Google and Berkeley

Currently I am on George's laptop because Emma has the keys to our room and I can't get mine out. This morning Emma and George were supposed to meet Rex Olum again to gather his maps and population data on a flashdrive. He has six maps available, but he did not have all the Boma names at the instant they came. So he is radioing all his Boma supervisors from each area to get names quickly for Emma. As he was doing that, they went off to the market and ran into some strange, sketchy encounter with the national security (not associated with the SPLM). To read more about the encounter, go to Emma's blog.

Meanwhile Ed, Father Vuni, and I were supposed to go shopping to get adapters, some food, more fuel, and to exchange our money for Sudanese pounds (they gave us 207 for every $100, but we thought it should be 210). However Ed took us to a meeting with the Ministry of Health again to talk to the head of Malaria. We found the Director General and talked to him a bit about our plans, and then the Malaria head, Dominic, came. He told us that they have trained some people from primary health care centers in different counties, even from NGO ones, and they gave kits with a book for the national policy of S. Sudan. He is trying to set up a meeting with different NGOs and other organizations to collect information on their campaigns against malaria, and possibly set up a uniform data for all the information.

Then we went to see Father Ben to give him money for the SIM cards, but he was not there. Ed ended up talking to a Father Batiste, who told us information about different materials village people use to post up their nets and whether they actually buy nets from the market. It turns out a lot of them do not because they believe they will get it free from somewhere eventually, like from an NGO. Then he went on to describing the Ikwotos County, which is relatively new, and the Payams and Bomas within it. The counties are always shifting and there are some new ones that come up because the boundaries in Southern Sudan are not definite. For example, there is supposed to be a new Lafon County, but the Lopit do not like the name because they are not from Lafon. So now they want to call the county Lopa, which includes the Lopit and the Pari. This poses a problem for us if we want to gather information about each county, which is what Emma and George was trying to get from Rex.

Father Vuni had to get back to the Diocese for a meeting, so we could not go shopping like we planned. Ed dropped me off here and went to pick up Emma and George instead. They went shopping while I searched google scholar for some articles on net distribution in Ethiopia. I am so stoked to have online access to the Berkeley library because I can obtain nearly every electronic resource we need. I was so surprised when George could not get everything from his Yale links, and I was seriously thanking the Berkeley library. I am really really really really happy that our university, although limited in funds, has put money into something really useful. Anyways, that is what I am going to do today...read the articles. We are supposed to go to the LWF (Lutheran World Federation) next door, which is run by a Nepalese, because they have experience distributing food in some sites in Southern Sudan...and because they are highly computerized. Ed went but he only gave them his card because everyone was in an important meeting.

He later had a talk with Sister Florence, who came from one of our hospitals in Kapoeta. He basically badgered her on cutting down the workers' salaries there (we pay most for salaries at about $30,000 a month, of which only $13,000 is subsidized from our donor) and to reduce the number of workers (even though we need more according to Emmanual).

I am going to finish posting my time in Juba really soon, hopefully. By the way, I posted a link on the left to pictures we had taken in Nairobi and Juba. Take a look at the beautiful Nile from the plane.

-Neesha

Well here is a story to leave my blog for today. This is the more detailed version. A boy from the small Buya tribe in Kimatong was sitting next to his church when the SPLA came in and rounded up people. He was very tall for a six year-old and was isolated from his family to become a boy soldier. However at the time, all the boys they got were getting sick from diarrhea and many soldiers felt it was useless to train them. An SPLA officer let one of them escape, and the boy followed him into the jungle. They were lucky not to get attacked by hyenas and lions on the way to Uganda and on the way to Kenya, where they found a refugee camp. There he was accepted to come to the United States as a lost boy. Although many of these lost boys end up working in low-end jobs when they arrive, he showed a lot of promise as one of the top runners in his high school and in the nation. This talent granted him acceptance into one of the top universities for running, Arizona State. HBO Real Sports went to feature him and they found his family in Sudan. He is now training for the upcoming 2008 Beijing Olympics to prove to the Chinese that the Sudanese can succeed. His name is Lopez Lomong, and I will be rooting for him. He will be running under the U.S., though, as a thank you to us.

Reminders:
Ryan, remember to do my telebears!