Tuesday, May 9

Signs that my work life is not normal:

1) If I pull back my bedroom curtain (a bedsheet taped into place) from my bedroom window which, strangely, looks into the rest of the hoffice, I see my desk. In fact, I can open the window and grab something off my desk if I’ve forgotten it in my hasty commute home.
2) Incense has become as essential on my desk as a ballpoint pen. It masks the smell of burning grease coming from the kitchen, a mere 20 feet away.
3) Due to the lack of electrical plug-ins in the hoffice, our cook is forced to plug the blender and his small food processor into the power cord on the floor between our desks. This is not to be topped by his frequent trips to the deep-freeze (the only thing approximating refrigeration in our hoffice; a real refrigerator is making a slow journey from Kampala, Uganda) which is also lodged in the midst of our desks.
4) We have become accustomed to seeing one another in towels, sarongs, and boxer shorts with the comings and goings to the communal bathrooms.
5) Yesterday Alfie asked me if I had a headache. I was sprawled out on the sofa – which backs up against Tolbert’s desk – after an intense day at the computer. It was 5:30 p.m., which by my book is the end of the day, but in a house that is an office and in an office that is a house (house + office = hoffice), the separation is forgotten. “No, just relaxing in the privacy of my own home,” I quipped.
6) Also yesterday, I attended a meeting with my boss and the program coordinator – in the program coordinator’s bedroom.

Running a 10-person office from a five-bedroom house that sleeps six (and more on any given day, depending on visits by field staff) is as glamorous as it sounds.

Wednesday, May 2

My bedroom is the most popular. Between my two windows there are somewhere near 50 black flies crawling about the screens – unfortunately on the inside, not the outside. My colleagues don’t have the opportunity to make this same observation in their rooms. I ask Lulu for an explanation and he says, “I think it’s these pink things.” Somehow along the way I have acquired a lot of pink accessories. Pink toenail polish, pink Chacos, even a pink watch. Lulu has consequently dubbed me the Pink Lady. This is better than his secret nickname for another among us – Red Bull.
***
Our cook, Mousa, a shy and capable young Sudanese man, showed up very early Saturday morning to tell us he had to go to Uganda. His father had died. He returned this morning to tell us the funeral and subsequent family meeting were fine, but that upon their return by road they encountered a vehicle in northern Uganda that had been burned by rebel thieves. The seven passengers had been killed and robbed of their hearts. It sounds like the word of our favorite nemesis – the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has been terrorizing northern Uganda and southern Sudan for 20 years. Peace talks (called the “cessation of hostilities”) resumed last week here in Juba between LRA representatives and Ugandan government officials. Similar talks were derailed last year when the LRA stormed out and headed back to the bush. Everyone is hopeful the talks will lead to a solution whereby the rebel soldiers will finally stop their evil deeds. Sometimes it seems there is no limit to the pain we can cause one another. [post-note for worry-warts: I am nowhere near where this atrocity happened and have no intention of going there.]
***
Today is Christmas at 31 Hai-Jalaba (our house/office, or “hoffice” as I call it). Anne, our boss, has returned from a weekend trip to Kampala, Uganda, bearing gifts. Cheese, Pringles, a bottle of white wine (and she doesn’t even drink!), four coffee mugs to replace our teeny tiny tea cups, real cotton sheets to replace our ridiculous polyester-blend sheets, dried soup mixes, pseudo-maple syrup, and a large tin of gingersnap cookies. Also on this day, in a move seemingly designed to send us into blissful overdrive, the city electrical system has been restored. Air bordering on cool is being pushed from a crudely installed wall unit throughout the hoffice. We immediately closed the doors, shut the windows and breathed – comfortably – indoors for the first time since we moved in nearly two months ago. At dinnertime, we gather for a Lulu improvised meal of rice and red sauce around the plastic dining table – outside. Old habits are hard to break.

Monday, April 30

Moses, our driver, is speeding us along to work down the newly created, impossibly wide dirt road. It will eventually be paved, bringing the grand total of blacktopped roads in Juba to two, and subsequently becoming, I fear, a road of death due to the fact that the crazy drivers will only now go faster. We swiftly pass a caravan of slow-moving vehicles. Moses says the vehicles are from Khartoum. Oh, yes, the returnees, I say, thinking that I’d read somewhere that returnees were coming from the north this week. One van full of clapping singing people seemed to confirm my hypothesis. But as we hone in on the lead vehicle I see that it is anything but a returning refugee jubilation. A handful of people are crowded around a wooden coffin draped in white in the back of a pickup bed. This evening on the way home, just around the corner from our house, I hear women ululating -- an equal opportunity utterance marking both joy and sorrow. Another coffin being loaded into another pickup truck. I can’t help but wonder how they died, how old they were, whether they would have died of the same cause had they been in a developed country.
***
Never try to make poor-man’s Thai food. Our cook is away, but being as I’d only been able to cook one meal for myself my entire time in South Sudan, I relish the idea of making a simple dinner. What to make? We are limited to dried goods and a few random vegetables. I decide on macaroni noodles. But, I want vegetables and protein in some sort of effort to have a balanced diet, so I mix the noodles with sliced cucumbers and peanut butter. Do not attempt this in your own home, no matter how desperate you may be.

Wednesday, April 4, Mozambique

We’ve decided that the portal to enlightenment is bad roads and difficult travel. This is decided while the wooden beaches beneath us are slamming against our tailbones like a meat tenderizer to a flank steak and the dust in the air is worming its way into our every pore and fiber. We are in northeast Mozambique on what will be an eight-hour journey by road and sea to an island within the Quirimbas National Park.

It’s my first R&R break and I’m ecstatic to be in a new place, and one that is marked by beauty. One of the perks of this job is that every 10 weeks we get a nine-day paid break – complete with per diem and airline expenses. With me is Ryan, the field coordinator of our site in Yambio, where I was based for nearly three months before being relocated to the capital (Juba). Though I had never met Ryan until I landed in South Sudan, it seems we’ve been following one another around the globe. Like me, he spent his formative years in Minnesota before relocating to the Puget Sound area of Washington State, and eventually on to New Orleans in the post-Katrina mayhem. Like me, Ryan is a former Peace Corps volunteer. And like me, he’s keen on seeking new adventures and checking out as much of Africa as time and money allows. And so when he invited me to go to Mozambique with him, there was no hesitation.

We’ve spent a few peaceful days in the peninsula town of Pemba, lounging with the locals and the small backpacker contingency. Now the island of Ibo beckons. And so at 4:30 a.m. we rise to and join the small group of Mozambiqueans huddled beneath a tree to await the bus. As the sun begins to rise, an open-sided truck already holding people and cargo lurches to a halt near our tree. Fellow travelers begin amassing around it, jockeying for a position. Please don’t tell me this is our bus, I say to no one in particular. But there is no time to pause; people are already alighting and choosing a hips-width spot on the crudely hewn wooden bench that lines the perimeter of the truck bed. Luggage is strapped to the roof, bags of rice and sugar are laid on the floor and two chickens whose legs are tied together are shoved under the bench. This is really Africa, I think to myself as Ryan and I settle at the back end of the bed. We’re lucky in landing the best viewing position on the truck, I determine. With my feet perched atop a large cooler holding what smells to be fish, I count 17 people in the truck.

The town is quietly awakening as we pass through on smooth black-topped roads. The ocean, which we see from both sides of the road, is ebbing out on her morning stroll to the other side. The lush trees and tall grasses are gently bobbing in the breeze. It is so beautiful – and so different from the sweltering, pungent, garbage-ridden streets of Juba. But before we’ve even reached the town’s boundaries the truck is slowing to a stop. A gaggle of street vendors engulfs the trucks; outstretched arms bearing toothbrushes, pens and long yellow bars of laundry soap are thrust at us. Please don’t tell me we’re picking up more passengers, I mutter to Ryan, as hips shift and feet begin battling for foot space. The new passenger, and old man, is left to stand, hanging onto the roof; the money-taker is hanging from the ladder off the back end. We are now 22.

As we pass through villages of square homes crafted from mud and grass, trails of barefooted kids run behind the truck. “Mzungu, mzungu,” they yell excitedly, announcing to all that we are white as Ryan gives them the thumbs-up sign. But now that we have turned off the pavement onto a dirt road, reality announces itself. After only a few kilometers my black shirt is red-brown with finely ground earth. My sunglasses have become handy dust goggles and a cotton scarf a face mask. We soar up and slam down with each rut. My arm is sore from hanging on to the truck side. My back feels bruised. Four hours and one mechanical break-down later, I am done. We have two more hours ahead of us.

This transportation adventure is the height of those we’ve experienced this week. On our first day in Pemba we decided to take the town bus to nowhere in particular as a sort of cheap sight-seeing tour. Only four people were riding the clean, modern bus when we boarded near the old town section. Within 15 minutes we both had babies on our laps, grandmothers at our feet and armpits in our faces. The bus became so packed that, when we reached our stop, the only way we could manage to disembark was by crawling through the windows and jumping down to the road – a move that did not please the bus driver. A few days later we were hitching a ride on an 18-wheeler Coca-Cola delivery truck after pretending to be guests at Pemba’s five-star hotel (no one knew otherwise as we swam in the oceanside infinity pool and sipped drinks among taxi-dermied big game heads in the high-brow bar).

At hour six our bush taxi drops us in a town that albeit quaint, is nowhere near the ocean. We are afraid to even contemplate that we may have been on the wrong truck the entire time, limited as we by an inability to speak Portuguese. The driver, however, knows we need to get to the island. He points at a fellow passenger and indicates we should follow him. We walk for about 10 minutes across a land void at this moment of the sea and emerge in what appears to be someone’s yard. A handful of people are resting beneath a beautiful baobab tree, carved with the names of previous visitors, waiting for the small wooden boat for the island. After one hour and 15 minutes on the water – with one man bailing water from the boat’s bottom the entire time – we see the island on the horizon. The charm of this former Portuguese colony and its crumbling mosques, churches and homes awaits.

Indeed we do feel enlightened.

Tuesday, March 27

“No, no, we cannot drop this boy here. We are too far. We will take him back.” I’m insisting. Moses, our temporary driver from Uganda, is smiling at my words in a bemused way that is not mocking, as if to say, “Whatever you say.” The boy appears to be about 12 years old. I can tell from the horizontal scars lines across his wide forehead that he is a member of the Nuer tribe. “The boy should be in school,” I say to no one in particular. Instead, he is selling gasoline – a translucent orange liquid beaming beautiful in the bright sun – from clear, plastic recycled soda bottles. Moses has run out of gas, a situation that wouldn’t normally be a problem with the number of freelance gasoline salesmen on the roadside. I have no local currency on me, however, and the boy doesn’t recognize the $5 bill I give him. Our only choice is to take him with us to Customs Market where Lulu, our logistician from Ethiopia, is purchasing a bicycle for our new cook. Lulu is retrieved, the boy is paid in local currency, and Moses is ready to take us home. But the boy. We have brought him four kilometers, by my estimate. He’s eking out a living, for his family no doubt, selling gasoline from the roadside. The least we can do is take him back to his sales point. The boy, who would not have thought twice about being dropped at the market, smiles widely from the back seat, thrilled at the rare chance to ride in a vehicle.

We push through the market, drafting behind a herd of long-horned cows that has no intention of yielding. All of humanity is here. Buses filled with people traveling to and from Uganda and Kenya. Cars honking out messages of urgency. Woven grass mats piled as high as a building, waiting for purchase. Smiling women peeling and selling candy-sweet pineapple from bed sheets spread on the ground. Tall, sunglassed, shirtless men decorated in white ashes, each carrying a long switch. Knots of men playing dominoes under a lone tree.

We’re in Juba, the “capital” of South Sudan. It’s been my home for one week now and will be for three months coming – perhaps more, depending on my fate. I have been transferred from lovely little Yambio to our new country office. Juba is proving to be exactly as it had been described – hot, dusty, unpleasant, and outrageously expensive. But, as South Sudan begins to shift from emergency mode to recovery mode, it’s vital for us to have an office in this city. All the state government bureaus are here, as are all the United Nations agencies and, at last count, 110 NGOs. With more UN vehicles than cattle on the road, this place is more the headquarters of a massive humanitarian relief effort than a Sudanese city.

Moses drops me at UNOCHA. By virtue of having received little to no sleep the prior evening, I am blessed by our country director’s suggestion to sleep in a rented tent. Our new IMC house/office (hoffice, as I call it), with its whimsically painted courtyard and ceramic tiles floors, will be beautiful and comfortable, once established. But for now it is nothing more than a flop house. We are sleeping on mattresses on the floor, getting comfortable seeing our coworkers in their pajamas, keeping our fingers crossed that there’s enough water in the storage containers that feed our showers and sinks, and running a generator as noisy as a jet plane from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. to fuel the electric ceiling fans. Without fans, the heat is unbearable. Temperatures regularly exceed 100 degrees during the day. Once the generator is put to rest each evening, I drag my mattress outside to our veranda for the night’s sleep. Last night, the neighbor’s tape-recorded Ugandan music, blaring throughout the neighborhood, kept me awake and staring at the stars through my jerry-rigged mosquito net. Only the 6:15 a.m. call to prayer from a nearby mosque convinced him to call it a morning.

The tent at UNOCHA, complete with an electric fan and laundry service, is a tremendous bargain at around $40 a night. By comparison, the shipping containers, converted to living spaces for ex-patriots, near our house go for $110 a night; meals are extra at $35 a day. We are living in a false economy. All goods for sale in South Sudan are trucked in from Uganda or Kenya; there are few production facilities here. Little of the money ex-pats and NGOs spend in Juba stays in South Sudan. And many of the Africans employed by them in Juba as drivers, cooks, and guards are Sudanese. This is the capital and there are the amenities of such – a university, several radio stations, public transportation, a cell phone network, a pizza restaurant, and an electrical system that occasionally works. But the lack of development, a result of the 20-year civil war, is more evident in Juba than in Tambura and Yambio, perhaps because it lies in sharp contrast to the culture of aid work -- our air conditioned container units, our food buffets, our wireless internet connections and satellite telephones, and our four-wheel drive vehicles. In Juba there are homeless people – homeless in a country where most living structures are made of nothing more than mud and grass. I was not aware of any homeless in Yambio and Tambura. Here there are substantial piles of rotting garbage and crumbling brick homes hinting at the days of colonialism. In Yambio the garbage, for the most part, is contained to the market. Despite being a capital city, Juba demonstrates that Sudan is far from meeting human development standards related to basic needs, health care, education, and gender equity. Having never been in any African country other than Sudan, I cannot compare. My colleagues assure me that this place is like no other on this continent.

Lulu wipes sweat from his brow as he looks for matches to light the night’s candles. “It’s like going back to the beginning of time,” he says.

******

Now that I'm in the big city, I have regular access to the Internet and therefore can manage my own blog. My sweet brother-in-law Rick was acting as blog master previously. However, being as challenged as I am, I cannot determine how to manage the layout of the photos or how to add captions. So, I'll tell you about them here. The first photo shows the juxtoposition of the jets on the runway next to the mud hut tukuls. The second is the exterior of our new home in Juba. The third is the street outside our home.

Gender-based violence team

International Women's Day in Yambio

March 19

Richard and his wife are happy that their baby has been home from the hospital for more than a week now. She's still small, but getting healthier. They will likely name her this coming weekend.

Saturday, March 3

At 10:30 p.m. it’s pitch dark in the hospital void of electrical power. We’re careful not to step on the many people – patients’ family members – lying on mats and bed rolls throughout the hospital grounds. Our Dr. Alfred has come to check on Richard’s daughter, who has been in the hospital for several days.

Arriving prematurely, the little being has had problems from the start. No one knows exactly how old she was at birth, but seven months is the agreed upon number. Premature babies are on their own here. There are no incubators, no special accommodations for their fragile immune systems, no specially trained medical staff regularly checking her vital signs. But preemies will live here if they survive their first week, says Martha.

The baby’s first week came and went before trouble arrived. Richard was reporting what sounded like diaper rash. “This baby is as hard as stone,” said Martha, returning from a subsequent house call. Dehydration. Some sort of blisters in the baby’s armpits. The baby, not yet named, is not being bathed or regularly breastfed, she reports, hinting at parental neglect. I filter this news through the knowledge that Martha, hardened by war and personal loss, views many of her fellow Sudanese as lazy and inept, not to mention that she has had many clashes in the past year with Richard. This is the first birth for Richard’s wife, all of 18, which might explain why she seems unsure of how to care for the baby. Both Martha and I wonder aloud why her mother, her aunts and neighbors are not providing advice. Perhaps they are and the mother, who Martha implies is spoiled, is not heeding it. Perhaps also there is some sort of taboo cautioning against the naming and bathing of preemies. This is not my culture, I remind myself in an effort to abate my unspoken comparisons between medical care in developed and undeveloped countries.

A few days later Richard is asking Alfred to break away from a four-day orientation training session he is conducting for our health facility staff. The baby is having difficulty breathing. Later that day she is hospitalized for severe dehydration.

Tonight the darkened hospital room is void of medical staff. Unused mosquito nets, bunched like heavy clouds, hang above the dozen or so sleeping patients. “No, no, no, don’t,” cries Richard’s wife, holding out her arm in defense, taking a few moments to realize her surroundings. Alfred has awakened her from a fitful slumber. I hold the room’s sole lantern aloft above the bed so that the Doc can see the small bundle nestled next to her. He peels back the heavy blanket. Like a blind person seeking an unmarked escape route, my mind stumbles and feels around for an explanation. I have never seen a baby so small or fragile. A small bird with a head of black hair. Pale, flaky skin. Her jutting ribs moving up and down with each breath and gasp. She does not open her eyes when Alfred’s immense hand touches her petite forehead.

Alfred is frustrated. The staff of the hospital, which is not operated by IMC, has removed the baby’s IV, brought from our stock room and painstakingly inserted by Martha into the baby’s microscopic veins after many failed attempts. The Doc fears that it has become contaminated and chooses not to reinsert it. A new IV bag must be brought in the morning. “Every 30 minutes through the night and then every two hours tomorrow.” Alfred is advising the mother to breastfeed. It is the only salvation in a country without bottles and formula – and most importantly, clean water.

As we leave the room and begin picking our way through the darkened corridor, I grab Alfred’s hand. “Doc, is this an emergency? Do we need to get the drugstore key from Martha and go to our compound to get a new IV bag and come back here?” No, the baby, is much improved,” he answers. “She will survive the night. But, if a new IV bag is not brought tomorrow this child will certainly die.” The night breeze glides over our unspoken thoughts as we ride, the windows down, in the ambulance to our waiting beds.

In the morning, Martha takes a new IV to the baby. She instructs the mother to pump her breast milk into a cup and to feed it to the baby. They’ve come to realize the tiny girl is simply too small to breastfeed. Two days later, the situation worsening, a feeding tube is inserted into the baby’s nose for administration of breast milk. While it seems a setback, it may be the best solution

“After three days there will be changes because that baby I don’t think is dying,” says Martha. “It refuse to die.”


Martha

Wednesday, February 21

“These people have really made this man’s life difficult,” says Moses, as we lurch over one of the town’s two new homemade speed bumps. Through the Land Cruiser’s window I see what he’s talking about. Otherwise dignified in his yellow polyester suit coat, the man is huddled on the side of the road, his emaciated legs jutting out from underneath him at awkward angles. His three-wheeled, hand-powered bicycle is straddling the speed bump, unable to clear it. There’s no need to stop; someone is already at his side.

It’s a bit past 8 o’clock in the morning. We’ve just participated in our morning calisthenics: push-starting the Land Cruiser. Dirty diesel has worked its way through the systems of both our vehicles. It would be more amusing if we also didn’t have to change a flat tire this morning, and further hilarious if the lack of functioning vehicles wasn’t compromising our ability to visit to our 20 healthcare facilities scattered throughout the county. With no Toyota dealer in the area, let alone parts or a mechanic capable of installing them, the broken pieces will be removed – one vehicle at a time -- and sent to Kampala, Uganda. If all goes well, the parts will return in two weeks; if not, two months. That is, of course, if our drivers manage to meet the Friday plane for the air delivery. They missed today’s flight, setting the process back by three days.

At the office, we greet the staff with the traditional Sudanese handshakes. Samuel’s is strong and lingering. James’s is unnecessarily shy and unsure. Richard’s is a three-step process with street style: out, up, two-finger snap.

Richard is looking tired. Today, however, it’s not due to the crying of his 10-day-old baby girl. His evenings of late have been spent putting to rest the son of his elder mother – a cousin to you and me. The 17-year-old boy died Sunday afternoon. We don’t ask why. Unless attributable to injury, death’s reason is usually unknown due to limited medical technology and diagnostics. Each night, Richard and his relatives are gathering, paying their respects by refusing sleep until the burial. Someone beats the traditional drum. Another passes the coffee pot. Several reach for the jug of hoppy home-brew.

Richard’s explanation of the funeral tradition brings to mind a night of restless sleep last week. From somewhere in the near dark echoed the voice of a laughing man, broadcast throughout the town by a battery-controlled microphone. His four-hour diatribe had been accompanied by wild riffs on a screaming electric guitar. The next morning the puffy eyed masses in the compound’s mess hall learned that the event was the 10-year anniversary of a man’s death. The deceased’s family, forced from the area by the protracted war, only just returned, thereby making it possible to properly cap the grave with a cement tombstone.
***
The death of Richard’s cousin caused Richard to be late to work this morning. Now, covering his mouth with his hand (he didn’t even allow himself time to return home to brush his teeth before reporting from the funeral to work), he is asking to leave early. Ryan, who is pounding out a funding proposal on his laptop, is torn. Death requires the adherence to certain family traditions, but, in a country where families are as extended as the mango trees are plenty, no one would work much if every death necessitated time off. Paid time is granted for the death of a first-line descendant or ascendant, but not a cousin. Ryan offers Richard time off without pay. Richard offers nothing but silence.

Samuel, however, jumps in and argues for Richard. Normally Samuel and Richard are ready to throttle one another, and if not each other then Martha. There may be peace in Sudan, but these three young Sudanese need their own Comprehensive Peace Agreement. The discussion and disagreement ends when Samuel and Richard straddle the company motorbikes and head out – Samuel to measure the interior of a health unit in order to purchase furniture, and Richard to obtain prices for a proposal budget I’m preparing.

They pass through the gate as the UNHCR ambulance pulls in, depositing a hungry and tired Martha. She’s just returned from one of two ambulance runs that day to neighboring Nzara County. The UNHCR-sponsored refugee repatriation project has drawn to a close in Tambura and has now opened here in Yambio. While the facility at which the returnees are received and registered is in Yambio, the flights are landing in Nzara. Apparently no one realized until last week that the Yambio runway is too short to handle the 50-passenger planes. The returnees are therefore flown to Nzara, trucked one hour over unforgiving roads to Yambio, registered, fed and made to spend the night before being trucked one hour back to Nzara the following day for reunion with friends and family. Martha accompanies the ambulance on these runs in the event someone becomes ill or injured. Now she grabs some lunch from the waiting pots lined up on the kitchen table and hunkers over tomato salad and a bread roll. She pays no mind to the black, pungent smoke billowing from the refrigerator. Moses is doing his best to get the kerosene refrigerator functioning again so that it can safeguard vaccines at one of our facilities. Martha vacillates between ripping her bread roll to pieces and flinging her arm into the air in an epileptic wave necessary to dispatch the clinging black flies. The aggressive of the flies has increased in direct proportion to the rising mercury. The land has morphed into a dry, dusty dessert. We are sweating and the flies are seeking moisture in our perspiration. “They are just going to my eyes seriously, like they have an invitation card,” says Martha in the unknowingly humorous and haltingly formal speech of a person whose native language is not English.
***
Outside, a pile of bicycles marks the knot of random people underneath the mango trees of the IMC compound. They are the guards, the guards’ friends, the drivers, the drivers’ friends, the cooks, the cooks’ friends. We don’t bother asking anymore why the friends are all here. One of the drivers is cutting the hair of one of the guard’s. Their eyes follow me as I pass by, heading for the road. One guard leaps to action, opening the gate for me.
On foot to a meeting, I’m feeling slightly sorry for myself for having to walk so far in the dust and heat. But I shouldn’t feel this way. After all, I’m in a place I have wanted to live in for so long. Africa is all around me.

Two shoeless boys are gleefully chasing bicycle tires down the street, using sticks to keep them upright. The goats are basking in the sun on the soccer field and the chickens are lined up on the fence. A police officer glides by in his blue camouflage uniform (what exactly do shades of blue camouflage you from?). The tough persona created by the gun slung over his shoulder and the cigarette dangling from his lips is defied by the cheerful plastic flowers decorating his bicycle. Two women sit under a tree, one weaving fake strands of hair into her friend’s tight curls.

The growing mangoes are drooping from the branches. I wonder how these trees, as massive as they are, will bear the weight of all these maturing mangoes. Indeed, some of the hard green lobes have already starting hurtling themselves onto the corrugated tin roof of our bedroom. The sound jars me every time. “It is the second LRA,” says Martha, comparing the noise to that of gunshots from our favorite menacing group, the Lord’s Resistance Army.

The bleating of a bicycle bell pushes me to the side of the road. In this town of untamed dirt roads, rights of way are determined by horsepower. The four-wheel driver vehicles horn away the motorcycles which push aside the bicycles which demand the road from pedestrians. A toothless older woman with a walking stick stops in her path to waive and smile. She’s herding a troupe of girls with yellow plastic 20-liter jerricans filled with water on their heads. They’ve come from the borehole near the church. I pick up one of the jerricans and carry it for one of the girls the short distance to their trio of tukuls; she cannot carry her jerrican atop her head due to pile of beautiful, spiraled braids she wears.

The only escape from the heat comes in the last hour of light when we wind our way through the nearby verdant jungle of teak, mahogany, coffee plants, papaya and orange trees, or walk around the small lake where people are collecting water and bathing themselves, their bicycles, their motorcycles and their clothes. A small bush fire crackles to life, spitting sparks toward the heavens. It’s a routine, albeit unsafe, method of cleaning up the leaves from the forest floor.

So, the mangoes are growing, the bush is burning and we are sweating. Another day draws to a close in Yambio Town.

Tuesday, February 20

“Kiss, what is this kiss?” It’s Joy, an acquaintance who lives with us at the UNICEF compound in Yambio.

“What? I didn’t say kiss, did I? Wait, how do you say it?” I ask.

“Kway-sa,” she says.

“Kway-sa,” I repeat.

I’m trying to learn a few words of Arabic. Today’s word is “fine,” as in “Kafe (How are you)?” “Kway-sa (Fine).”

While the southern Sudanese population is almost entirely comprised of black Christians, most people know Arabic due to the North’s extended rule over the South, complete with its Arabic language and Sharia (Islam) law. By some accounts there are nearly 600 tribes in South Sudan and 100 languages. Therefore, Arabic and English have become the common denominators.

“You know, I have this funny, funny story about a kiss,” says Joy, who proceeds to entertain the entire dinner table.

When Joy’s younger brother was a teen-ager, he received a visit at the family home from his girlfriend. She was quite enamored with him and longed for a kiss. When she did not receive one, she proceeded to whine, in English – something to the effect of “I have not even received one kiss, not one kiss.”

Joy’s mother did not speak English. All she could understand of the girl’s insistent pleas was, “….kiss….kiss….kiss.”

Growing weary of the whining, the mother reached for her pocketbook and said to the young lady, in Arabic, “Look, I’m tired of this. All day long you have been complaining about this kiss, this kiss, this kiss my son owes you. Now, how much is this kiss? How much do we have to pay for you to let my son alone?”

Joy’s brother and his siblings collapsed into uncontrollable laughter, faces reddening, eyes springing tears. A bewildered mother was left wondering further about her children’s seemingly strange behavior.

“Mother, dear mother,” Joy said, still gasping for breath. “Kiss, kiss – it means this,” she said, pantomiming a smooch.

The mother grew silent with embarrassment, as did the girlfriend. In Arabic, a kiss is a paper bag.

****
Warning: Contains crude language bound to upset my dear mother.

Even when we’re all speaking English, accents can present challenges among this motley crew of international workers in South Sudan.
“Brakes?”
“No, bricks.”
“Cartons? What cartons? We don’t need cartons. Oh, you mean curtains.”
“Any bananas left?”
Blank stare.
“Banana? (adding pantomime of peeling a banana).
“Ba-NON-na?”
“OK, if you say so, Ba-NON-na.”

My favorite story of this nature involves the dear sweet Kenyan Lucy, our nurse in Tambura. It’s around Christmas and Kara and I are walking and talking, reminiscing about New Orleans. Lucy’s voice is crackling across the handheld Motorola radio. She and Val are inviting us to join them behind the compound, among the Dinka tribe who are partying among the tukuls. By the time we reach the compound, Val and Lucy have returned.
“How was it?” I ask.
“Oh, I’m so full,” says Lucy, placing her hands over her stomach to emphasize her discomfort. “They forced me to take a hot cock!”
“What?!” I ask, in alarm.
“They forced me to take a hot cock,” she repeated. “I’m so full.”
“What? Wait, are you OK?” I ask, only just then realizing her words.
“Girl, oh my word! Repeat after me: Coke, Coke, Coke.”
“Coke.”
“Good girl. Don’t forget it!”

Tuesday, January 30

Every American living abroad wrestles with some aspect of overseas life, regardless of the number of years on foreign soil. For one of my friends it’s the lack of privacy; for another, not having someone that can relate to her personal issues. Mine is the attention I attract as a foreigner and a white person.

I have never enjoyed being stared at. I can’t imagine many people do, but some are not as bothered by it. In Kazakhstan, depending on how I dressed, I could pass for a Russian – that is until I began to speak and people recognized my clumsy elementary language skills and bad accent. People stared, but not as much as the people do here. In South Sudan, I have no chance of assimilating or blending into the community. At every instance in which I leave the confines of our compound where we work or the UNICEF compound at which we live, heads start turning and people begin unapologetically and unabashedly staring, their gaze as intense as the noonday summer sun. It always surprises me -- it’s not as if this town is virgin territory for foreigners. The various United Nations agencies and the non-governmental organizations working here are many. And while most of these organizations’ employees are African, Yambio is the working home to a few white folks from Canada, Australia, Germany, England, as well as the United States.

So, every day when we take our pre-dinner stroll, I mentally prepare to become the evening spectacle. The reactions vary. The men stare; the women and elderly (few and far between in this country) offer polite, dignified greetings -- if I initiate the exchange; and the boys who are beyond the age of 8 simply give me a look that seems to say “Who you talking to?” They are too cool to bother.

It’s the response from the children that I enjoy. Before I even see the kids that are tucked behind tukuls and trees, I hear the cry of “Kajawa!” (white person) as it’s repeated down the line in Paul Revere style. When I’m feeling sassy, I reply “Sudanese!” knowing they won’t understand my language or my supposed humor. They giggle with delight and gather for a look. Some come forward to offer shy grins and tentative handshakes, their bellies bulging beneath their shirts and dirt staining their beautiful faces. Those who know a few words of English ask “How are you?” “Fine. How are you?” I answer. “How are you,” comes the circular reply. All are surprised when I say the one word I know in Zande – “Guinea Pie (hello),” to which they are to reply “Pie-tay (fine).” But what they really want to hear me say is “bye, bye.” Somewhere along the line the kids began to believe this is how we say hello in English. In another comedy of translation and identity, the “foreigner is coming” call is sometimes issued as “Bangaladee!” The United Nations Mission in Sudan – the police charged with monitoring the Comprehensive Peace Agreement – is largely comprised of soldiers from Bangladesh. Somehow their presence has the kids believing that either “Bangaladee” is another word for foreigner, or that all foreigners are from Bangladesh. Every time I hear it, I can’t help but laugh, never before having been mistaken as an Asian.

By any name, I will happily continue receiving the greetings from these little ambassadors of New Sudan.

p.s. Those of you wondering about the condition of my colleague Val: she was diagnosed with pneumonia and environmentally induced asthma, the former brought on by the amount of dust hanging in the air during the dry season. She has recovered and is happily working again in Tambura to defeat gender based violence.

Thursday, January 25

I’ve been thinking about gender a lot lately. It seems I can’t escape it. Many of the conversations with our Sudanese staff – which his comprised largely of men – inevitably center on gender. It’s not a problem, but it is interesting to be reminded of one’s gender on a regular basis. The most hilarious example of the week involves a trip to our primary health care center in Sakure, not far from the border with Congo, to investigate whether fears of a meningitis outbreak have merit. The roads being what they are in Sudan, the journey takes about an hour and a half at speeds between 30 and 40 kilometers. We expect to encounter two bridges, but are unsure if we’ll find them capable of handling a vehicle. The first bridge, comprised of hewn trees placed side by side, is deemed safe by Dominique, our driver, who walks into the middle of the structure, jumps up and down once, and calls it good. But my survival instinct rises and I decide to cross the bridge on foot. My guise is that I must take a photo of the vehicle making the passage, a ruse that is quickly called. “You know men are stronger than women – that is why we stayed in the vehicle while you crossed the bridge on foot,” says Samuel. “Someone had to be available to call for help if the bridge collapsed,” I reply. It’s all in good humor. The men-versus-women banter continues as we push through brush, branches slapping against the vehicle like rotating brushes in an automatic car wash. Martha, no pushover herself, steps in: “Women are stronger than men. What do men do? They lie around. Women can do all – cook, clean, gather water, collect firewood, care for the children, care for each other -- but men can’t do anything without women. Look at Miranda. She is stronger than a man. She is in the field.” She doesn’t mention herself.

The afternoon passes quickly at the care center. Martha takes an inventory in the pharmacy. The county’s chief medical officer examines patients suspected of having meningitis and orders lumbar punctures to be carried out on two people – despite the fact that these samples won’t be able to confirm meningitis as the sick have been on medication. Samuel conducts a meeting with the village health committee in preparation for building sleeping accommodations for the center’s chief medical person. By the time everyone is done with their respective tasks, the lunch is nearly finished. Samuel grabs one of the two plates remaining; the chief medical officer, Jemis, who happens to be Samuel’s uncle, takes the other. Martha and I are welcomed to take from the platter of oranges in the center of the floor. “Why don’t you eat?” asks Jemis. “I did. I had an orange,” I say. “One lemon is nothing,” he says, shoveling piles of rice and bush meat into his mouth. I’m unsure of what I’m supposed to eat. Surely he doesn’t expect me to eat every orange on the platter. And then, somehow, the men-versus-women topic rises anew. “You know, men are stronger than women. Men can go longer without food than women,” says Jemis, his lips greasy with palm oil. Samuel joins in. “Actually I heard women can last longer than men during a famine because of their breasts,” motioning to his chest while looking at mine.

On the rough-and-tumble way home, Samuel, who has been suffering from malaria for more than a week, offers up an unsolicited explanation, perhaps as an unnecessary apology. “There were only two spoons and I needed to eat to make this ride home.” I bite my tongue and smile to myself, bracing for the next jarring bump in the road.

Considering the theme of the week, it’s fitting that it ends with me and Martha sitting in a circle of 20 women at the YWCA. The meeting announcement – handwritten on a simple piece of paper – called on IMC to attend an urgent meeting with “Her Excellency,” the state minister of social welfare. A half hour after the designated meeting time, the minister arrives with her female colleague, the minister of education, in matching tinted-window Land Cruisers. Their beret-wearing soldier and his AK-47 stands guard at the bamboo fence. Their drivers are sent to purchase a case of warm Coca-Colas with pull-tab tops and Arabic labeling. The only man within the circle of women is tasked with taking notes for the minister. Representing any one of the 19 women’s groups in the area, each woman in turn tells of her activities – soap making, tailoring, weaving, facility rentals, HIV counseling. With the meeting being conducted in Arabic, Martha translates for me until her mind drifts off to a place only she knows. I practice looking engaged for three hours, despite only being able to understand the few words mentioned in English: Tuesdays and Fridays, $400, IMC, HIV, tailoring, juice, no respect. It’s clear that the meeting has become part support group. I wonder if this is what the early days of the women’s liberation movement in the United States were like – a hybrid of agenda-setting business and supportive sisterly care.

Now my mind begins to wander from the meeting, soaring over the dirt soccer field with the eagles. My life couldn’t be more different from those of the women surrounding me. As a woman from a country that has mostly worked through the growing pains of equal opportunity and equality, I have choices that are limited only by my fears. Sudanese women have no choice but to marry, to have children, to stay within the confines of their country unless forced out by warfare and natural disasters. It’s not uncommon here for women – girls, really – to marry at the age of 14 and 15. About 28 percent of women are married to men who have other wives, which from a public health standpoint is an invitation to sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. And all women are expected to have babies at each and every opportunity that their bodies allow. Family planning, even for the sake of spacing the children so that the mother’s health isn’t jeopardized, is nonexistent. Women whose bodies won’t allow them to conceive are left by husbands, and sometimes shunned by mothers and fathers. What would these women think of me if they knew my demographics – 40, single, no children? We may be seated elbow to elbow on this waning afternoon, but I know that in many ways we remain worlds apart. With all the facts on the table, would these strong, beautiful women think it was them who had been dealt an empty hand, or me?

Friday, January 19

Johnny Cash is coming through on the stereo - “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand, I am weak, I am tired, I am worn…” – as we bounce across Yambio County. Milton, the driver, wearing a Mohamed Ali collared shirt, is fond of the cassette tape and pops it in at every opportunity. It doesn’t distract him from bearing down on the gas pedal as he points the vehicle with precision into the ruts of the dirt road that is no wider than the Land Cruiser itself. Fleeing the path in front of us in every direction are entire families on bicycles, women wearing hats of firewood, children plucking papayas from the trees. Men digging a grave stop, shovels in mid-dig, and stare as we fly past. I’m with the immunization team, headed to our primary health care unit in Masumbu village.

A small group of women is already gathered at the modest two-room brick health care unit upon our arrival. Each holds nothing more than a baby in their arms. There are no diaper bags, no shiny plastic keep-the-baby-happy toys, no pacifiers. It is a simple landscape of babies and breasts bared for feeding. The children are dressed in matching T-shirts and shorts or frilly dresses and pretty headbands, their hair in braids, their feet in flip flops. All are oblivious as to what will come on vaccination day in the village.

But first there are procedures. A small lecture about the necessity of vaccinations is given by the smiling county health department worker. A formal group prayer is presented by a mother, everyone bowing their heads in respect. The women sit hip-to-hip on the benches, the first giving the registrar her child’s name, age and past immunizations before taking the center seat of pending torture, the next woman scooting forward. The assembly line has begun.

The shrieking screams start with the needle’s plunge into flesh. A shot to the upper arm prevents measles and one shot to the thigh prevents diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis. Three quick drops of an oral vaccination into mouths wide open with shock and awe prevent polio. It doesn’t take long for the babes in wait to become wise. We watch for the ones who begin crying when yet six stops down the line. These are the ones who kick so fiercely that Martha must hold their legs in place. Mothers who aren’t grasping their children securely enough to prevent wiggling are given a terse finger waiving by the needle-carrying vaccinator who otherwise looks as bored as if she were waiting to pay her taxes.

The wailing wall is heavy with action for four hours. The ringing in my ears has me sure I have witnessed hundreds of babies receiving immunizations. The final tally: 65 children have been vaccinated and about 60 mothers have been given bed nets to protect against malaria-carrying mosquitoes during the night. I am exhausted and I have done nothing but watch. “Congratulations, Martha,” I say, as we seek shade. “You have done good work, even if you have made every child in the village cry today.” “Yes, we have come to receive the noise,” she laughs.

It costs only $20 to fully immunize a child. In helping Kara with her health assessment survey in the neighboring county of Tambura, we learned that only 16.5% of the children under the age of 1 had received all recommended vaccinations, and 15.7% had never received a single immunization of any type. The importance of immunizations cannot be overstated. Only two months ago an outbreak of meningitis killed 11 people here in Yambio County.

Frankly, it is all easier said than done. Travel is difficult here, so sending an advance team to notify the community of vaccination days is often not feasible. Having routine immunization days would provide continuity and perhaps increase attendance. Furthermore, vaccines must be kept cold until administered. The county health department vaccinators carry small coolers to sites for special immunization days. But to allow the regular staff of the primary health care units to provide immunizations on any given day, vaccinations must be supplied regularly – a nearly insurmountable task during the rainy season. Without electricity, refrigerators here are fueled by kerosene. But this too can prove problematic if kerosene is in short supply or the refrigerator begins malfunctioning.

But on this day, 65 children have been immunized. It’s not the country, nor the county, not even the entire village, but it’s a start. Many on this continent teaming with infectious diseases have not been reached. Back in the vehicle for the return trip, Johnny Cash says it all - “Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, help me stand, I am weak, I am tired, I am worn…”

Tambura sisters

Refugee repatriation flight landing

Returning refugee registration

Val, Lucy, Kara, me

Saturday, January 13

I am worried about Val, our new gender based violence coordinator from Canada who is based in Tambura. When I left our post there on Tuesday, Val had a serious chest cold. Thursday evening she began having difficulty breathing. By noon Friday her condition had worsened. She had never had asthma. Was it that, or was she was having an allergic reaction? There are no diagnostics at Tambura’s hospital and the medications are limited. At 4 p.m. she was evacuated by a United Nations plane. We wait for word.

The situation typifies the broken medical system here. The war disrupted everything. IMC’s philosophy is to hire local people and train them further. As the lead agency for the Sudan Health Transformation Project, we have developed a string of modest health facilities throughout two counties. The Primary Health Care Units (PHCUs) are staffed by community health workers who generally have nine months of training. They are capable of treating the more common illnesses, such as malaria, diarrhea, coughs and the like. More complicated cases are referred to a Primary Health Care Centers (PHCCs). A person requiring advanced care is sent to the county hospital, managed by the government. However, the hospitals don’t have equipment and aren’t staffed full time by doctors. Traveling to a hospital in Kenya or Uganda is not possible. The only vehicles here are those owned by the United Nations and NGOs. And even if there were vehicles, road travel is long and arduous, particularly when the rains wash out the dirt roads. Only NGO staff has the means to be evacuated by airplane. The irony is not lost on us.

The one doctor and one or two nurses we employ at each of our compounds do not provide direct care; they manage the IMC medical division, ensuring that PHCU and PHCC staff receives refresher training; that the facilities are stocked with drugs; and that the cold chain for the preservation of vaccines is functioning.

One of the largest obstacles to restoring the primary health care system is the dearth of medically skilled people. Men from the ages of 30 to 50 were, for the most part, were not educated in full; they went off to the war. The 20-something set, like our Drs. Nicholas and Alfred, is the first to receive post-war degrees, but they are few and far between in rural areas. A colleague, a nurse who previously worked for Doctors Without Borders, said he was dismayed at the number of people in dire straights waiting in vain for care at the Yambio Hospital. If he were Sudanese, he said, he would have forced his way into the hospital and rendered care. If questioned, he would have said his was fulfilling his duty to his people. But, he is Kenyan. He sees that the Sudanese are numb to death, having seen so many people die during the past two decades. In some ways, the war has never ended.

Friday, January 12

In the few days I have been here in Yambio, Martha and I have adopted the habit of a long evening walk. Each night we take a different route, winding through the market or through gatherings of tukuls. We attract attention. I am white and obviously not from these parts. Martha, who is our nurse, is from the Upper Nile region of South Sudan. She is noticeably tall, endlessly thin and has glorious black skin. By her account she is black and the people here are brown. Despite her usual timidity, she strides with confidence through town, calling back to the men who notice us, switching between Arabic, Swahili, and English as necessary. She even knows a bit of Zande, or at least enough to issue greetings. Martha easily answers my endless questions about life here. She is Nuer, a tribe of pastoral people that moves frequently in search of water for their long-horned cows. Martha left for Uganda during the war and was schooled there as a nurse. Along our walk we encounter Samuel, our HR manager, on his blue bicycle. “Samuel, you are all over the place. Every time we go out we see you,” I say. “Well,” he replies, “if I am all over the place then you must be too, because I see you everywhere!” At the young age of 27, Samuel has four children, which is not uncommon here. Though both he and his wife are from Yambio, his wife and children live in Nairobi. The schooling there is better, Samuel explains. Martha, too, is away from her child. Abby is 3 and lives with Martha’s brother in Nairobi. Many of the nationals and ex-pats working for IMC have families elsewhere. Leaving family behind -- be it immediate or extended -- for a job is not unique to Americans in the international public health and development fields.

We are having such a good time walking and talking with Samuel slowly pedaling beside us that we don’t realize the distance we have come. We are 4 kilometers from the compound and darkness is setting in fast. We turn around and pick up the pace. When darkness takes a complete hold, it becomes difficult to see my feet. I choose my steps carefully, avoiding potholes, ruts and rocks. The smoke that never seems to leave the air chokes us. I love and hate the passing motorcycles that both provide light and shine that light in our eyes. When we are nearly to the compound, Richard, our logistician and finance guy, cruises up on his motorcycle. We both jump on and he delivers us – relieved, tired and hungry -- to the UNICEF gates. We agree to either start our marathon strolls earlier in the evening, or to pay attention to our watches.

Tuesday, Jan. 9

It’s still dark outside when a single beating drum pulses into my sleep. It’s Independence Day – the two-year anniversary of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement that ended two decades of warfare between the north and south. The drumming is followed by the familiar sound of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army doing its jogging chanting march through town. It is a show of solidarity, strength and pride. But, everyone wonders how long this peace will last.

The peace agreement created a hybrid government – the Government of Sudan, based in Khartoum, remains the official ruling authority, but a separate Government of South Sudan was created. The latter rules the south with its own president and parliament (a Sudan visa is no good here; a separate travel pass is required by the SPLA), but is not autonomous. In three or four years (I’ve heard different accounts) the South Sudan people will vote on whether the south should secede. Southerners predict that their people will vote for the creation of their own nation. I wonder whether the powerful government of the north will allow the separation. If it doesn’t, surely war will begin anew. Both sides have killed and tortured unknown numbers. The government of the north is behind the ongoing genocide in Darfur that has left 300,000 dead and 2 million displaced. It has planes, bombs and killers on camels at its disposal. The SPLA is not as rich with modern weaponry, but it is scrappy and brutal, previously having kidnapped young boys to serve as soldiers.

The civil war began over religion (the north is largely Muslim; the south, Christian and animist), but now oil is the fuel of fights. The south is resource-rich, with 80% of the country’s oil reserves; the north is not. Yet, with the official government based in the north, the oil of the south is for the north’s taking. Most of the investment money pouring in from around the world never leaves Khartoum and the north. Khartoum will continue extracting as much oil as it can from this part of the country before the referendum. I can’t help but wonder why the two sides can’t cement peace into place if they managed to forge a long-term agreement in 2005. The truth is that the peace agreement was forced into place with intense international pressure.

But on this Independence Day holiday, there is no sign of the north. The SPLA marches in formation, guns at the soldiers’ side. A small troupe follows, carrying homemade banners praising the peace agreement. Women cheer them on with their traditional undulating scream of joy that I so love. Throngs of citizens and their bicycles line the perimeter of Freedom Square. Long, repetitive, windy speeches are made by politicians and rulers. In the midst of the celebration, I board a United Nations plane for IMC’s post in Yambio, the capital of Western Equatoria state. I look through the propeller plane’s scratched window at the assembled mass below. Indeed, it is peaceful.

Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2007

It’s a full moon and so we walk after dusk dark as our fatigued minds are insisting on a change of scenery. I’ve come to have a greater appreciation for what Kara has experienced in the past four months – not only in terms of her work, but her lifestyle. Our lives are spent inside the compound with the same people doing the same things and eating the same foods. There is no social life. There are no restaurants or bars. After walking up and down the wide, red, dirt airstrip that doubles as a pedestrian “highway,” we settle on the steps of a building near the compound and take in the glorious golden moon. I can’t help but remember that three months ago at this time I was with my sisters in a hot tub in Phoenix, witnessing a most spectacular sight: a moon adorned with a rainbow halo. Being as it was my 40th birthday, I took it as a good omen that my life would begin moving in the right direction; it had been a long, tumultuous time since the hurricane. Who knew that three months later I’d be watching the full moon from a dusty, charming village in South Sudan – and with a dear friend from home?

Tuesday, December 26

Today presents the first opportunity to do work since my arrival. I finish entering into a database the results of a survey that IMC did recently in Tambura County, and begin doing analysis for the report. Some of the findings are grim. More than 35% of respondents in one location report having to defecate in the bush due to the absence of latrines. More than a quarter have no soap. Only 16.5% of children younger than age 1 have received all recommended vaccinations. In fact, 15.7% have never received a single immunization of any type. Many children suffer from the three big killers of children under the age of 5 in Africa: acute respiratory illness, diarrhea and malaria. More than 24% of respondents (all women of childbearing age) were unaware of HIV. Thirty percent have been beaten by their husbands or regular partners. It is clear we have much work to do here. The situation is complicated by the fact that there is only one doctor in this county – Nicholas, who manages our medical services division. The war disrupted everyone’s lives, making it difficult for people to obtain an education.

On our way through town, Val calls our attention to the police station. A police officer in a camouflage uniform is beating a man who is lying face down before him with a long, thin stick. We stop the vehicle and stare, our minds trying to comprehend what we are seeing. The officer’s stick breaks on the man’s back. He picks up another stick and resumes the beating. “We better move on,” Val says. With the press of a foot on the gas pedal, we do so.

That afternoon, I realize how wonderfully perfect the weather is. It is warm, not humid and there is no want for a breeze. A substantial flock of white-and-black crows is eating the hot red chili peppers off a bush and the small brown eagles are swooping in for a meal of termites. The mango trees are emitting a subtle perfume. At dusk, Kara and I stroll down the main drag of Tambura when the air is rosy pink from dust. The smoke from the evening’s cooking fires gives the air an unusually romantic feel. A small and rather smoky fire is serving as a bug repellant in the middle of a circle of long-horned cows. A few people are drinking beer and dancing at the only “bar” in town – a small brick structure with a few outdoor plastic tables. We are discussing heavy matters: How do we both live our dreams for this career and make a path toward love, family and roots? Damned if we know. Guess we can only pick one and hope that other falls in place.

Monday, Dec. 25, Christmas day

When I wake, I find Kara and Val in the kitchen. The cooks have been given the day off. Kara is doing dishes in the only sink, which is behind the free-standing kitchen building. Val is making coffee on one of the small kerosene stoves. At that moment one of our cooks runs through the door, a look of panic on her face. “I heard you were all alone!” she said. Her son had told her. We laughed at her alarm, reassuring her that we were fine and that she had intentionally been given the day off. Guess the word gets out fast when the khawajat (white people or foreigners, in Arabic) are fending for themselves in the kitchen.

At 11 a.m. we grab the wooden folding chairs and begin walking to the church. People in their new Christmas clothes are coming on foot from every direction with wooden and plastic stools and chairs in tow. We begin the necessary process of greeting everyone’s stares with smiles. Christmas Day mass is being held outside, behind St. Mary’s Catholic Church. A wooden, roofed stage has been erected and two collection baskets are in place. We are slightly late, but yet we are early. The yard is a sea of people in clothing of colors as bright as the sun is hot. Many boys are wearing camouflage pants and shirts and hats – little generals everywhere.

I begin taking pictures and showing the people the digital photos. The kids love it. One woman who is dancing alone on the stage notices me and approaches. I believe she will be asking me to take a photo of her. I quickly realize, by her dress and her behavior, that she is mentally impaired. With a wide smile never leaving her face, she speaks to me in Balanda, which naturally I don’t understand, insisting that I take from her a currency note. I do not want to take it. We smile at her and notice that others around us are laughing at her. She will not leave; she will not stop offering me the note. I begin to grow nervous, not knowing how to get her to stop offering me the money. I touch my hair a couple times out of nervousness. Each time I do, she touches her own hair. “I think she wants you to get your hair done,” Kara says, not realizing she is mimicking me. Eventually, a woman – her cousin – speaks in Zande to our friend and “cultural guide,” Bridget, our HR manager. She says she is the woman’s cousin and advices that I take the money and then pass it secretly to her. I do so, and shortly thereafter the woman leaves me alone. “She is happy that she has given you an offering,” says Bridget.

The mass begins. One priest says the mass in Zande; another in Arabic. At the homily’s conclusion, the priest who has been speaking in Arabic summarizes the lesson in English – looking in our direction as he does so. Everyone begins craning their necks to look for the khawaja whom he is obviously addressing.

The mass is a blend of Catholicism and African tradition. Girls in white dresses and bright green head scarves dance in orchestrated moves before the alter. One tosses flower petals into the air. Parading around the alter in carefully choreographed steps are the flag-carrying church leaders and ushers. People in the audience shake maracas and play other small percussion instruments.

What I call the boom box contingency is in full swing, surrounding the marimba player and the music group. Each young man wears shades and rap artist T-shirts. Large boom box perch on their shoulder. They are recording the music for playback later. There is no FM radio in South Sudan, shortwave. Therefore, these men record music when they can for their own enjoyment. At the strike of the first note from the marimba, the men in unison click “record.”

Following the church service, people move into Freedom Square for the Christmas Day market, which consisted largely of the sale of various home-brewed beers made from millet and wheat -- even sesame. Many areas have been set up to serve as backdrops for photographs. The photographers will have the film developed in Kampala, Uganda, and then arrange for the photo to be given to the families through a series of courier transfers. It’s strange how similar this place can be to New Orleans. I saw similar backdrops set up at the 2005 St. Joseph’s Day.

Sunday, Dec. 24, Christmas Eve

Kara, Lucy, Val and I walk the security route today in order to know it should we need to evacuate the compound on foot. We talk about putting a ladder in the far corner of the compound in order to scale the 15-foot brick wall. The first designated meeting point is a large unoccupied house behind us and to the north. The second is behind the smaller of the two elementary school buildings near the Catholic Church. The final is far down the path, at an intersection of teak trees, next to a small crumbling brick wall.

We decide to turn the security route drill into a hike. It’s good to be away from the compound. Tukuls line the narrow, rutted dirt footpath. Villagers stare as we pass, no doubt wondering what three white girls are doing walking in these parts. They instantly warm, however, at our smiles and waives. Some women shake our hands; some we pass on the path respond only out of obligation. The trail descends slightly in elevation and ends at the Yuba River. It’s stagnant and looks dirty, yet one woman is washing her clothes and a dozen boys are flocking in its water. A handful of girls are hiking up the trail with buckets of water balanced on heads. For many in this area, ponds and streams are the only water source.

Back at the top of the trail, the crowd around the Catholic Church challenges our curiosity. We venture a peek and soon we are inside, standing among everyone as if we had always been there, swaying back and forth to the music. A woman slaps a gourd-like maraca in my hand. All the women are on one side of the church; the men on the other. Some women are wearing blue handkerchiefs with white crosses on their heads, an indication of their membership in a church auxiliary group. Their signature high-pitched tongue screams echo off the stucco walls.

The Sunday market is a meager affair. At this hour (4:30 p.m.) the only produce remaining are green oranges. Most of the venders are selling a combination of plastic shoes, women and children’s apparel, salt, soap, and various other household items. The stores and stalls are simple -- wooden platforms held in place with wooden poles, bed sheets spread on the ground, and in one case a stall covered in UNHCR tarp.

At the sound of what promises to be another holiday parade for the holidays, we bolt from the compound to the main road. It’s a small band of Christian, being led by a priest, carrying a white banner decorated with red crosses. Several nuns in white dresses and headscarves are accompanied by children playing small percussion instruments, a man on a conch-like horn, and a few soldiers with AK-47s.

Saturday, December 23

We bolt in early morning excitement from the compound when what sounds like a marching parade of singing men passes. It is the SPLA marching through the street in camouflage uniforms, guns at their sides, their flag held high. The SPLA is largely comprised of members of the Dinka tribe, though this area is populated mostly by Zande. Hence, the tribal tension.

Donning jackets to fight off the morning coolness, we walk the village. The townspeople, seemingly oblivious to the chill, are doing their usual thing. Men on fancy bicycles adorned with plastic flowers, women carrying buckets and bowls on their heads, children without pants or shoes running about. The children love to greet us, to touch our hands and say “bye, bye.” We happen by the Catholic Church, which is the heart of this town, hoping to take in some of the service. Unfortunately, it is just ending. Women with babies line every pew in this Spartan but substantial church; one is breastfeeding her child. We meet one of the ushers who tells us that his job is essentially to make people behave and to ensure that no one who enters is drunk. We peak into the nearby brick school. Part of the roof had collapsed in a wind storm. The rooms have no blackboards, no seats, no desks; they are only four walls. It’s said that 100 kids crowd into each classroom – so many that pupils have no room to sit.

We tour the MSF (Doctors Without Borders) facilities at the county hospital. They have been managing an eight-bed pediatric ward and a 15-bed sleeping sickness ward. Sleeping sickness is endemic in this area, but MSF has managed to decrease the prevalence from 20% of the population to .05%. Hence, the sleeping sickness ward only has one patient and MSF is leaving this town permanently. The scene at the hospital is unlike any I’ve seen, but is typical for Africa. Families members sit outside, cooking food for their relatives. Other patients lay on mats outside to stay cool. Naked healthy babies with bulging bellies. Little girls with baby brothers and sisters on their hips. All are interested in looking at or interacting with the foreigners.

Later that evening, in the darkened stillness, I hear that the singing and dancing has begun anew. The Christmas celebration continues.

Friday, Dec. 22

At the Loki airport for my flight to Tambura, I plop my overweight luggage on a large rotary scale. Thirty-seven kilograms. I am only allowed 15 kilograms. To compensate, IMC cuts back on the amount of cargo being sent. I feel ridiculous. The baggage handlers mark a piece of masking tape with my destination and affix it to my luggage. “When did you come from Nairobi?” asks the security screener Tuesday, I say. “Have you added anything to your luggage since then?” No, I say. “OK you can just go through,” waiving me on without a glance at my luggage.

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.

Tuesday, Dec. 19

It’s my first day at International Medical Corps’ South Sudan office, based in Nairobi, Kenya. The country director, Simon, gives me a security briefing. He tells the terrifying account of how he and four other IMC staff ran for their lives when the Lord’s Resistance Army from Uganda attacked the IMC compound in Yambio in March. My heart rate quickens and I wonder if I am making an incredibly stupid decision. Of course I do not offer this up to Simon. Unsolicited, he says that I can be taken from the field at my choosing should I feel unsafe.

At 12:30 p.m. I leave for the airport only just having receiving my travel pass from an agency of the Sudan People’s Liberation Army, which rules South Sudan. The plane is a 22-seat propeller model. We touch down in a small airport in Lokichoggio, northwest Kenya. White foreigners and black nationals are piling luggage into pickup trucks for transport between the airplanes and the simple and crudely fashioned outbuildings that comprise the terminal. Wilson, an IMC logistician, is waiting for me. The parking lot is populated mostly by INGO vehicles and the World Food Programme flag flies next to the Kenyan flag. While we wait for my luggage to be delivered to the parking lot in a pickup truck, Wilson tells me that he is Kenyan. “The Africans will never be able to be alone,” he says, meaning that his people are incapable of caring for themselves.

I am taken to the nearby United Nations compound, where IMC has a small office and sleeping accommodations. “That way is Kenya and that way is Uganda,” says Wilson, pointing toward a ring of small mountains. Dusty children play alongside the road near a shantytown of rusting tin roofs, women carry items on their heads, men crouch underneath a tree. The roads are pockmarked with potholes. The UN compound is a cornucopia of humanitarian relief agencies. Nightfall brings a sky of rhinestones glittering on a field of inky black African velvet.