Keyala

I meant to put this up yesterday, but the generator turned off exactly at 10:30 last night. So here is what you guys missed:

Sunday, June 15, 2008
First off, happy birthday to my older brother, Sohil, and a happy father’s day to every father out there! I hope this day is special for you guys.

I just got an email from the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum telling us that there is a cholera outbreak in Juba. I guess we were lucky not to catch any infectious bacterium while we were in Juba, but this is bad news for our team since it diverts attention from the cholera outbreak in Magwe County. We were planning to apply for UN emergency funds specifically allocated for water from the big shot John Rumunu (the man who signed the Global Fund for Southern Sudan) for Magwe County. This would greatly help Eastern Equatoria, and our proposal to tell you the truth, but cholera in any county is never good news I guess.

Throughout today it had been very humid, but now there is a windy storm that just started. The wind is bending the trees and pulling the tents off its anchors. Our door is slamming against the wall, and I hear the thunder roaring outside. But there is a nice sprinkle of rain passing through our open windows, which I really like.

Our team had a special day. We went to Keyala this morning, and it was a very informative experience for all of us. Father Andrew, the Pari from Lafon who leads Shelter for Life, picked us up this morning to stop by the SSRRC. There were policemen, and one policewoman, in blue camouflage clothing ready to join us on this trip. They each had a rifle by their sides, and to tell you the truth, this was the first time I had ever been so close to loaded guns before. C’mon…I come from a sheltered suburban city. Thankfully the UNHCR vehicle posted a white flag on the roof of their car as a signal of peace. But then again, the white flag in Sudan also indicates a location for homemade beer. Anyways, we got inside our vehicles and drove off to see the village less than an hour away. The road was just as terrible as we expected (blame the British), but Ed insisted that Emma and I hold up the GPS outside of our windows to track our route.

The first thing we noticed when we reached the site was a huge green army tank nested by the entrance to the village. Once we parked and unloaded, we saw a row of UN vehicles right beside us and a massive SSRRC truck holding a large container for the kits. There were about a hundred people in front of our car sitting underneath the shade of a tree, and obviously, they all stared at the khawajas. What was most surprising is seeing a group of children climbed on top of the tank, and they were hesitant to approach us until we waved to them. We asked if we could take pictures with them, and they gleefully let us. Emma made a mistake when she showed their pictures on the digital cameras because more than 20 children swarmed around her to see the screen of her camera. They were all asking us to take more pictures of them, but eventually we had to pull away and enter the village. The huts looked familiar; they looked just like the ones we saw driving down to Torit from Juba—circular, clayed walls roofed underneath long, intertwined straws that all joined together at a point. The village is set against a backdrop of green mountains, and the nature of it is a beautiful sight.

We walked through the thick of the greenery on manmade, narrow paths, all of which led to several clusters of huts scattered here and there. There were many women with their babies underneath the huts, and we came over to handshake all of them while saying “Mong!” (“hello!”) in Latuko. We figured that was the best way to display a sense of peace to all of them. Everyone wanted to talk to us and know our names, but the children especially! Some of them were so cute haha. We saw a small, mudded vaccination building with a tin roof (we knew it was a vaccination site because there was a “Polio” chalking on the wall) and started to talk to the people there in horrible, broken Latuko. Some knew very little English and some knew Arabic, but Father Andrew and a police officer translated everything for us. There was a baby there with white patches all over his skin, and I instantly thought of measles because it reminded me of the pictures Joseph took in Nyanyangachor. I am not sure anymore, though, what it was. There were many women who wore patterned pieces of cloth wrapped around them and thrown over their shoulders. There was one old but tall woman who had interesting jagged cuts on her outer ears and a ring surrounding what I thought was a hole in her throat. She complained of chest pain, but we told her we were not doctors and that she should go to the clinic. Many of them were just happy to make conversation to us strangers. A lot of them specifically asked me where I was from (I clearly do not look white ya know), but I had to disappoint them and say I was from the United States. Many knew of California, and more surprisingly, many had guessed I was Indian. Maybe it is not so surprising since there are a lot of Indian and Bangladeshi peace soldiers in Sudan. The Bangladeshis have even created a successful microfinance business here, which is really helping the people.

We stopped by one of the huts where there was a family standing outside watching us. We wanted to ask them questions about nets and malaria, and Father and the police officer translated for us. It turns out that no one in the village owned any nets, and only one family got one recently. They understood the purpose of the nets—to keep away the mosquitoes, and they could link mosquitoes to the disease malaria, which was making their children sick. I was afraid that our questions were leading them to this obvious connection, but Ed and George thought it did not. They knew how to set up nets with sticks and how many people could sleep under them. There was a Merlin clinic, created by a British NGO, 5 walking minutes away which always diagnosed their fevers with malaria. There were also voluntary community health workers who do not carry medicines and traditional birth attendants who are trained and paid for by the government (we do not know how much). We got pretty useful information, but I really wish I had the courage to ask whether they would even bother using the free nets…not as fishing nets or as wedding veils, but for what they are supposed to be meant for.

After the questions, we walked back to the entrance of the village. Ed noticed a solar panel and helped them position it the correct way. He also climbed the tank to see if he could get reception on his cell phone from up there. There was one small open stand of little goods to buy food and other necessities. We also saw people grinding grain into flour using a small machine, and there was white dust floating everywhere around that open shelter.

Because cattle raiders were the cause of this village’s problems, the commissioner told us to take pictures of their cattle as proof of the village’s ownership. The cattle’s outer ears were intricately cut as a sort of branding, and we took pictures of those as well. There were herds of them all bunched together, mooing, eating grass, and mounting each other, and Ed climbed up a termite mound in order to take panoramic shots of them. We could not get to see the burnt parts of the village because there were SPLA soldiers preventing us from seeing something so sensitive. The shallow trenches and the displaced people under the trees were evidence that something happened, but we turned around to avoid any problems.

At one point I felt something pointy on the bottom of my right sandal, and I found some sort of metal chip poking through the sole. I stopped to get it out, and all of sudden men and some officers gathered around me to see what happened. One of them took my sandal and tried to pull out the metal splinter with his teeth. I did not mean to make a scene, but I guess as a khawaja, I am already drawing attention to myself. I wish I thanked the man who pulled out the splinter for me, but I lost my thoughts. I felt really weak when I tried climbing the tank with Ed, and I was probably dehydrated. Gatorade helped a lot though, and I spilled a quarter of it from the canteen when we drove back on the bumpy road.

On the way to Torit, we saw Russians driving a line of trucks with oil tanks. They were followed by a truck full of SPLA soldiers, and at the back of the truck was a machine gun. For a second my heart skipped a beat, but they were just protecting the oil in front of them. The Russians were probably subcontractors. Father Andrew said that the Chinese will probably start pouring their money directly to Southern Sudan, where the oil is mostly, if the South separates officially. The SPLM nominee for the next governor of S.Sudan is a man from Kapoeta who went to primary school with Father Vuni. The SPLM will most likely win against the other main party, NCP.

This trip was educational, particularly for Emma the anthropologist. We are going to come back because Ed assigned one of the women to create a song encouraging the village to use mosquito nets. It worked before in the 70s, when a Dinka singer made a song encouraging her villagers to use oxen for plowing. She worked Ed into the song as the “man who talks so much his saliva runs out”. Haha so funny, and yet soooo true. Haha.

Ok the rain just stopped. Rain here is very quick, as is the daylight here. The sun rises late and sets very early, but I guess this happens near the equator. I am also hearing whispers right now, probably intensified by the mephloquine I took earlier today, so I am going to go back to my room and sleep. Good night until tomorrow!

-Neesha