to organize a of individuals to become  the primary stakeholders in a group and are willing to take ownership and leadership in its management and direction, especially on a volunteer basis.  After decades of direct relief during the war, the transition from relief to development is, at times, unbearably challenging.  But you have to start somewhere, even if its with a defunct community group.  The objective is to organize a group of core individuals who will in turn lead the mobilization of a larger group--family, village etc.--and give them the support necessary such that the program is sustainable without the direct management by an NGO.  It is not to directly provide the services or goods themselves.  That way, when the NGO packs up and leaves, those services or goods can be provided sustainably by the local community.  Or so the theory goes.

From there, I had afternoon English class.  Lot's of "I am Bret" "He is Titus" "He is happy" "She is not sad" and the like.  We also played a few games with flashcards of animals and vegetables.  We had a 10 minute diversion over whether or not there is cabbage in Pagak.  The best part of class was, though that I found a Sudanese guy who is pretty good at English and starting tomorrow will teach the class with me.  I hope that if we can get him in front of the class teaching, he can maybe take over for me when I leave.  It also still leaves me with about six weeks for crash course teacher training and plenty of time to come up with a curriculum for absolute beginners and the necessary materials for such a course.

I rode the good feelings on over to the NCDS compound where Judith was having her youth group meeting for a social marketing piece on the importance of education.  The discussion went fine and I was feeling good until the session started to wind down.  One of the guys about my age had said during the discussion that he was willing to come to these sorts of programs and support them because while he was living in Ethiopia he had to go to school barefoot and without supplies.  Sometimes he just wouldn't go.  Eventually a Catholic organization gave him shoes and school supplies and he seems to have a sincere desire to work with local groups on community improvement.  Pretty groovy.  Until he pulled me aside afterwards and asked me if I could find him some glasses because he really needed them.  How do you respond to that?  There are a lot of great groups that collect used glasses donations and ships them to areas around the world where they are needed.  Unite for Sight provides people in developing areas with free eye exams and corrective surgery.  I had to tell him that I just don't have any glasses but that I would look into some things and get back to him tomorrow.  I thought maybe there is an organization or something that I could contact and while I couldn't get anything to him per se, maybe we could work something out in the future for the rest of the community.  The sad reality is that even if there were a supply of glasses ready to be distributed and sitting in Juba, the only way to get anything into Pagak is via a $3000 charter flight from Juba or via Addis Ababa and a punishing overland trip across Ethiopia.  Sudan's infrastructure is just so poor that even something like eye glasses will remain unavailable in Upper Nile for quite some time.  

In Cambodia, these things really wore me down.  I remember the girl who would learn your name and then find you everyday to ask for just a little bit of money.  Over the years I've become a bit hardened to people asking me for things or perhaps just desensitized.  But still, on days like today, somebody asks me for a pair of glasses and I find myself down, brooding in the dark somewhere and sad for what I will have to tell him tomorrow.  He took a piece of paper at the end of the meeting and mentioned something about writing me a letter.  I hope for my own sake that I misheard him.  But I know that is probably not the case.  

ICC to Indict al-Bashir

Although it had been suspected of such for a while, yesterday the BBC found the first evidence that the Chinese government has been providing military assistance to Khartoum--in direct violation of the UN arms embargo on Darfur.  Several Chinese Dong Feng army trucks were documented operating in the area.  The UN had previously discovered that a shipment of 212 of the trucks had been imported after the arms embargo was put in place, but this was the first time that they had been documented directly.

The trucks, after having been imported, were mounted with high powered machine guns or anti-aircraft batteries.  Several witnesses reported a Dong Feng firing its anti-aircraft directly into several tukuls (wood and mud huts) during an attack on a village.  

Beijing also had sold A5 Fantan jets to the Khartoum government in 2003 before the embargo.  The pilot training that it has provided has likewise been used to devastating effect during the all too frequent air attacks on civilians.

In other news, look for Head ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo to file charges and an indictment of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir sometime today over crimes in Darfur.  It had previously indicted the his Minister for Humanitarian Affairs in connection the Janjaweed, although the government has refused to hand him over (or even recognize the court for that matter).  

The efficacy of the ICC aside, this will be a historic move--the first time the ICC has indicted a serving head of state.  Usually heads of state have official or tacit immunity from war crimes or crimes against humanity while they are still in office.  This immunity doesn't last once their term is over, which may be why Mugabe in Zimbabwe is fighting his downfall so vigorously.  It is refreshing to see that what the Economist called a "blanket of protective immunity" is slowly beginning to give way to adherence to international human rights law.  

However, the effect of the indictment may make more difficult an already complex humanitarian emergency on the ground.  There have been increased attacks on relief workers as well as AU and UN Peacekeepers.  The BBC also notes that the indictment may embolden anti-government rebels sensing weakness in the capital.  This especially after a repulsed JEM assault on Ombduran this May in a move that surprised many, particularly leaders in Khartoum only kilometers away.    

Cancellation of Duck TV

For the past week, a family of ducks has been living outside my door.  Whenever I wanted to get into my room at night or wanted to leave in the morning, I had to step over the mama duck and her four fluffly ducklings.  I sort of started feeding them on my porch so they started coming around more and more.  During the day, they would all come over to the dining hut, jump down off of the small cement porch and waddle around the floor looking for some food on the floor.  They were awfully small little fluffy guys and its easy to get attached to company like that in a place like Sudan.  

Yesterday when I saw the mama milling about outside the dining hut only two of the ducklings were in tow.  There is also a cat or some other animal that sometimes hangs out in the compound at night and has killed some of the chickens.  I suppose that all animals have to eat, but I had hoped that it wouldn't be the ducklings.  I kept sneaking them biscuits and what not so that they would grow up to an acceptable size a bit faster.  When I turned in last night, the ducks weren't there.  This morning, as usual the mama duck was outside the dining hall but this time she was alone.

Its sad, maybe I've gone "bushy" from too much time here already, but I sure miss those little guys.  Maybe its because Duck TV has been a real comfort and entertainment in a place where a wrong move will get you arrested by the military.  Maybe it had just become part of my daily routine--get up, step over the ducks, go to bed, step over ducks.  Maybe it was because a few days ago I took a nap with the door open and when I woke up all of the ducks were sitting in front of my bed waiting for me to give them a biscuit.  Maybe its because they're just so damn fluffy.  I wonder if the mother duck knows that her ducklings are gone.  Are ducks capable of sensing something like that?  I've definitely gone bushy.

In a strange twist of irony, this evening during dinner, we noticed sags pushing their way around on the canvas and grass roof of the dining hut.  It was the four paws of whatever cat (or cat-like animal) that had probably done the deed earlier.  As we were watching them, the feet suddenly stopped and a stain slowly started spreading in between them.  The cat was pissing through the roof.  Had it stopped a few feet earlier, it would have deposited its pungent yellow present all over the table with our dinner.  Its hard not to laugh at something like that.  I suppose it is an appropriate final chapter to Duck TV.

Getting Down to Work

I officially started my documentation project yesterday. Earlier, I had pitched an idea to shoot a promotional documentary that the country director could use to keep a record of field projects and hopefully to help push the donors our way when it comes time to renew several of the grants that the Sudan office relies upon for its operations. As I had been struggling before to define for myself my job for the next two months, I latched onto the project as a way to focus my energy while I sort of tread water in the short term.

Early yesterday morning, I met Jeffa, the Pagak area community health organizer, at the compound. Duncan and he had arranged for me to meet and interview a mother, whose young son had about a month long stay at the Public Health Community Center with burns on 40% of his small body. I walked with Jeffa the few minutes it takes to get from the compound to the PCHH. The PHCC was pretty empty as is often the case. The PCHH only receives a case or two per day—usually Malaria. A few SPLA soldiers were hanging out, lying on the benches outside one of the buildings and chatting with one another. I met the mother who was sitting in front of the hospital wing—there are two rooms with about five beds each, one for the men and one for the women. We greeted, shook hands, and I explained what the project was for and expressed my appreciation for her willingness to talk with me.

I was a bit nervous—this was my first case for the documentary. The mother’s smile and the happy boy, who was maybe only about a year or two old and being bounced around on his mother’s lap. I started to get all my equipment together and was utterly unprepared as the mother started to take of the child’s clothes, revealing a near continuous scar that ran from his side and back all the way down his leg. An overwhelming sense of what the boy must have felt at the time washed over me and yet I was entirely unable to empathize with such a feeling of pain.

I clumsily set everything up and did a very short interview. Nothing too much, just tried my best to get the child’s story and be respectful of him and his mother. Even with Jeffa there to translate, the details were hard to follow. I was still distracted. The child had been burned with either hot water, hot oil, or hot something that the child had knocked over onto his body. His mother took him to the PHCC afterwards. Luckily an American couple had visited the PHCC a few months back and left some medical supplies—specifically anti-bacterial gel and disinfectant. During his month stay at the clinic, those supplies saved his life.

I later interviewed Jeffa about the child’s case as well as the services the PHCC provides the community. The PHCC was only finished this year. “Before then, the child would have died,” he told me. Such a thing had just happened a few months ago and too many times in the past years.

I thanked everybody there, especially the mother, who was very grateful even though I had no role in her son’s treatment or recovery. I will hopefully be working out of the clinic more in the future as I start to figure out with Duncan our plan for community health mobilization.

Next stop was over at the Nile Interdevelopment Program (NIP) compound, where Judith, Odongo, and Titus were supposed to hold an election for the women’s group. Unfortunately, right at about the time the meeting was to start, the rain clouds opened up a torrential downpour. The LandCruiser had that day old throw up smell. When we got to the NIP compound, about 40 women crowded under the small roof of the office. Some messages were mixed and about 10 men were also there for the women’s meeting.

The group wasn’t quite ready for an election. Instead, it was a two-hour group session to get everyone on the same page on working together as a community to address and solve educational issues and the Early Child Development Program. It’s a tough challenge to try to get a group of individuals to take charge of a program to help themselves move forward. It’s even tougher in a place like Southern Sudan, where many people feel helpless and need direct aid—food and supplies. The trick of it is to avoid the aid dependence that occurs from simply freely handing out goods. The women are motivated though. They desperately want to learn. They want their children to go to school. They want to improve their economic lot. They want someone to teach them how to make soap. As refugees in Ethiopia, they had free schools and other services provided to them in Ethiopia. In Southern Sudan, they need to take the reigns and get involved in the school, get the training and skills to run the schools and programs after the NGO’s are gone.

There was no election. But the women’s group is moving forward. Next Friday, there will be another community meeting to keep the momentum going and hopefully after that we can have the election and get the program structures in place. It’s slow, but at least its moving.

I took about three hours of film today. I’m having some trouble getting the audio quite right, but with a bit more practice, using my clip-on mic for interviews, and taking more time to think out my shots I should get it down. I’m getting a rapid crash-course in filming as I work. I just hope that these first few runs aren’t a total wash.

Cargo Drop

From Juba, I took a mid-day cargo flight to Pagak.  In the morning I rushed around town to get my exit visa from the Immigration office before we head to Ethiopia.  I returned just in time to catch a ride to the airport in one of our Land Cruisers.  Thursday is the day the Buffalo flies.  The Buffalo is an older two prop workhorse of a plane that can haul up to six tons of anything across the country.  The rear of the plane has a cargo ramp.  You load/drive your cargo up and away you go.

We followed a huge truck filled with supplies, drugs, and other medical equipment to the airport, nodded to security, and drove on out to the runway to the plane.  On the far side of the runway, a huge white UN C5-type cargo plane was unloading supplies into canvas covered trucks.  The truck in front of us mistakenly raced off to the other plane and had to be called back.  As it pulled up to the Buffalo (a white Buffalo at that), six guys jumped off and we began to unload several hundred boxes and pack them into our plane.  First though, we took off t

he radio antenna from the Land Cruiser, deflated the tires, and drove it into the cargo bay of the Buffalo.  Once fastened down with straps, we started transferring the boxes to behind the Land Cruiser and anywhere else there was room.  It took a long time to move all those damnable yet lifesaving boxes by had.  I had stupidly packed my empty water bottle away earlier that morning and the runway was radiating the full fury of the midday Juba heat.

About an hour later, as we were finishing up, the three-man flight crew wedged their way from the tiny door in the fuselage past all of the boxes and the Land Cruiser and took up positions in the cockpit.  Some other guy I had never met before and I got into the car and the rest of the boxes were placed around the side of the Land Cruiser pinning us snugly in place.

As the Buffalo cranked up its engines and slowly, but powerfully, made its way airborne, the inside of the car started to hit at least a roasting 50 degrees C with full humidity.  Since I couldn't turn on the air conditioner, I thought that I would be a smart ass and  roll down the window, put one hand on the wheel, lean my arm out the window, and pretend that the roar of the engine was actually that of the six-piston Toyota and that I was cruisin' down the street.  "That's right, ladies.  What up?"  I thought, staring at the boxes tapping against the back window trying to get in.  The guy sitting in the passenger seat ignored me and pretended to sleep.  As my two backpacks vibrated their way off of the hood, the effect was thusly ruined and my short-lived fantasy came to an end.

The flight itself took about an hour and a half.  Once we had been airborne for a while and the plane started to cool off, I dug into my bag and found the German Capri-Sun that I had stowed away in Nairobi.  Now 30% weniger Zuker!" it informed in on the front.  We passed the enormous Nile River, a lot of green pastoral land, sparse forest, and I knew we were far away from Juba.

We touched down somewhere.  Maybe we were already at Pagak, but I couldn't really see out the windows with all of the boxes in the way.  As I exited the vehicle and sidled past the boxes, I followed the crew out the passenger hatch on the side, jumped down, and fought the blinding light to see where I had ended up.

The second I jumped off the plane and looked around, I was instantly taken aback for a second.  Standing in front of me were about 50 people just kind of curiously looking at the plane and the sort of Asian-white guy that it had produced.  About a hundred other people came running towards the plane as a guy started to shoe the kids away with a big stick.  Fo

r about a minute, I found myself completely alone wondering what to do.  The sleepy guy wandered off somewhere and was nowhere to be seen.  Do I find somebody?  Do I continue to stand there like an idiot?  I chose the latter.  A second later, a Save the Children Land Cruiser came driving from the village and the local program manager welcomed me to Nasir.

We enlisted the help of some of those standing around, and unloaded all of the boxes from the back of the plane and stacked them up on the dirt runway.  It only took about a half an hour and a gracious medical staff thanked us for the supplies.  The Public Health Community Center in Nasir had been absent drugs and basic medical supplies for quite some time.  I jumped back into the cargo hold, found a seat this time, and we took off again for Pagak.

The Pagak airstrip is literally right next to the compound and the rest of the town.  You could toss your stuff over the wooden fence and it would probably end up next to one of the brick rooms we stay in.  A bunch of smiling people greeted me and I finally met Judith, Laura, Jimmy, and the rest of the Pagak SC staff.  They gave me a warm welcome and helped to settle me down in what will be my new home for the next two and a half months.

On Abyei

For the past few days, I've set myself up in the Operations office where there was a free bit of desk.  Its not usually too busy except for the guy in the radio room calling whoever needs to be called and the static he usually gets as an answer.  The other guys in this particular office are pretty easy going and someone is either playing some hip-hop or Ethiopian music on their computer.

Today, John, a staff guy from Abyei came into the office urgently needing to send an e-mail to someone in Khartoum to clear up a finance issue.  I loaned him my computer and we started talking about how things have been going up his way recently since last months fighting.

In the middle of May, BBC and the other major newswires had reported a major three-day clash in the contested area around Abyei town.  Abyei is a currently a special administrative area whose territorial status was to be determined by the Abyei Boundary Commission and a future referendum.  At the micro-level, there has been conflict between the local Dinka, nomadic Messeriya herdsem who claim grazing rights, and Khartoum backed Messeriya militias.  Political elites on all sides have mobilized and armed followers using ethnic appeals.  Abyei holds immense economic importance to both the Northern and Southern governments, with 2005-2007 oil revenues of USD 1.8 billion.  There are also elements within the National Congress Party and the Messeriya who may see violence as a tool to re-negotiate the Abyei Boundary Agreement or even scuttle the CPA.  Consequently, Abyei in recent months has threatened to become a national flash point for the return to war as the Sudanese Armed Forces, SPLA, and local militias were deployed to the area in increasing numbers.  Last month, things began breaking down in a big way.

John, it turns out, works for a Save the Children program in Abyei town and was there when the violence broke out.  It was my first time to hear from someone what actually had gone on during those days when the fighting was worst.  He heard gunfire late one night as SAF units and the local police had a skirmish.  The next day the SAF moved in with more troops and clashed with units of the SPLA who increasingly deployed more heavy weaponry.  On the 20th, SPLA forces attacked the SAF camp in Abyei town and began setting up checkpoints in the areas under their control.  The SPLA began checking people's ID's and whether they could speak the local language.  If a person was found to be Arab, he was in a world of deep shit.

A month later, the town is much quieter.  The governments of Khartoum and Southern Sudan agreed to deploy Joint Integrated Units to maintain peace in the area.  Both also reached an agreement to use international arbitration to settle the boundary dispute.  NGO's immediately resumed their services and projects.

Yet the town is nearly entirely destroyed.  Most buildings had been either shelled or burned to the ground, as were any vehicles and motorcycles left on the road.  Vacated NGO compounds were torched in the fighting or, more likely, by looters.  John told me that one of the few things left at the SC compound was the enormous safe with their cash.  It was too big to haul away and crude attempts to open it would have destroyed the cash inside.

The human cost though is staggering.  No one is really sure how many were killed during the fighting, but as a result, over 50,000 were displaced and the town still faces and emergency situation.  John tells me that their most pressing need is potable water.  A river runs near the town, but the water is unusable.  Many more bore-holes are needed. Fast.  Although the fighting has ended, a major disaster clearly remains.  Those worst affected now are sadly those who have the least to do with the conflict.

Juba Marketplace

Lately, I’ve been trying to get away from the compound to walk around Juba. Yesterday, I managed to find my way to the Juba marketplace, which was only about a 15 or 20-minute walk away. I really miss the throng and frenzied activity of markets in Cambodia and Malaysia. The one in Juba is a bit smaller, but certainly does not disappoint.

The market itself is divided into ethnic enclaves—Sudanese, Kenyan, Ugandan, and others. Over the random music blaring from many of the stalls, you can hear a chattering of Swahili, Juba Arabic, and many other local languages.

Along the main road that cuts through the market separating the upper third from the rest, there are kiosks hawking sodas, fruit, and used clothing called Mutambo. There were a lot of people stopping into small stalls, “saloons,” to have their hair cut or braided. If you duck off of the main road and into the narrow maze of stalls, you have to push your way through a bustling vegetable market where you can buy leafy greens, several types of bananas, as well as relatively fresh meat. A loaf of bread costs about 10 Sudanese pounds (about 5 dollars). Juba really is one of the most expensive cities in Africa with a rapidly growing civil service and heavy NGO presence that causes the demand for most goods to skyrocket. Given the Southern Sudanese economy’s post-conflict lack of industry and poor infrastructure, a lot of the goods, and particularly produce must be imported from Uganda.

Pushing deeper into the market, there are larger buildings where old gas powered machines crush grains and seeds into a fine powder. There were also several shops where five or six men stripped were sitting and stripping old used tires and sewing them into black rubber sandals.

People of all types were crowding the narrow passageways between stalls, although Westerners were conspicuously absent. Juba, in general does not have much of a visible military presence. However, at the market, there were Toyota trucks with the backs filled with heavily armed SPLA soldiers patrolling the main street. In greater number however, were the soldiers perusing through stalls, buying goods, and chatting with women who eagerly tried to hawk them whatever it was that they had to sell.

I didn’t take any pictures so as to avoid being a jerk to everyone there, but I did enjoy just walking around and chatting with people. Juba Arabic is not so similar to Egyptian. Combined with a lack of English, communication is quite a challenge.

I did manage to take a short video from inside the vegetable market, but given that the shared satellite Internet is usually far slower than dail-up, I doubt that I can get it uploaded anytime soon.