YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN!

The day after I wrote the last blog I flew to Loki (Northern Kenya) where I usually get picked up and driven to Narus. Instead, Peter, from the diocese compound, picked me up in a taxi and I went to stay in a small hotel. Two days before there had been cattle raiding between the Toposa (South Sudan) and the Turkana (Kenya) and the day before some Toposa tribesmen had shot the number one Turkana warrior, one of his wives and three of their children. All this had taken place in no-man's land between the borders of Kenya and South Sudan. The day I flew in had seen a peaceful demonstration by the Turkana of Loki asking the govt. of Kenya to do something about the situation. That march turned ugly and a riot ensued, Sudanese offices were trashed and looted and stones thrown at all cars with Sudan license plates.

I stayed at the hotel for two nights until the Kenyan Army secured the area and we went in a convoy to S. Sudan. The raiding and fighting continued and carried over to very near our compound. You could hear the gun shots and our little clinic received several tribesmen who had been shot. Five Toposa and 2 Turkana were killed in the surrounding area. The tribesmen brought some of the rustled cattle into Narus, just down the road from us, and were distributing some of the cattle to the various chiefs. Neither the South Sudan nor the Kenyan governments have done much to get control of this situation.

Things have settled down a bit but the Kenyan teachers in both the primary and secondary schools have been unable to return to Narus. This is taking a toll on limited teacher resources. Not all the students have returned either, though most have. I filled in last week but only as a stop gap and reviewed material for three grades in one room. To top it all off, because of the drought, the garden which the girls had dug, planted and tended so carefully had all died for lack of water, even though they had carried water a long distance to water each of their plants. You can get discouraged in a hot minute around here but no one does. They work through it all and do the best they can and so do I.

Sister Angela, the nurse from Kuron Peace Village who was shot last February, and I drove in the truck which still has the bullet hole in the door where she was shot, to the town of Kapoeta, about two hours from Narus. This town had been captured by the govt of North Sudan during the war and wears its scars with pride. We saw the hospital which is operated by the diocese and is running on a skeleton crew and we also saw the two churches which were bombed during the war. (Sister Angela is shown in the picture above, caring for a pregnant woman who had walked 7 days to reach her clinic, given birth under a tree an hour before she got to Kuron, and then nearly died because the placenta had not come out. Sister Angela saved her life.)

The hospital in Kapoeta is clean and well run. It had several wards for new mothers and infants, active TB patients, and then a number of folks suffering from malaria. They even have a lab where they can test for a number of illnesses. I asked about HIV patients and they said they two last year and only one so far this year but they feel there are more out in the community. AIDS is not quite so rampant here as it is elsewhere in Africa because the long civil war isolated the region. Sister had to visit the UN Headquarters and Catholic Relief Services in order to see if they would give her the food she had requested last FEBRUARY. No, they had not even read her letter and proposal but they would get to it and no, they did not have any extra food to give to her to take to her clinic in Kuron, an 8 hour drive away. We finally got a little food from the hospital.

On the way back from Kapoeta Immanuel, our driver, who had been in the army during the war, told us that the main road in Kapoeta had been so heavily mined that they had to build a completely new road around the town. Sister herself can regale you with stories of her work with the Toposa in Kuron. She has 5 girls whom she helped to deliver and who are named after her - each is called Sister Angela. Sister tried to get the mothers to drop the "sister" but has had no success. Angela is very well respected for all she has done and the lives she has saved. The Toposa show their respect by blessing her. One man whose son she saved, covered her freshly washed and ironed white habit with tobacco juice. A woman whom she had helped blessed her with goat dung. The new school, newly painted, was covered in cow dung by the men as a blessing in thanksgiving.

Will begin a new venture this Saturday at the parish hall in Narus. Christine and Anna and I will begin an outreach program to teach the women about basic sanitation, nutrition and health, etc. I will report more on this in October. We will be serving maize porridge with sugar if any of you are interested and can make it to Narus on the 19th of September.

God pops out everywhere here and challenges us to recognize his presence in people and events.

OUTREACH

There is nothing new under the sun as is reported in Ecclesiates. The Toposa have been herding cattle and living off the land for thousands of years and they do tend to humor our poor efforts to "improve" their lot. What they may not see clearly is that global warming is having a serious effect on growing crops and may be causing water shortages, all of which will affect their culture. This is not to mention the encroachment of modern towns and technology which is creeping closer and closer to their villages and is already having an effect on the children.

With all this in mind, I began to meet with the paramount chief of all the Toposa who live in and around Narus and then with a lesser chief in an outlying village within a half hour walk from my compound. We still have two or three more chiefs to meet with and get their permission to visit their villages and speak with the women about nutrition, sanitation and health issues. When I and Christine, a social worker who is employed by the Torit Diocese, met with the chiefs, their priorities were food, water, and health. I was encouraged in this work since our goals are so similar. I did tell them that we could not dig a borehole for one of the villages which is running out of water and whose women have to walk a long distance just to get the water twice a day.

Christine and I arrived at the village of the lesser chief about an hour or so before sunset to see an elderly blind woman in rags picking her way across the village enclosure with a stick to tap on the ground. We were met by women and children. One of the women attempted to pull my dress up and off me before someone told me that she wanted it. We did a little negotiation and I told her I was too fair to wear just a beaded goatskin around my waist and beads on my neck.

The chief was ill with a cold but he came out to see us. He was tall and fine boned, about 45 years old. He, along with most of the village men, dress in western clothing while the women and girls wear traditional attire. Toward the end of the visit he told me his daughter was ill and had been bled the day before. I asked him to bring her over and so he called to her and she came. She is four years old and was wearing beads around her waist. Her stomach protruded but was soft to the touch. She had ten small cuts about one and one half inches long on her back. Cutting is the Toposa way of relieving pain and hopefully, curing a sick person. She also had a runny nose. I thought she might have pneumonia as she complained of aching all over. I told the chief to bring her and himself into the clinic the next day to get a diagnosis and some medicine. Since I left for Nairobi the next morning I do not know if this happened but I had clued in the medical director to expect them.

I spent several days of my holiday in Jinja, Uganda, just over the Kenyan border visiting a Holy Cross sister, MaryLou Wahler. She took me on a tour of Lake Victoria, Bujagali Falls and showed me where the Nile begins its 4,000 mile trek to the Mediterranian Sea. MaryLou has lived in Uganda for 27 years and no matter where we went she knew someone. I stayed with her in the convent where the postulants live. There are four of them, 2 of whom are from Kenya. They grow all kinds of fruits and vegetables, including Jack fruit, a putrid smelling fruit which is quite large. Uganda is lush and green with paved roads, electricity 24/7, and full of various kinds of food including Nile Perch and Talapia. It is a stark contrast to South Sudan. I must admit I did fantasize about applying for a transfer.

I leave tomorrow for Loki where I will stay overnight and be picked up the next day and taken to Narus. School begins on Sept. 3.

Do I miss Burlingame, my family and frieds? You bet I do! Hope to be home around Christmas time.

(Hot) Summer Musings

On Sunday, July 5, I watched an elderly Toposa woman wearing tattered clothing filled with holes, go up at the offertory and put some money into the collection box. She was the poor widow with the mite.

I visited the homes of two Toposa Kindergarten girls I had worked with when I helped the Kindergarten teacher last Spring. They live in a very poor section of Narus in small one room homes made of mud brick and with thatch for roofs. They sleep on mats on the floor. The girls wear ragged soiled clothes to school and a neighbor had suggested I get them something nice to wear to school so I bought each a nice dress. One girl came to Sunday Mass in it a week or two later with her brother in tow to show me her dress. By then it was dirty and starting to show signs of wear. The other girl wound up wearing her dress to school the day that the girls received their report cards. She placed 7th in a class of 110. I gave her a large bar of soap and a book of African folk tales and then showed her how to wash herself and her clothes. This girl lives with her mother and sibs as her father lives in Juba with his other wives.

During the summer term I began to work with the girls' football (soccer) team. They are a scrappy lot and enjoy running around and kicking up a lot of dust in the hot equatorial afternoons. They even let me be a goalie when they were short one goalie. I blocked three shots and let one go through. Not bad for the old girl.

Class 8 girls debated class 8 of the Comboni Boys School. The topic was that technology has had a deleterious effect on society. The girls were all for technology and won the debate. The boys spoke English better than the girls but the girls had far more cogent arguments for technology than the boys had against it. One of the boys said that technology was bad because it made it unnecessary for men to have more than one wife but that men needed more than one wife! Then it took the judges almost one hour to give out the results of the debate as they spent that time explaining how a team that loses should behave. At that point I knew the girls had won and that the boys' egos needed to be soothed in advance.

Trivia: Did you know there are two different fruit trees in the compound called "brother's heart" and "sister's heart?" Brother's is a larger fruit and both are delicious.

A couple of weeks ago 9 of the school's goats were slaughtered for the 830 girls to eat for lunch. They cook every part of the goat except the head, hooves and skin. The girls eat it, entrails and all, and are grateful for it. We ate the liver at the convent.

Sr. Marilyn came to Narus on July 10 to my great joy! She came bearing many gifts, among which was an electronic book reader, the Amazon Kindle. The device can hold 1,000 complete books. Sr. Edvine, head mistress, is using it and will see if it can be adequately recharged using a solar recharging device. If so, then Mercy Beyond Borders will order enough to supply the upper grade girls.

I took Sr. Marilyn to see the clinic near our compound, run by the Diocese of Torit. There was a man who had been shot in the leg during a cattle raid lying on the porch because he did not want to be indoors. There was also a four year old boy who had fallen into the cooking fire on the floor of his hut and had sustained some bad burns to his torso, leg and foot. We were assured that both would be all right.

Sisters Marilyn and Judy received the royal treatment both from the Sisters of Mercy in Nairobi and the communities here in Narus. Maybe some of that will rub off on me by association. They are excellent ambassadors of what the teachers, the church and the country of South Sudan are trying to do to help their people.

Remember us in your prayer.

No, I did not ride off into the sunset on the back of a giraffe though I find the thought tempting. There is, however, some catching up to do.

In May, the rains came to the mountains and flooded the river next to the compound. It sounded like a train rushing through but lasted only a few hours and then was gone. This kind of rain can sink a lorry foolish enough to attempt to cross even if the water level is low.

School was supposed to have begun on May 4 but because CRS (Catholic Relief Services) had not delivered the food which they supply to the primary and secondary schools of the area, the girls and boys of the local schools did not return until two weeks into the summer term and even then a number of girls came as late as three weeks. Then there are always some girls who do not return because they have been "booked" or promised in marriage.

I resumed teaching grades 7 and 8 a course in nutrition - some of the exciting topics included kinds of foods, vitamins, minerals, and what the girls eat at home as compared to what they eat at school. Recently, Mercy Beyond Borders committed to buying ten goats a month so the girls can have goat meat at lunch and dinner. This truly is a real treat for them as food is scarce. The rains have been sporadic at best since May and many of the crops have shriveled up.

The Toposa are hardest hit since they are pastoralist who plant a little sorghum and maize. Their diet consists mainly of goat, milk and chipati (tortilla) made from either maize or sorghum. Most refuse to eat greens. The women work hard building all the tukuls and the grainaries, they fetch water three times a day and cook all the meals. The girls stay at home to help their mothers while the boys watch the goats and cattle. Because there is so little grass or leaves for the cattle, the young men take huge herds far out into the bush into what is called a cattle camp and stay there until all of that vegetation is gone. Some of the young women go with them to do the cooking. The young men and boys tend to wear western style clothing while the old men and most of the women and girls wear traditional clothes. The women wear goat skin "skirts" embroidered with very fine bead work. They also wear many beaded necklaces, bracelets and earrings. Some of the bracelets and anklets are made of metal and can be eight or so inches long. A hole is made below their lower lip and a post inserted at the end of which is a metal ring.

I have found the Toposa to be friendly and curious, especially the children. On my treks into the bush I bring my binoculars and when I use them to look at the wildlife, I attract a number of children who have to have a look too. I try to tell them that they can learn more of this if they go to school but their parents, on the whole, do not want them to go because they need them to work and also because some of the parents say the children will want to leave their village when they finish school.

Sister Judy Carle, a good friend and Sister of Mercy, came to Sudan for a visit and stayed with me in Narus. The Primary School girls took to her right away so I offered her a position at the school (any position really). She respectfully declined. Of course that means that there is a position waiting for one or two or several of you readers here at St. Bahkita's School. Some of your donation monies has gone into buying soccer, volley and net balls for the girls as they have NO ATHLETIC supplies. I also took Sr. Judy to visit the local clinic run by the Diocese of Torit. While we were visiting the ward, we saw three men who had been shot in a cattle raid two days before. It will take years to get the tribes to discontinue this practice.

Sister Angela, the nurse who was shot in the leg a few months ago is back in Sudan working at the clinic in Kuron (a six or seven hour drive from Narus).
She works with the Toposa there and they are very glad she does as she has saved many lives.

Sister Marilyn Lacey of Mercy Beyond Borders and a Sister of Mercy will be coming for a visit on July 6 and I am very much looking forward to this! This whole venture is part of her vision of what needs to happen in order to educate girls and bring them and their families a better way of life.

What do I hear when I pray either indoors or outside of an afternoon:
goat bells, cattle tearing at the grass, countless birds chattering,
Toposa men chanting and druming, lizards rushing in the brush.
I love to watch the leaves and the tree trunks catch the last glimmer of sun light around 6 pm or so as the birds settle down for the night. There are far more pros than cons in living in South Sudan. Come and see what they are.

Let us pray for each other

Learning alongside my students

After Easter I began teaching five Standard 4 students (fourth grade) in science. They are between the ages of 13 – 17. They are older because their parents may finally have gotten the resources to send them to school and/or to be able to manage without them at home. These students are delightful and became even more so as we got to know each other. I took them on walks to the immense dry riverbed near the school where they looked for geodes and quartz. It didn’t take long for them to surpass their teacher in being able to spot a potential geode (a rock that when broken open has beautiful crystalline formations inside). The quartz indicates gold; later I was told that there is plenty of gold in South Sudan but no waterpower to extract it. Now we are looking at the various phases of the moon with my 7x35 binoculars. You can see the craters distinctly.

Lest you think this is a one-way education, they have taught me WHEN to plant, HOW to turn over the soil, and WHAT grows well here. They have planted sorghum, greens, beans and groundnuts. All the plants are up and should be harvested in June. The girls have also shown me what plants are medicinal, what plants I can pick and eat right from the tree or bush, the signs that indicate if it will rain, and how to shell groundnuts. The rains began March 30th and have been frequent enough to make the crops grow well, thank God. Last year was not as good.

Sr. Agnes, a Ugandan sister, and I met with some parish women last Sunday and discussed what the village folks feel is needed in the way of information on nutrition, sanitation, health care needs, AIDS prevention, etc. Now I need to locate two or three women to train who speak both English and Toposa and/or Arabic. They will accompany me into the bush to speak with women in various villages about the topics most important to them.

Last week one of the schoolgirls killed the resident 39-inch long Savannah Monitor Lizard. It had been eating all our duck eggs. However, it is survived by several of its progeny who live in a large hole in the backyard of the Maryknoll convent.

I pray in the Maryknoll backyard where I can see the acacias (thorn trees), neem trees (medicinal) and the nadapal trees (most shady). There are mountains to the South, East and West of us. These are the “everlasting hills” which were here before Abraham and Moses. This is also the land where humans first began to walk upright. We are 200 miles as the crow flies from Lake Turkana where the Leakeys found so many fossil skulls and bones on their various expeditions. It is humbling just to be living here.

This is all the news that is fit to print, as they say. Please feel free to drop by. Lots of hospitality here.

EASTER SUNDAY

May you all be filled with Christ's peace this Easter Season.

Yesterday I got to tour the local clinic operated by the Diocese of Torit. It consists of two buildings. One is office space including meds dispensary and a place where pregnant and nursing women are seen. The other building has around 16 beds and is arranged as a ward holding both men and women with curtains to separate them. All the people in the ward were of the Toposa tribe. There was a teenage boy and a man who had both been shot during a local cattle raid (rustling) by another tribe at the beginning of the week. No one was arrested and the tribe will handle this in their own fashion. Then there was the fellow who had gotten into a fight with his brother and his brother used a panga (machete) to cut his bicep. An elderly woman was coming out of an "alcohol induced coma" as the director put it. The director is kind of like a nurse and he sutured the man's bicep muscle and lanced one of the gun shot victim's wound which had become infected. I was quite impressed. He has next to NOTHING to work with.

School ended March 27 and report cards were handed out the following week. Every student in every grade is ranked against her classmates and I was helping the Kindergarten teacher average out grades and ranking the students all BY HAND. The older students left school almost immediately for home not waiting for their report cards. I watched in awe as they walked the mile from the school to the main road balancing a suitcase and books or a mattress or a small trunk on their heads without dropping a thing as they scrambled down a very steep ravine.

At the main road they wait for "buses" to come by and drive them as close to their villages as possible. One girl lives 15 hours away including a 4 hour hike up a mountain. She lives in a village that her family have lived in for well over 100 years. Her parents still grown their own grains and vegetables. Her father buys two calves each year and lets them grow to maturity. He then sells them to pay for her tuition and buys two more small calves.

About 10 days ago I went to Lokichoggio just over the border into Kenya to help with the food shopping. I had my first cold drink in 5 weeks and my first hamburger since coming to Africa. I was filled with gratitude. Even had a barber cut my hair for $3.50 American. He did a good job. Because we had a lot of food in the pickup we had to create manifest for both borders and customs. When we got to the Sudan border we had to pay a small bribe - the price of a pack of cigarettes - to the SPLA guard before he would let us through.

We all attended Holy Thursday Liturgy which was beautiful and Good Friday Liturgy. However, only one of the five sisters attended the Easter Vigil which was to have begun at 7 but started closer to 8 and lasted until 11. There were many baptisms I am told. The sister who went to the service believes that there were a few people baptized who were not supposed to be but lined up anyway.

All you nature lovers should come to visit Sudan. I showered with a frog and had a small bat in my bedroom last week. Found out he may be living under the eaves of my tukul.

Again, thank you for your prayerful support and interest in this Mercy venture.