The 9-seat propeller plane flies over the last bit of Kenya and enters the width of South Sudan. As far as one can see there is nothing but vast emptiness marked by small scrubby bushes, dry river streams, and the colors of tan and green.
We land for refueling in Rumbek. For the first time, I touch foot on Sudanese soil. A tall, graceful man, clad in a cotton tunic and matching pants, who is walking down the airstrip curiously says, “Welcome home.” A sign announces the town as being in New Sudan. An adjacent billboard has a split image – one side warning of the dangers of malaria, the other proclaiming “Celebrating today’s conquerors, nurturing tomorrow’s heroes,” a reference no doubt to the SPLA’s hard-won rule over South Sudan. Back in the air, I see the round, mud, thatched-roofed homes of the Sudanese that are called tukuls. A coaster of dirt lies beneath each tukul, connected in a constellation of narrow foot paths.
At the Tambura airstrip, Kara wraps me in a firm hug. It’s surreal being in this place with a friend. Kara and I both attended Tulane School of Public Health and both spent time in Sri Lanka after the tsunami. Now she manages the IMC operation in Tambura County, a more-than fulltime job. As we walk the short distance to the IMC compound she points out Freedom Square and the Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission office. I’m not even aware that my bags have been delivered to the compound.
I meet a plethora of IMC people at the compound, most of whom are workers either at the compound or at any one of the Primary Health Care Centers or Primary Health Care Units managed by IMC as part of the Sudan Health Transformation Project. It is customary to shake hands with everyone at nearly every encounter, so I extend my hand. Smiles and shakes. “Welcome, welcome,” they say.We return to the airstrip to watch the landing of the day’s final UNHCR repatriation flight. Refugees are being returned from the Central African Republic, thanks to peaceful times. Women deplane in colorful, patterned dresses. Some of the children are without shoes. All appear healthy. The mood is reserved considering the magnitude of the situation. At the way station the returnees are registered and given a medical screening. Each family is provided with aluminum pots and pans, rice and sugar and lentils, sleeping mats, a plastic tarp, seeds for planting, a 20-liter jerry can, and soap. After a night’s sleep at the UNHCR facility and a breakfast of porridge, they are delivered to the homes of friends or relatives. No doubt it’s been a long 15 years.
After lunch of beef, rice and beans prepared by one of the compound’s cooks, we move to the World Vision compound to check our email on their wireless network. It’s my first ride in a ubiquitous INGO Land Cruiser with the trademark 20-foot antenna and snorkel for river traverses. Everyone stares. It’s a vehicle in a town where everyone uses bicycles or motorcycles, being driven by woman who is white and is accompanied by two additional white women. The office housing the Internet modem is nothing more than a plastic tent. “We have a $3,000 V-Sat and a $2 office,” says Jeremiah. We perch on wooden chairs in the sun, trying to see our computer screens in the glare, wiping from our keyboards the constant rain of cooking fire ashes falling from the sky. A grave in our midst almost goes unnoticed. There are few – if any – formal graveyards here. Families seem to bury their people on their personal property. Most yards have a grave or two. Some are unmarked; some are capped with pronounced concrete beehives. I like the idea of the dead being buried among the living as opposed to being relegated to a mournful cemetery. The circle of life and death is obvious.
Later in the evening, the sound of singing children rings in the distance. People here often sing and dance through the night for celebrations. The occasion is the coming Christmas holiday. I hear the festivities even more clearly inside my room, which looks out on a cluster of tukuls. When I awake in the morning, the children are still singing.
