Monday, July 23

The emergency call from our boss came on our second night on the road. With two colleagues, I was in the middle of a 20-hour road trip from Juba to Yambio, a muddy pothole roller coaster ride. With an uncooperative satellite phone, the only thing we could make out of our boss’s message was Yambio, motorcycle, medevac. We were to learn the full terrible story later. A speeding motorcyclist slammed into the side of one of our vehicles as it exited our work compound. Though our vehicle was barely moving, the hook on the front of the vehicle’s winch had somehow hooked onto the motorcycle, pulling it underneath the vehicle. The driver was badly injured – blood squirting from his mangled leg. His female passenger was lying nearby, having been thrown from the bike.

The next hours were a confusion of police dealings, family negotiations, phone and radio calls. The young man was rushed to the hospital and prepped for surgery, in and of itself not the best option in an ill-equipped developing country hospital. The family, however, refused the operation. They wanted us to medevac him to a better hospital – to a hospital that was operated by us (the Yambio hospital does not fall under our command). To the casual onlooker, it would appear that we could easily meet such a demand. We are a medical organization, it’s true, but we do not have a doctor on staff in Yambio (all our care in the village clinics is primary health care, rendered by minimally trained community health workers and maternal child health workers). And we certainly don’t have an airplane on standby. Try explaining this to a family that only sees an organization with vehicles, satellite phones, handheld, radios and two compounds, and one whose staff is frequently boarding UN flights to other destinations for R&R. It was feared that the community might revolt against us, accusing us of having run over the motorcyclist. Hence, the call from our boss, warning that if the situation worsened we would not be allowed to continue on to Yambio.

In the end, with much difficulty, a UN airplane was secured and the patient was flown hundreds of miles to our hospital in the neighboring state. The motorcyclist’s leg was amputated. There was no way to save it.

Our vehicle has been impounded for an indefinite period of time by the police who subsequently took it on a “road test” without our presence and demanded $50 for doing so. Again, this may not seem to be an inconvenience, but without enough vehicles it is nearly impossible to deliver drugs to our clinics, to make site support supervision visits and conduct on-the-job trainings, and to continue refurbishing modest clinics in remote underserved locations.

Worse yet, Victor, our driver, has been incarcerated in prison. It was more for his safety than anything else, but the truth be told he cannot be freed until the young man whose leg was amputated returns. This could be months. Once the motorcyclist’s leg heals, he will be taken to the International Committee of the Red Cross in Juba for prosthesis.

In the end, though we were not at fault, we will likely be ordered to pay thousands of dollars to the motorcyclist’s family. Another NGO in Yambio, who shall go unmentioned, recently was ordered to pay $10,000 to the family of a man that their driver hit and killed. And considering we just received word this week that lay-offs are in the works for ex-pat and national staff alike due to funding problems, this is not being taken lightly.

My introduction to Victor came in the prison yard. As he works in our Tambura site, located some 12 hours away, I had never met him. Wearing a DARE T-shirt from Coon Rapids, Minnesota, this 26-year-old who appeared no older than 19, was downtrodden. He subverted his eyes as he shook my hand and then followed the guard’s orders to sit on the concrete step of the administration building. Milton and I were ordered to take a chair nearby, allowing us to converse, but not to touch. Our visit would be monitored by the nice guards with their guns and bayonets. We were relieved to learn that Victor had resumed eating, which he refused to do for the first few days of his incarceration. His first wife had come down from Tambura in order to visit him daily, no doubt improving his spirits. And we had brought him a sleeping mat and a blanket so that he could put something between his body and the cold prison floor.

So, now we wait. We wait for the young man whose leg was amputated to return to Yambio. We wait for our vehicle to be released from impound. We wait for Victor to be released from prison. And we wait for judgment.

**Photo explanation: This picture is the true depiction of Victor. He took it upon himself to give attention to this small boy who had been abandoned by his mother in Tambura. Obi is now being cared for by his uncle in a neighboring community, but Victor remains Obi's beloved "uncle."

Friday, July 20

Things have gotten mighty strange in Yambio since I was last here five weeks ago. Warnings of witchcraft are as frequent as the rains are long. It seems that the returning refugees coming from Congo are being accused by the community of practicing witchcraft – specifically, skinning human beings and draining them of their blood.

The stories go like this: A man hired a motorcycle driver to take his wife and baby to a distant location. When the destination was reached, the motorcyclist did not stop. Instead, he drove into the bush, and tied the woman to a tree. He then proceeded to drain the woman’s baby of its blood, killing it then. He then prepared to do the same to the woman. She, however, asked if she could first say a prayer. He allowed her as much. Just then, a snake dropped from the tree, bit the man and killed him. The woman picked up her dead baby and walked into town. Is it true? Who knows?

The second story: A woman survived an attempt by a man to skin her alive. As she was paraded into the police station (here, victims of violence are often taken first to the police station to complete a report before being allowed medical treatment. We are working hard to change this), the long, thin, red scar down the length of her spine was visible to the crowd that had gathered as the word spread throughout town. Is it true? Well, she did indeed have a scar down her spine. Our gender based violence team visited her in the hospital, only to learn that the incident was more likely attributable to an attempted rape. Both she and her uncle, the perpetrator, were incredibly drunk. He attempted to have sex with her. She refused. She passed out and when she awoke discovered the cut down her back.

The third story: Several man were arrested on suspicion of having blood in their jerry cans, more commonly used to transport water from boreholes to home. Is it true? Not likely. Draining someone’s blood would most likely cause death. Yet, no one has reported that their family members have died or are missing. My friend, Stephanie, a police officer with the United Nations Mission in Sudan, monitors police work here, but cannot demand action, least of all the production of allegedly bloodied jerry cans.

The reports of skinning and blood draining brought such alarm to the populace that a 10 p.m. curfew was imposed throughout the city. It lasted for two or three days before a new announcement came via a vehicle equipped with a bullhorn: there is no witchcraft; the accounts are nothing but rumor. The priest at the Catholic Church reiterated this at Sunday mass.

However, a few days later the police were at it again – arresting a driver and four men in his truck for having jerry cans filled with human blood.

There is no doubt people are scared. One man said he went outside at night for a “short call” (think latrine). Someone shined a flashlight in his direction. He fainted from fear, falling and injuring his leg. Another man was bicycling in the dark when a pedestrian asked him for a ride. The pedestrian did not take no for an answer and jumped onto the bike. The bicyclist shrieked with fear, summoning the neighbors, and proceeded to accuse the man of attempting to drain his blood.

It appears the rumors may be thinly veiled attempts to discriminate against the returning refugees who spend the exile in Congo. It is widely believed that witchcraft is practiced there. Try telling people here that there is no vegetation in the jungles of Congo that sucks human blood. Most often, seemingly crazy beliefs come from a nugget of truth. A colleague tells me that blood draining is in fact practiced in West Africa, where the blood is used to cast spells. The blood-letting always increases around election time, she says, when people are casting spells in hopes that one candidate wins or the other loses.

Suffice it to say, while there have not been major problems with the reintegration of thousands of returning refugees, the populace is experiencing a change as people come home. During the protracted war, some people sought refuge in Congo, some in Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, and Central Africa Republic. Though they are of the same land and likely of the same tribe, they now have different practices and beliefs that can easily be misinterpreted. We are humans and we are often afraid of the unknown. As for me, I’m not buying it until proof is had.

Sunday, July 1

I have found myself saying the word “fantastic” a lot lately. Well, at least when it comes to the question of “How was your R&R in Zanzibar?” Fantastic, simply fantastic.

Zanzibar is an archipelago of small islands in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Tanzania. The islands are marked by breathtakingly beautiful beaches, acres of spices, and the unique fusion of Arab, Indian and Portuguese architecture.

One of my closest friends from graduate school in New Orleans, Leigh Ann, is living in Zanzibar for six months, and I had the pleasure of staying with her. Leigh Ann is doing research for her dissertation in order to gain a doctorate in public health. Working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and a Zanzibar-based organization, she is conducting several surveys to determine the HIV prevalence rate among high-risk groups. This is no easy task on an island that is 99% Muslim, and in an area where the government criminalized gay and lesbian sex in 2004.

Leigh Ann’s apartment within the World Heritage Site of Stone Town provided an amazing observation point. Stone Town is a fascinating maze of streets that are no more than 20 feet wide. Think of a compressed version of the French Quarter in New Orleans. The dwelling units are all townhouses ranging from three to five stories. Leigh Ann’s third-floor apartment sits atop a two-story apartment in which her landlords live. And atop her apartment is a screened-in porch of sorts that is half of the size of her apartment. It provided stunning views of the Indian Ocean, the rooftops and balconies of neighboring apartments and townhouses, and the active streets below.

Zanzibar is a delight for the eyes, and, as I learned from my balcony perch, an auditory adventure. The call to prayer, issued five times daily from the numerous loudspeaker-equipped minarets of Stone Town’s mosques, echoes off the concrete walls and corrugated tin roofs -- exotic, mysterious and melodic, save for when it’s issued at 5 a.m. from a building only 20 feet away. Other sounds: the delicate tinkling of bicycle bells pushing pedestrians aside; motorcycles growling through the labyrinth of ancient streets, honking at the rounding of each bend; the fast-paced clacking of coins signaling the nut vendor’s rounds; men chatting of the day’s events and conducting business in Kiswahili; children running and shrieking with joyous abandon in the safe, darkened nighttime streets; and the shuffle of flip flops and the click of heels on concrete streets.

Yet the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words still holds true. For my version of 1,000 words in picture form, check out my photographs at http://www.flickr.com/photos/girl4peace
I am new to Flickr and didn’t realize that once your photos are loaded you can’t rearrange their order. The Zanzibar photos begin on page 3 with the “Ferry works” photo.