Sudan is...

Sudan is dark wiry frames, gnarled by a painful history into staunch knots.

Sudan is black pillars of smoke, ever billowing on the hillside, ephemeral emblems of a past still smoldering, ready to be rekindled again.

Sudan is the rusting wreckage of tanks for war and tanks for fuel, split open and boiling under the fiery sun.

Sudan is the thatched structures providing permanent residence to a wandering people.

Sudan is the skeletal structures of burned-out building with makeshift repairs serving as the hospital, the school, the seat of government for the district spanning many tens, if not hundreds, of kilometers.

Sudan is the sand that spills inside the shoe and house, grinding between the toes in a painful refinement of lifestyle and thought.

Sudan is the piercing, bloodshot gaze broken into broad forests of white teeth.

Sudan is a circle of men around a common bowl, squatting on their haunches to share food with their hands and words with their mouths.

Sudan is the periodic chants in Arabic emanating from mosques, reflecting the flow and hum of the day’s heat.

Sudan is the donkey tightly strapped and bearing the weight of 20 liters of water for the day’s use, goods to sell for this week’s or month’s income, or supplies for constructing homes of wood, grass and mud.

Sudan is reaffirming trust by greeting every passerby, knowing that failing to do so plants the seeds of mistrust.

Sudan is the generator housed in a grass hut, powering the TV connected to the satellite linked to the outside world.

Sudan is the UN helicopter landing, the peacekeepers de-boarding, the people watching, the leaders discussing, the community waiting, the visitors leaving.

Sudan is the lone white man walking down the street, supervising an NGO project conceived in an office between a keyboard and a monitor, and born on shifting ground between a LandCruiser and a hoe.

Sudan is the hope that a struggle for peace will supplant a past of violence for a secure and stable future.

Sudan Pics

 
 









Click here to see more photos from Sudanon Snapfish.com.

An Eventful Trip Home

The plan was to arrive home Saturday, but we received confirmation that our chartered flight was coming in this morning. Into the LandCruiser we piled, cramed in seats facing each other with luggage on our laps. Our driver, Rebecca, was from MAG, a demining organization. My family calls my mother "Mario Momma" for her aggressive driving, and I'd give this woman the title "Ragin' Rebecca"; she was a wild woman on that dirt road which was more like a riverbed. I thought we would tip several times and had to lean in to avoid hitting my head on the sides or top. Little did I know that the worst had yet to come.

We arrived at the airstrip no problem. Our captain from Samaritan's Purse arrived and took us to Pye (Pi-ee) for refueling before heading onto Loki in Kenya. By then it was 2:30 PM and I hadn't eaten since early that morning. I got a little Chevda (a chip-based trail mix), some potato chips and Sprite. No sooner had we touched-off when I realized what a bad decision I had made. I drank a little water as the black spots got bigger and bigger before I finally passed out.

I don't even remember spewing chunks, but the evidence left no doubt in my mind. I awoke some time later to a huge mess all down my shirt, my pants and my seat. I cleaned up a little bit around my mouth and drank a little water, feeling immensely better even if a bit soggy. Happily I slept for most of the remaining 2 hours, like a baby too tired to care about the little mess he made.

After we landed I changed in the plane and cleaned up the mess with the help of a mechanic. Needless-to-say, he received a nice tip that day. A shower never felt so good to my sweaty, soggy, sticky body.

An Evening of Theology

Dead-beat from a week of typing and weathering the desert heat of Kurmuk, all I wanted to do was sit alone, drink a Pepsi and watch a football match. Yet I also realized that this would be my last night in Sudan; my last opportunity to find out just a little bit more about the people and the place.

Summoning what strength I had remaining, I walked down to the local bar to meet some colleagues. On my way I passed a group of young Sudanese boys surrounding the only other white guy I'd seen outside a vehicle the past week. His name was Chris, and he invited me over. A volunteer with Samaritan's Purse, he was sharing the story of Noah with these guys. I enjoyed listening to his interpretation of the events, amazed at how universal such a simple story can be and all that was left unsaid or written between the lines... too much to go into detail here.

Later, I had some more Pepsis and theological discussions with my colleagues. They asked about the monogamous marriage in Western tradition, a far cry from the traditional polygamous, African view of marriage. I had trouble defending my position, since I was constantly stumbling over what was Western Culture and what was essential to Christianity. He claimed some African women preferred having more than one wife: I wanted him to introduce me to such a woman. For me, it goes beyond faith and more to universal rights: if given the choice, I think women would prefer a monogamous relationship. And frankly, I don't think I could handle two women at once... if given that choice.

Grasshopper Wars

Plip! Flidhadhadhadhadha-pap!

Insects the size of my fist had invaded our room once again. These grasshoppers, escaped locusts from the lizards’ lair, would pop into flight and ram straight into the far wall. After a few moments of recovery, they’d launch themselves again into another kamikaze mission. They were entirely crazy and unpredictable, making them formidable foes and providing endless hours of entertainment. Picking them up, we suddenly had an uncontrollable missile to hurl at each other. A pithy annoyance quickly transformed into ammunition for an all-out war, taking me back to middle school cafeteria food fights. These creatures, if they landed directly on you, would grab you with a vengeance and refuse to let go. Every once in a while they would find their way into your clothing, causing you to perform a creative dance. More often, they zip past you as you dove for cover, fluttering and spurting their way until they crashed into some object. The covers provided protection while sleeping, but at the expense of increased body heat in excessively hot conditions.

Football at Sunset

With the sun setting, some of my colleagues and I set out for the local bar to watch the evening game of the African Cup of Nations. We passed by a heavily-eroded field where people had gathered for a game of football, small groups of mostly men socializing on the sidelines. After walking along some dirt roads and past shops of straw selling sodas, we entered a complex of grass fences and mud huts with thatched roofs. Chickens scavenged around in the trash littering some of the compounds. Men gathered round in woven makeshift chairs to drink, others squatted on cloth to play cards, women washing their children in buckets or preparing the evening meal, teenagers smoking in doorways, and children stopping their simple playing to watch the passersby.

We followed the distant hum of a generator, until finally we arrived to our envisioned Mecca. Outside a hut there were woven chairs, most with three legs and on the verge of falling apart, huddled around a TV set on a plastic table. Two wires ran from the TV: one to the satellite dish, about five feet in diameter, setup on the ground next to the grass hut, and the other running to the generator housed behind some thatched walls. The sky streaked with purple and orange over the thatched roofs, providing an ethereal backdrop to a televised football match in the middle of a Sudanese village.

To steal the slogan from Tusker, Kenya’s national beer, and describe the world’s favorite game: “Has No Equal. Makes Us Equal.”

Land of the Living Mines

War stops, but its legacy continues for many years.
~ Pedro Jagiso, an Ethiopian doing humanitarian work with CEAS in Kurmuk

Don’t just go wandering around. When in Rwanda, we were told to pee directly on the road. You never knew where a landmine had been planted, just a short distance off the road.
~ Sammy Mutua, my colleague and Trauma Healing workshop facilitator

To avoid mines, I would follow the tracks of the vehicle in front of me. If no one was in front of me, I just picked the most recent-looking tread marks.
~ Matt, a worker for Samaritan’s Purse in Southern Sudan

There’s nothing more terrifying than looking at the innocent ground before you and wondering if your next step might be your last. I could vividly see the soil just rip open before me, consuming my foot before exploding half my body twenty feet in the air. After a morning of “hop-flights” through Southern Sudan, we had finally arrived at our destination: Kurmuk, on the boarder of Southern Blue Nile district of central Sudan and Ethiopia. The long strip of hard-packed dirt served as a lifeline as well as an airstrip in hostile terrain.

Tentatively, I stepped off the strip, and after a few agonizing and slow paces I relieved myself. Traveling with CWS and my veteran coworkers, I knew that the area was thoroughly de-mined and “safe.” Yet I could still sense the stench of war and all the atrocities that must have happened where I now stood… or somewhere thereabouts.

The town of Kurmuk, the location of our workshop on Trauma Healing and Peace Building, had been heavily mined during the war. Favorite locations of the leaving army included: schools, hospitals, mango trees and water wells, or any other place that enticed people to gather socially or for necessary nourishment. There have been five

In the movie Casualties of War, Michael J. Fox observes that in an atmosphere of death, when anyone could be killed at any moment, his fellow troops had responded by completely disregarding any moral code whatsoever. Being so close to death, what did their actions matter? Yet Fox argues that they should be extra careful, precisely because they’re so close to death.

Does it make sense to be reckless when one is petering on a cliff’s edge? Must we be pushed to the edge to act morally?

For more information on the landmine issue, visit landmines.org.

The UN is like Bush

“The UN is like Bush to these people,” commented one of my partner-colleagues, Markos. Explaining a bit further, he said, “They bring in their own people, their own materials. They already know what projects have worked elsewhere, so they begin to implement these without consulting the people. They stay for a while. Once they feel their objective is complete or has simply changed, they leave, taking with them all of their resources. They don’t leave anything.”

I hope the organization we work for is different, involving the people and using local resources to rebuild infrastructure like water systems, schools and hospitals. Much of what we are doing this week is training on trauma healing and peace building. The CPA (Comprehensive Peace Agreement) has been signed and implemented by Northern (Government) and Southern (SPLM – Sudanese People’s Liberation Movement) Sudan after a war spanning over 20 years.

For a war to last that long, there had to be a number of issues. Some of these included religious differences of Muslim and Christians; racial issues of Arab-Africans versus Black-Africans; government neglect of anything/anyone beyond the capital, Khartoum; profits from resources after oil was discovered in Southern Sudan; among others.

The current war in Darfur stems from this war: the people of Darfur were recruited/enlisted into fighting the South by the Sudanese Government, who portrayed the SPLM as criminal and self-interested. After thousands of deaths, lies and favorable peace agreement to the opposing side, the Darfur people were understandably angry with the government and decided to rebel. The government, already having to succeed much to the South, does not want to give up any more power or control over resources. In the CPA, the government claims to speak on behalf of the Darfur region, just as they are sending in marauders to ransack villages and kill enough people to instill fear and disorder.

That’s a quick run-down of the situation. In comes the UN, trying to sort out the mess and save lives, all without taking sides. It’s a tough line to draw, and I admire them for at least trying. Whether or not they’re better or akin to Bush, I’m doubtful. What’s certain is that people are being persecuted, and they don’t have the power to stop their oppressors.

Legal but Illegitimate: Land-Titling and Elections

A man and his wife(ves) live on one plot of land in the traditional African society as part of a community. They move either onto the land of the woman’s family or the man’s. And there is implicit understand that they will carry on the family name. In a society that places so much on land inheritance, there is necessary discrimination against women in order to make the system work. For example: if a man of one family, who gets his land from his father, also gets a separate piece of land from his wife, then what does that family do? Daughters are given up, just as they are received, trusting that the husband’s family will provide for her and the children.

Even so, the system cannot survive as there becomes less and less land to subdivide to the sons. There is a need for a system that trades land and exchanges for other assets. In the West, we use paper to title lands, and these deeds give us ownership of land and allow us to exchange for other assets. Africans first see this method as strange, since land is their livelihood. Yet they also realize a foreigner’s wealth goes beyond land and into other assets. They use the system of titling to legally take land from the people who are out of the system, which is an illegitimate transaction- yet what is that to the legalism of today? If you can’t prove it in court, it didn’t happen.

Similarly, democratic elections are an anomaly to the African way of life. To be an elder, a respected representative of your community, was a lifelong process. You were watched from a little boy how you interacted with your age-mates, how you responded to different, challenging circumstances. The elders judged your performance, placing you in a hierarchy from an early age. Very rarely was an elder a woman, varying by tribe.

Enter the elections system, which quickly became a popularity contest among the educated young and those with money. No longer is it picking who is the best for the job, but it comes from the perspective of convincing everyone else that you were the best for the job. If you weren’t the best, then what? It didn’t matter, if you got enough people to support you.

The end result is an election system that is technically legal but communally illegitimate. Parallel to this system is a traditional order that is for all intents illegal yet still very much legitimate. The election system imposed on the people attempts to make the legal legitimate, rather than going to the already legitimate to make it legal.

Perhaps the best example would be the description Hernando de Soto gives about land titling. The government should issues deeds to people with land based on their own communal understanding of how the land has been demarcated. While unofficial according to the government records, they are highly accurate according to community consensus. Instead of using the system as a means to exploit those left on the outside, they are bringing them inside to work from within. This in turn will open up the poor to the larger markets of capitalism.

Some may say that this “open road” would allow for further exploitation of the poor. Perhaps, yet they are already being exploited outside of the system, and we should at least give them a fighting chance from within.

Bomas

The wind had pressed down the grasses below, resembling the matted fur of a cat. A village had grown around the dirt strip that formed the airstrip, like villages at the edge of the sea. Children appeared from the circular mud houses, completely naked and caked in dust. The early morning sun reflected off the particles, giving them a white, ghost-like appearance. Everyone wore Western clothing, each probably only owning one piece as it hung on their body like a fishing net thrown over a pier.

Weston, the USAID expert, deplaned with his five pieces of luggage. I wondered how long he would stay. A large SUV pulled up, and a few Sudanese helped load the luggage into the back. One of them greeted him, either having seem him or his name before. He turned to take a picture of our plane, and I had an amusing mental picture of a white man taking a picture of me, surrounded by Sudanese children all looking at him as the oddball in their midst.

Why did this man bring all those things with him? What could he possibly need all them for? Were they gifts to others? Would he be seen again before the plane arrived to take him away? How long would that be? And where did all this money come from? Was he some rich king from afar? Where all white men kings?

These questions I asked myself, wondering what the children were thinking. Looking back at them, they had suddenly grown clothes, save one. He was the least self-conscious of them all. His eyes met mine and his smile cracked his head open, triggering a crack into my world and face. He began to dance, and I mimicked his movements. Turning to one another, he and his companions burst into hardy laughter. I smiled back.

The plane began to rumble, the tension mounting, twisting the metal craft into a spring ready for launch. Dust swirled around the Sudanese, and they shielded themselves by closing their eyes and turning their heads aside. When the dust had settled, we would be gone, save for the distant hum of our craft. The show was over, folks. Back to regular life.

Wait, where did our visitor go?

Camera Barrier

African children swarmed around me, there faces white with the dust from the aircraft. We descended into their midst, only to rise again and leave. This was a fuel stop, yet I felt like we were taking more than their fuel. Some cultures believed that taking a picture meant you stole their soul. Was this one of those?

I took pictures of the Sudanese refilling the UN plane. Maybe I’d catch some of the background action in my candid shots. The children kept staring at me, the only white visitor; hardly an invited guest. I smiled, lifting my hand slightly in a timid wave. Their heads cracked open in brilliant white smiles. How could such a gesture of pleasure be so universal?

One of them pointed at the device in my hand, then motioned to his chest, held prominent. I said, “Picha?” He nodded in eager agreement, immediately posing like Mohammed Ali. Soon I was mobbed like the famous boxer, trading time snapping shots and showing them to the kids. They grabbed and pointed, laughed and shrieked, seeing themselves perhaps for the very first time. Many of them would point at the picture on the screen and indicate to a friend that it was him/her.

I looked up to see the pilot waiting for me. “Tuko tayari?” I asked, at the same realizing that everyone else was already on the plane and ready to go. He nodded. I had to pry away from the kids, then a guy my age cracked a couple of them on the head to send them scattering. I hopped onto the plane, waving goodbye like a celebrity who didn’t have enough time to sign autographs for his fans. Crammed back in my seat, I stared out the window, wondering what world I had just woken from.

Rubbing my nose, dirt fell from my hand and into my lap. I brought out the hand-sanitizer, squirting a big glob onto my hands. Cradling my hands together, no surface area was left uncovered with the goop before it miraculously evaporated. Would my memories just as easily disappear? I hope not. I hope they are incorporated into my being, becoming a part of who I am and who I want to be. Only then will I never forget.

Loki

The clouds parted and below lay huge swaths of browns, yellows and whites. To one side, an ocean of sand stretched as far as the eye could see. On the other, dry river beds resembling the muddy streams of the Mississippi Delta meandered into the distance, trickling down distant dark mountain tops.

Loki (“LOW-key”), short for Lokichoggio, is said to be busier than Kenyatta International in Nairobi. This town is the central base for most of the humanitarian efforts in the Sudan, Uganda and other sites in the African Interior. There is a huge UN compound nearby, and at least half of the vehicles are part of some UN program: FAO, WFP, UNICEF, etc. There were all kinds of other NGOs, from Samaritan’s Purse to CEAS (Church Ecumenical Action in Sudan) and Medicins sans Frontiers to Vetinarians without borders, each with their own vehicle.

So what does the UN and all these other NGOs drive? None other than the Toyota LandCruiser. They come in all shapes and sizes here, from pick-up trucks to full-blown defenders. I thought I had walked onto a set for a movie or documentary on some human relief crisis.

We loaded into the vehicle with CEAS logo on the side and drove into town. I was immediately reminded of La Concordia, a border and outlaw town in Ecuador I had spent three weeks in two years ago. The main road was superb for Africa, a tarmacked blade cutting through time immortal. Yet change was happening. Bars had crept into these traditional structures of mud, grass and tin, spilling their beer and alcohol into the streets and flooding the town with other “relief” efforts.

We arose early to catch our 6:20 AM flight. We arrived at 6:30 AM when the airport opened. Such are the ambitious in this remote area. Our group of 5 outnumbered the other two passengers and pilots. The cool desert air hid secret the adventures to come, tingling my senses and making me believe I was hallucinating. So far, so good- I haven’t woken up, and I’m still alive.

The Great Depression

"Hey, can you get me a job?"

I'm asked this question as often as I'm asked for money. My first reaction was to be incredulous- Why am I being asked this question? Is it be cause I'm white? Is it beacuse I obviously have money, and therefore a job? Is it because of colonialism and British employing the Nationals?

These questions dissolve into annoyance, as the tension in my brain transfers to the muscles in my neck and shoulders. I want to snap, "Why don't you get yourself a job?!" All of these people are men, and they are usually dressed quite well in a suit resembling one from GoodWill in the States. They seam perfectly capable of working- so why are they asking me for a job?

On a morning run I passed by a group of men standing in front of a locked gate. They seemed to be waiting for the gate open and a man to call a few of them in. It was a scene right out of Cinderella Man from the Great Depression. As I ran by, a few men followed my movement. I was a free man, running on some type of job, while they were stuck, waiting, thinking...

What's the difference? What makes me different from them? Where I was born? The color of my skin? My education level?

Kenya's unemployment rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 25-40%. Many people employ themselves in the informal sector, in non-taxed and non-registered business activities. During the morning and afternoon traffic jams, hawkers float amongst their customers jailed in steal cages, hoping for a window of opportunity to open and keep them fed for one more day. I hear about all kinds of scams, especially from those who beg, and still I wonder how anyone - and especially myself - would survive in such a situation.

I finished my run, taking a cool-down walk past my apartment complex. A young man, his clothes hanging from his body like moss on a frail oak tree, stoops over a pile of garbage. In one hand he holds a bag of trash, aka small treasures to sell to only he knows who. The words "garbage collector" take on a whole new meaning.

He looks up as I look away, and the question hangs heavy in the crisp morning air:
"What do you do for a living?"

Many Wants, One Need

I accompanied my boss, Dan, and our driver, Andrew, to the Rift Valley today to a small school. Some time ago, they had provided funds to help establish the school in the land of the Masai, where education is low and most of the adults are illiterate. A gal in the U.S. decided that for her Bar Mitzvah, she would have all her presents go towards donations for school supplies to these children. Today we delivered those supplies to the teachers and students. Unfortunately, many children were not there because their families had migrated in search of water for their livestock.


Much of the rural areas in Kenya are suffering from a prolonged drought. While rains are expected soon in this area, the earth dams no longer hold water and women trek 15 kms to fetch water from a river. While they gratefully accepted our gifts of paper and pencils, what they really could use is water. I interviewed two women, Annette and Christine, about the situation. This information will be used in a proposal a group of churches is submitting next week for funds to combat the impending crisis. I only hope we're not too late.


Mary Manjiru, pictured below, is one mother living near the school. Her son, Jonathon Moses, also pictured below, is able to attend school during the drought, unlike many of his agemates. Jonathon was one of the few people I spoke to who understood my English quite well.



On the way back, we stopped at a quaint hotel for lunch. I went to the bathroom to wash my hands. I let the water run through my fingers, washing away the dust and grime. I paused only a moment to reflect on where that water was running to, and where I might be running from. Abruptly, I turned off the water, leaving my hands still cool, wet and slimy from the remaining suds.


There is water here. It's just not available to those who desperately need it.