Return to Narus

Yes...it has been many months since I blogged with you all.

This past June and July I spent 6 weeks in Africa: both in Nairobi and in Narus. It was wonderful to get together with my friends and co-workers and to see the girls I had taught - some of whom had graduated and were in the secondary school next to St. Bahkita's Elementary School.

Sister Ann Rooney, R.S.M. came with me and I took her on a "walkabout" with Anna Mijji whom I had trained to teach the Toposa women. We visited five of the seven bomas that make up the village of Nacipo. Anna showed us the large tukul the women had built with your donation monies to Mercy Beyond Borders. The women use this building made of posts, sticks and thatch when they meet with Anna for their classes in hygiene and nutrition and health. It keeps the sun and rain off them and also houses some goats at night. Many of women remembered me and I them. Sister Ann was impressed with how well the women did with so little and with how simply they lived. It rained while we were walking and we had to go into one of the larger tukuls (huts) until it stopped. It rained steadily for one hour and we slogged our way back to compound in muck up to our ankles.

My job in returning was to staighten out a money matter with a new bank that is located closer to South Sudan and just inside the Kenya border (Lokichoggio). I thought I had accomplish this only to find out that the bank did had not send both the ATM card and the bank book to Brother Mike Foley who graciously agreed to administer the funds while I was gone. Brother Mike has been in Africa for almost 40years. He teaches Chemistry and math at the high schoo. He was also the one who put in solar panels so we could collect solar power into the batteries stored on the compound so we could use our laptops.

While staying overnight in Loki, just inside the Kenyan border, I went for too-long-a-walk and found myself very far from the hotel in which I was staying. A man was taking his obviously intoxicated wife home from town. She could not stand and he would not carry her so he hit her with a switch from a tree near-by so she would get up. Obviously this did not work. Some other tribes men (Turkana) passed by and looked me over as I watched from a distance. I did not go to her aid as I may well have been injured for medddling in what was a "cultural" thing.

I waited several months before I told anyone about this and was told it was the correct thing to do. I had felt powerless to help another woman in a culture where wife abuse is not uncommon. I can only imagine how she and other women must feel when they are treated with less respect than is paid to the cattle. This does not lessen my love for the people of South Sudan but it does reinforce my commintment to help educate women and girls in regard to their dignity and basic human rights.

Keep this country in your prayer as they get ready to vote in January, 2011. Schools were closed in mid November so the older students could be trained in polling as they are the ones who can read and write.

I have decided not to return to South Sudan to live among the people as it took a toll on my health. Hopefully, someone will take my place - even if it is for just a few months. Let us continue to pray for each other.