DAY NINE in Duk Payuel

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Thursday—no school today or Friday. The schoolteachers are helping the clinic with the assessment of children ages six months to 59 months. They measured height and weight and other criteria to determine the extent of malnourishment in this age group. Preliminary results showed about 20 % of the young children are severely malnourished. The clinic will use this information to appeal to NGOs like World Food Program for nutrition supplementation.

A group of girls arrived once again to draw and paint. It was wonderful to see the chose their paper and paints or markets and spread themselves around the clinic compound: some on the concrete porches of the tents that surround the open area near the dining hall and some on plastic chairs scavenged from here and there. There's a shortage of chairs at the clinic. The colorful plastic chairs are routinely in motion, carried from the dining hall, to the outdoors, to the clinic, to the tent porches—wherever they're needed. After the girls helped me put away the supplies, many of them gave me their drawings with their names written on them, and many of them wrote "Love."

Joh Deng said that some of the girls who came for the art classes don't attend primary school, yet they have come for this. As they worked, some of the clinic staff stopped to talk with them and admire their art. Like all children, many of these girls have talents, but here there is virtually no opportunity to express them. Girls who don't attend school have nothing pleasurable to keep them busy that also engages their minds, which Joh believes is critical to changing the future for their community. And then he said, "Those who believe in forced marriage should watch out—Debra is coming. She will change things."

This second visit to the village has confirmed my resolve to follow through and address these needs. ASAH has raised their hopes, but we've been slow in bringing the boarding school to life. Insecurity in Sudan, the difficult economy in the US, and other things have conspired to slow this part of our work. But now is the time. Joh believes that a boarding school for female orphans will set an example and will cause village mothers, even if illiterate themselves, to strive for their daughters to have chances like this. If girls have an opportunity to be educated, the village will change.

Mid-afternoon, a group of girls from Patuenoi stopped by wanting underpants. I was sorry to disappointment them. The panties were long gone. All I could tell them was that ASAH would send more after the referendum. Imagine waiting two months for one or two pair of panties.

Day Eight in Duy Payuel—Art Classes and John Dau’s moms

Tuesday and Wednesday, November 16 & 17, 2010

In the morning, some girls came by for needles to pierce ears. We used a bit of sign language. They pointed to the holes in my ears—and the diamond stud I have in one ear—it’s too hot to wear dangling earrings. And then they made a sewing gesture, and then pointed to their ears. I was concerned about causing a raft of infections, so I asked them to follow me to the clinic. Peter explained they must sterilize the needles and clean their ears with “spirits.” Then he filled a bottle for them to share. Over the next few days, girls came to show off their new “earrings,” which in most cases were the stick pins I’d given out in sewing class, with the colored ball heads. They were short pins, but I think they somehow cut them shorter—most girls now had three in each each ear, and some had pierced a nostril as well. Other girls had braided threads in their holes, and some sported thin thorns from prickly bushes or trees.

One girl came alone to sew this morning. Though this was impromptu, I sat with her in the dining hall and we sewed together, mostly silently as she didn’t speak English. I couldn’t get her to understand the need for knots, but she happily sewed a pad, and I added a few stitches and knots to reinforce it. I hope it holds together.

After lunch, John Dau’s mother, who has returned to Sudan from the Syracuse, NY where she had been living with his family, came by with one of his stepmothers (this is a polygamous society). They brought me a delicious meal of pumpkin cooked with millet and sorghum and seasoned with sim sim. I am not sure what sim sim is, but it had a pleasant aroma and taste—almost a little cinnamony. Though I had already eaten my fill of lunch, I had to be polite, and the food was delicious. There was plenty for the staff to share. This courtesy visit was a great honor. John’s father or uncle is one of the chiefs, and the family is prominent in the community. And John’s mother is particularly special due to her excellent English skills and experience in the US.

We sat and talked for a bit. John’s mother thinks Syracuse is too cold and people stay indoors too much. She missed the freedom and friendliness of the village, and so she returned. Also, she complained she got too big in America and didn’t like that. Here there isn’t as much food so she is losing weigh, but she's still a big woman, particularly by village standards. And she's more than six feet tall. In spite of her distaste for cold weather, she did agree that the toilets were a lot better!

Some time later one of John’s other stepmoms appeared. I remembered her from the church distribution, and from my trip here in 2007. Her photograph is titled, Woman and Palm. The lines in her face mirror the lines of the palm tree behind her. It’s one of my favorite photos, and I had it blown up four by five feet for the exhibit at the Rourke Art Museum. This woman requested that I donate one of the sewing machines to the church. They have two women who know how to assemble them and sew with them. I agreed. So now it is worked out that one machine will stay at the clinic, one will go to the school, and one will go to the church. I have additional supplies and spare parts and oil for the machines and will leave them for the clinic to distribute as needed. I’m pretty happy about this arrangement as it will give opportunities for girls to learn to sew, for women to begin sewing through the church, and for the clinic to mend their uniforms and other things. The girls are anxious to be introduced to the sewing machines, but we have to get Maduk back this weekend to get them purring! (A correction to the above. The sewing machine did go to the church. The other two are remaining at the clinic until Maduk can train some people at the school to sew and to maintain the machine).

Here are things I’ve learned:
1. Small children draw flies. They hover around the little kids, so if little kids are hovering around me, I get the flies, too. I can pick a dead fly out of my milk and drink it.
2. You get used to flies. My skin has desensitized. They don’t really bother me much unless I am covered with milk from feeding Lashes.
3. The mosquitos mostly bite my ankles. They usually itch only in the morning. Sometimes I put on a little cortisone cream. Lashes does NOT like the smell of bug spray.
4. The roosters don’t wake me up any more. The cacophony of people noises, music, insects, birds, and cows bellowing the first two nights kept me awake even with earplugs and a noise machine. I still use the earplugs, and I turn on the noise machine in the morning if a rooster wakes me up.
5. Village girls like me and want to be around me. They also like to touch my hair.
6. My legs are stronger and I am used to the squat. When I come the next time, I’ll have to practice up to be in shape for it.
7. Daniel and Chol, who have helped with the video camera, make sure to keep the batteries charged.
8. People really want a boarding school for girls in the community.
9. The girls really enjoy learning.

On Tuesday, more than 25 girls came. Instead of sewing, I hauled out marker pens and pads of paper and coloring books. I should have brought more pads because they offered a hard surface to draw on. Those that didn’t have a pad sat on the verandas of the tents and set their paper on the rough concrete. I didn’t do any real teaching. I simply put out the supplies. I gave most of the purchased markers to the school, but Meg Foss gave me an enormous bag full of Prisma art markers—with two ends, a wide and a thin. The drawings they made were full of color. Many of them drew flowers—fanciful, curving, multi-colored blooms. There were a lot of huts with colorful thatching. Daniel drew a strong man, cartoon-like. Boys and girls make different choices. One girl drew a hyena. Probably not a choice most American girls would consider in a drawing. They drew for more than two hours, then I had them pack up. When they were finished, we gathered them together to take a group photo with the pictures.

But I didn’t expect them Wednesday, and I wasn’t prepared for the onslaught, so I asked them to come on Thursday instead.

Wednesday was the first day I have had much time to catch up on the photos and on my blog. There is a fine balance to work out--working on my computer with the power off until the battery is drained, and then finding power to charge it again. Wednesday I got them to charge it in the lab so I could work a little more. And then there is the intermittent Internet access, which is dependent to a great deal on the sun and how much power the solar panels can store. It’s been partially or mostly cloudy these past days, so not much Internet available.

Then a storm started to brew. Tom and I retreated to the tent and battened down the hatches. It was extremely windy. It rained for a while, and then stopped, and now as I type, I hear distant singing and drumming. Tom thought it might be from the church, the music carrying across the thread of grasshoppers, cicadas, frogs and birds calling.

That afternoon women and girls came by often looking for panties—some revealing the tops of their panties to me and smiling. Unfortunately we are all out. The other hot item is safety pins, which the girls are using to decorate their clothing. I have no more supplies to share with individuals—the rest will stay with the sewing machines and the women in charge of those.

A note about Lashes: She was very skinny that first day, and didn’t eat much. I got 100 ml into her on Wednesday. On Thursday 170. I asked my husband to call the zoo (not open until the weekend) and find out how much to feed a baby antelope. He watched a video where a zookeeper was feeding a baby antelope about 100 ml five times per day. So that’s my goal to get her to 500. The zookeeper has a bottle and the baby could suck. Norm said the baby antelope loved it. Lashes doesn’t have that luxury, just like children in the village. So much that we take for granted is simply not available in any form here.

I am thinking of weighing her to see what kind of progress she is making. There must be a scale at the clinic since they are assessing heights and weights of children age 6 months to 59 months. So far, it looks as though 20% of the young children in Duk Payuel are severely malnourished—a higher percentage of them are girls than boys.

There was drumming and singing late into the evening. A wedding in the village.

Day Seven in Duk Payuel—The Baby Antelope

Now I have a baby antelope. I didn’t go looking for her. I came here to help orphans—the two-legged variety, not four-legged with hooves. She is within our target group because she’s a female, determined by Peter, the nutritionist, who was bold enough to feel around.

Hunters found her nestled in some grass, picked her up and carried her to the compound. They said they didn't shoot the mother. Antelopes are protected in Sudan. Perhaps the mother had left her to graze and returned to find her missing. Or the mother may have been killed by the lion spotted near the village a few days ago. Life is harsh in the bush.

A thin rope, about four feet long, was tied around her neck. They tied the other end  to a tree, but she pulled and bucked, and I feared she’d strangle. Then they moved the rope to a leg. Again, pulling struggling, yanking the leg. I didn’t think it was my place to interfere. Finally she gave up and settled down. She’s tiny—less than 10 pounds, maybe 18 inches high. We figure she’s only a couple of weeks old. When I checked on her a half hour later, I could see her leg was starting to swell from the tightrope. Then someone tried tying her around her hips. That was a disaster. She jumped and fell on her side. And again, and again. Some of the tin forms for the concrete bases of the tent poles are still in place—a real hazard—and one of them was in jumping distance. I feared she’d land on it, so I took the rope off and took her into my tent where she lay on the bed with me, curled up. Then she got interested in looking out the window and slipped off the bed, between the frame and the tent wall. It didn’t seem to phase her. I coaxed her out, and she crawled into a corner and curled up on the floor.

While she slept, I sought food for her. The hot milk was still out for breakfast. I asked the clinic for a bottle but the closest they had was a 3/4 inch diameter syringe with tiny spout and a squeeze bottle to fill it from. I fill the bottle and insert the syringe, which fits in and seals the opening, then draw the milk up into the syringe. The milk was still boiling hot. It takes awhile for me to sip from the cup in the morning because it’s steaming. I let it cool and then set about the business of feeding her.

She didn’t like having the big hard plastic syringe shoved into her tiny, narrow snout. The trick is to stick my index finger in the side of her mouth where she has no teeth. This pops her mouth open, revealing a row of tiny teeth in the front of her mouth. In the back she has molars, which sound like rock on rock when she grinds them. I’ve tried putting the syringe straight in, and sideways. Sometimes she accepts it in far enough that she drinks a few gulps, but other times she shakes her head and pops the hateful object out of her mouth, shaking and dripping milk all over herself and me. She struggled on my lap, fighting the awkward thing, which didn’t allow for sucking. It was hard to know the proper pressure to push the plunger—too fast, too much milk. But she jerked her head away every few seconds, and reinserting was an unpleasant process for both of us. I think I got about as much milk on me as in her mouth.

Rebecca thought she should have 500 ml per day. That would be 50 syringes. I got three 10 ml syringes into her the first day. I couldn’t imagine torturing her through 50. Caroline thought maybe 100 ml would do. So that’s my goal for tomorrow. But the cooks weren’t going to supply me with milk—they make it up only in the morning. So Sammy gave me a can of the powdered milk. This is what we’ve been drinking every morning—full butterfat powdered milk. Hot. No wonder it tasted so good. Add a little Nescafe or pour the milk that already has tea mixed in.

Though the baby didn’t like the process, feeding her apparently qualified me to be her new mom, and she began following me wherever I went, curling up and sleeping if I stopped for a bit. People asked me what her name was. I had considered naming her, but that seemed like claiming her, and I thought someone would come and take her, or, I don’t know. There didn’t seem to be a plan for her. I certainly didn’t think she’d become my pet. I pondered names—a Sudanese name? An American pet name? I studied her and it came to me—Lashes. Have you ever seen an antelope’s eyes up close? The lashes are jet black against her light fur and an inch long, top and bottom. She sounds like a child’ toy, squeaking when she wants my attention, squeaking when I have gotten too far away walking—a signal for me to wait., though sometimes she gallops. But she’s a baby, and not all that great at navigating uneven terrain. On her first attempt to jump onto our concrete verandah, she missed. And she’s stumbled a couple times jumping down.

By Wednesday she was used to me, and I got 100 ml in her. On Thursday, 170. But I’ll only be here until the 26^th. So then, who knows. Caroline, the nurse midwife, said she would take care of her, but she leaves for Kenya December 13. All the foreign staff is leaving until the referendum count is over, which probably won’t be until February.

So nature may take its course. I'd carry Lashes on the plane with me, but I imagine there’s some big time paperwork required for that! Jeremy Groce took his pets from the US to Kenya and back when he lived there working for Sudan Radio Services. But I don’t think exporting antelope is the same. She’s not much bigger than a puppy. Maybe she could pass. But what would I do with her at hotels in Nairobi, Nakuru, and Eldoret? I’m sure she'll be unhappy when I disappear, but she adapted in a day to the lost of her actual mother, which must have been much worse. She often nuzzles me as though there might be a teat under my knee or in my elbow. Then licks my legs or arms, licks my fingers and toes. Her tongue is very soft. Though by Thursday, she got a little more independent—would hang out outside the tent when I left to shower or go to the clinic computer center. She likes hanging around the latrine area—tall grass for grazing and curling up in. I usually check her out after a while. The compound is fenced, so she can’t get lost, and dogs and other animals that might hurt her can’t get in. I’ve learned to be careful picking her up when she is supposed to be following, but is simply standing still. Sometimes she’s urinating. I’ve been peed on three times, which I notice by the warm, wet feeling on my hip. You can’t tell—she’s noiseless and doesn’t squat. There’s always a chance she was excited, or letting me know she didn’t want to be picked up. I don’t know much about antelopes.

The first night she slept on my bed. I took her out twice during the night when she woke. But one time I was too late. She stood on the bed, and I didn’t know the was urinating until I felt the wet creeping toward me. I changed my bed, my bedding (thank goodness I brought a sleep sack), and flipped the foam mattress. It seemed none the worse for wear in the morning. Doesn’t seem to smell. But as soon as we have a sunny day, I’ll bring it outside to air out.

Since then, I put a little sleep sack on the floor at the head of my bed. She curls up there. The second night she squeaked twice and I put my hand through the headboard slats and stroked her. Last night, not a peep. And this morning, she really didn’t want to get up.

Joh Deng, the clinic manager, assured me that he would find someone to take care of Lashes, so I could see how big she was by March.

deb dawson  

School Year Is Over For Our Students

I tend to be a night owl so I was awake when Moses called at 1 a.m. - 10 a.m. in Kenya. He hadn't received the money transfer reference number necessary to pick up the funds which I had sent yesterday. His sim card hadn't been mated to his phone which he leaves with Mama Akuand, an elderly Dinka lady who lives in Langa Langa, a residential area on the south side of Nakuru near the National Park boundary. Her home is a sanctuary for them to spend a night when they can't be at their school, or to leave personal items for safekeeping. I re-texted the information and other missed messages and all was well when I called him back as he rode the matatu to Lanet (Roots).

When I called to confirm that he had the info, he was enroute to meet James, Simon and Abraham at Roots Academy and travel with them back to Nakuru, where they would meet secondary school students John and Joseph. Abraham Akol is Michael & Agot's brother who stays with a family in Langa Langa when not in school and does not return to Kakuma UNHCR Refugee Camp.

Moses, Joseph and John each registered to vote in the January Sudan CPA Referendum which went smoothly and it only took them five minutes. This will be the first time that they and many other Southern Sudanese in the diaspora, of all ages, will have cast a vote for anything.

I called again at 1 p.m. today, when I knew they would be back at their house in Eldoret. What I learned then is that the school year had also ended for John and Joseph at Victonell, and for Michael at Narok High School. All had travelled to Eldoret together and Michael will proceed to Kakuma at 9 a.m.

An e-mail that Moses had sent today with everyone's grades and end of term letters did not make it to my inbox and I assume that it was too large. However, one of the things that they were trying to communicate was that Victonell has been sold to a university and will no longer be a high school. Therefore, we will have to find a new school for John & Joseph in addition to Agot, who has now taken her KCPE primary school graduation exam in Kakuma. We will see what Mrs Njau and Mrs Mwangi, principals at Roots and Kirobon, respectively, recommend. It is my hope that we will be able to meet with each of them when in Nakuru.

For Agot, secondary school will begin at the beginning of February. She will not receive her scores until they are released nationwide on 30 December. If Agot's grades are very good, it may be possible for her to attend Kirobon, where Moses will be in his last year. If not, we will have to seek a "second tier" school that accepts students with lower certificate scores.

Moses had tried to make a follow-up visit to his TB doctor in Nakuru but he was not in today, so we will probably do that when he returns to Eldoret from Nairobi with Deb and me. James got some of his meds resupplied and tomorrow Moses will take him to see his doctor in Eldoret.

While Moses is running errands with James & Simon tomorrow, the older boys, John & Joseph, will shop for food to restock the kitchen. The "elders" do most of the cooking.

And so it goes ....

Helping with panties projects

The most common question we at African Soul, American Heart get is "how can I help with the panties project?" This question usually comes from a sewer or a quilter, and of course these people are essential to our project because they are the ones making the re-usable pads (at least until the women of Duk Payuel master the use of their sewing machines). All of our initial pads have been a fold-and-snap variety, but for our next shipment, we hope that some of the sewers willing to help us out will try the belted style.

In addition to making pads, we always need help getting the pads to Duk Payuel, something that comes down to straight donations.  We haven't found a secure way to get the pads to Duk yet, so the first two deliveries have been personal: Joseph in April 2010, Deb in November 2010.  Deb hopes to be able to go back in March 2011, and donations could help pay for the bags on the flight (unless Delta gives Deb free bags again) or the plane rental from Nairobi to Duk (about $2,000).  Please visit our main website if you are able to donate: http://www.africansoulamericanheart.org/you_can_help.php

Thanks to many for their great interest in the panties project. 

Day Six in Duk Payuel

Monday, November 15, 2010

Monday morning I gathered up volleyballs and the soccer equipment and balls. Chol helped me carry them all to the school. Meg Foss's daughter, Brianna, donated about six used soccer balls, ball bags, corner flag posts, ref shirts and hat, a whistle, a team score keeper, and miscellaneous other cool stuff. I bought a few more soccer balls and some volleyballs-some in pink-and two pumps. Zachariah helped me pump them up, but before we were finished, he'd broken both pins. Oh well. Brianna had sent a pump, too, so I got them all blown up in time. Later Victor found me an extra pin, so I'll deliver that to the school for future use. I'll have to remember to bring pins next time. I tried to buy extras at Scheel's where I got the pumps, but they didn't have any.

We'd hardly started down the path when a teacher from Patuenoi (a 15-minute-water-walk from here) stopped and asked for soccer balls for his school. It just didn't seem right to refuse. So I gave him three balls (I think). Anyhow, I had about seven balls left—I never counted them. I gave one to Zachariah for his help, but I haven't seen it around since then.

We delivered the balls to the school office. They'll let me know when they organize a game, so I'll return for that. The school has a volleyball net, but they've had to play with a football, (which I am thinking is a FOOTBALL, but of course is a soccer ball) so they were very excited about the volleyballs. Easier on the hands.

I toured the main building, built by IRD. It houses an office and a small library which has some UNICEF textbooks, but no selection of basic reading books for children that I could see. There are three classrooms for grades five through seven. Outside under the trees sit the nursery school students. As I approached, they stood and serenaded me with the "We Welcome You," song. There is no playground equipment, though the grounds are large enough. They have 13 teachers for 714 students. The primary classes 1a, 1b, 2, 3, and 4 are held in the huts. I'm serenaded at each hut. Inside, there are so many children crowded into the hut, the noise of their singing is deafening. The 4th grade class is smaller, mostly girls. They sang me a different song, though I can't tell you what it was.

I asked the teachers to select five or 10 girls who spoke English and wanted to learn to sew. And I asked them when the girls would come. I assumed after school, which ends about 1 pm. But the teachers said 10 am when they had a break.

Chol had gone back, so I headed toward the clinic on my own. Apparently the reason people get lost in the woods is because they don't turn around when they're walking through and see what the return path looks like, so they don't recognize the way and walk in circles. I stopped at the registration tables to chat with the two men in charge of registering voters for the January referendum. Each registrant receives a laminated card with his ID information. This card allows the bearer to vote—but only in the place of registration. Then I headed toward a path, but it didn't go through, saw another—same problem. I felt a little idiotic as I know people were watching—probably thinking I was a pretty dim Kawaja. One of the registrars walked toward me. I threw up my arms and he directed me toward the clinic path.

At the clinic I set everything up in the dining hall for the morning class, but no girls came. The cooks and cleaners were interested, particularly in the sewing machine, but it's not yet working properly. Victor came back to work on it. It's fixed, but the belt isn't quite tight enough, and we decided we need Maduk. Perhaps this weekend. Since that wasn't working, I gave the women a few safety pins, a needle, some thread. Such small gifts, so greatly appreciated.

Mary and the Athiai, the pregnant cook, decided to sit down with me and sew. Athiai mother of three girls, is pregnant with her fourth baby. No ultrasounds here to determine the sex. I told her I was the oldest of four girls; she came from a family of five girls. She had to return to her duties, but Mary stayed and finished a pad, so I gave her one of the ten sewing kits I'd brought for the girls. She was my very first student.

Then it rained, hard enough to retreat to the tent and wait for it to blow over. The good thing about the rain is it cools things down for a bit. The bad thing is it doesn't help the eventual humidity and keeps the flood levels high.

Around noon, a teacher arrived with ten girls and gave me a sheet with their names, ages, and grade level. The girls ranged from age 10 to 16, in classes three and 4. One of the eleven-year-olds was in class four. Unfortunately, noon isn't a good time. The cooks are preparing lunch, so the dining hall is in use. I asked them to return at three.

Apparently the dining staff assumed the sewing kits were available for the taking. Four had disappeared, so I would have to make do with the five main kits, and miscellaneous smaller travel kits, and the extra needles and thread I brought from the US and bought in Nairobi. The staff will put them to good use, anyhow.

Once again I unpacked and set up. It was 2:30. Five girls appeared. I figured—great—five girls. Very manageable. Sufficient kits to go around. We got started. By three there were 10 more. Ten minutes later, another 10 girls arrived. Now I'm digging out needles and thread from my stash.

Most of the girls had rudimentary skills. When they didn't, they showed each other. I felt a little inadequate as a teacher who couldn't speak the language and had to continually interrupt Daniel, who was either sewing or videotaping the group, to interpret questions and answers between the girls and myself. When he explained the steps to sew the pads together the girls giggled with embarrassment, though it didn't bother Daniel a bit. In fact, he and another boy sewed each sewed one. Many of the girls came to show me their results, which was gratifying. Even those stitched in big loopy stiches, the tops and bottoms not aligned, were pleased with their finished pads. I showed them how to hold them together with stick pins for sewing, but many of them didn't quite get it, or they simply skipped the step. With 25 girls, it was hard to stay on top of things. I have no idea who the original girls on the list were. If these girls spoke any English, they sure didn't let me know.

One of the issues with the precut pads (from the generous sewers in Bismarck, ND) was that I had no snaps. I had racked my brain trying to figure out what to do about that—the snap deal is more challenging—either sewing on the tiny snaps by hand, or using a snap fastener. I decided safety pins would work. So I gave each girl a safety pin. Who knew safety pins would be such a desired item. I ended up giving each of them four safety pins. I brought hundreds, and it felt odd dishing them out this way, but I wanted to be sure there were enough left for the unsewn pads and to leave with the women who will be in charge of the machines. A few aggressive girls came back for more, hoping I wouldn't realize I'd already given them pins. I caught on to that, scolded them and slapped their outstretched fingers playfully. They laughed.

Introduction to our Kenya boarding school students

Moses Deng, our eldest Sudanese boarding school student in Kenya, called in the wee hours this morning. He has his last exam tomorrow - chemistry - and he says he is doing well this term. This is much better than the last when he couldn't get out of bed and was diagnosed with tuberculosis. He has been on medication for five months and has a couple more to go but says he feels fit.

After he calls, I always call him back since inbound cell phone calls are free in Kenya and they can save their calling time for other necessities.

He was supposed to get out of school on Friday morning but he will be delayed a day since his high school is having a special event. They have had new construction in preparation to become a provincial school and will have a ceremony attended by the Kenyan Education Minister and other dignitaries. They have been doing a lot of sprucing up of the place and were planting flowers today. When we were at Kirobon Secondary School, near Menengai West, last year, I observed some of the best looking dairy cows that I have seen. Moses says that everything looks much better since the multi-year drought has now ended.

Moses will be able to leave school at 6 a.m., Saturday morning, and have a busy day before ending up "at home" in Eldoret that evening. He will make a pass by Mama Akuand's home in Langa Langa, near Nakuru, to pick up his cell phone which is not allowed in school - although he takes his sim card which he can use in a school or teacher's phone, or for internet wireless access.
Then he will pick up a money transfer from me before going to Roots Academy in Lanet to pick up James Deng & Simon Matiop, our youngest students in grade six, who are also ending their term and school year. Moses will make a follow-up visit to his doctor and resupply his meds. He may also need to get meds for James' vitiligo skin condition which are not available in Eldoret. James will revisit his dermatologist, an Egyptian lady, in Eldoret on Monday. Before the 2 1/2 hour matatu trip, Moses will also register to vote in the Sudan CPA Referendum to be held in January.

Agot Thuch, the eighth grade girl we sponsored at Roots, returned to Kakuma refugee camp at the end of October to take the national KCPE test which is required for graduation and to enter secondary school. She registered at Kakuma before we began sponsorship and could not write the test at Roots where she has attended since May.

Michael Garang, Agot's oldest brother, will get out of school at Narok HS on the 27th and return to Kakuma via Eldoret, spending a night with our five boys who live together in a rented home. Michael and Agot also have a brother, Abraham, who is a fourth grader at Roots Academy and lives with a family in Langa Langa. Their father died a few years ago and their mother died in 2008 following childbirth in or near Juba, Sudan, where she worked. The toddler and a sister, Nyan Kuach, live with their 68 year old grandmother in Kakuma refugee camp.

Joseph Deng and John Mading, who attend Victonell HS in Nakuru, will also register to vote when they get out of school on the 26th. The registration began on Nov 15 and ends Dec 1. It is best for them to register in Nakuru vice Eldoret since they must vote where they sign up and they will be back in school when the referendum occurs.

I will rendezvous with Moses and Deb in Nairobi on the 29th and spend a couple of weeks with the students before returning to the U.S. on the 14th. I told Moses today that I am getting excited to be with them again. They are all great kids and it is good to see what they can do when given a chance. James was number one in his class last term and that is in spite of poor Kiswahili skills.

And so it goes....

DAY FIVE IN DUK PAYUEL

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 14, 2010

On Saturday I had taught Daniel, one of the boys in our documentary, how to use the video camera so he could shoot video at the panties distribution after church. Daniel is 14 and in grade five. He hangs around the clinic a lot and does odd jobs from time to time. He's smart, helpful, reliable, and speaks English quite well. I also enlisted Peter Thiong'o, a Kenyan lab technician in the clinic, to shoot photos with my second camera, because he had been asking questions about my camera and expressed interest in learning more about photography. My husband insisted that at least a few photos include me. I have to say, though, I'm not able to put on my most photogenic look—this is the sweating, untamed hair, no makeup, dressed for the African bush, Duk Payeul version of Debra Ann Dawson—Debora (with the rr's rolled) Agot.

PANTIES AND PADS DISTRIBUTION

Church starts early—around 7 or 7:30 and goes until 10 and beyond. Caroline and Rebecca, the midwives, accompanied me and some young men who helped us carry the bags filled with panties and pads for girls and women through the water route to the church. Perhaps it will be dry in a month or so. It was drying up a bit around the compound, but we've had rain and sprinkles since, so it's a little muddy in spots.

At the church, Caroline laid out a tarp, and we laid out the piles of panties I had sorted by size. The size six pile was high in comparison to the smaller sizes, which was too bad because the girls here are stick thin. We're grateful to our donors, but realizing that we can't picture an American teen when selecting underwear for Sudanese girls. They're thin partly from malnourishment, but also because the Dinka are extremely tall and thin—supermodel material. (In fact, Alex Wek is a beautiful Sudanese supermodel who wrote a book about her own escape from Sudan. She has a line of beautiful handbags whose purchase helps support girls in Sudan.) Many women in the village are more than six feet tall, and the men are even taller. It's quite extraordinary. I'm 5'7", and I generally feel tall in a group of women. Here that's not the case. Still, all the panties will find homes—some older women have broader hips or a little weight on them, but we are best off bringing girl's sizes 8-14 and women's sizes 4 or 5. In the end, we gave out more than 300 pair of underpants and about 400 pads. Not close to enough in a village of 4500 people, with about half women.

We invited schoolgirls first. They each chose two pair of panties and four pads—which caused a lot of giggling. It started out well-organized with a front and a back to our station. The first girls selected, and then more girls came out of church and selected, and then we invited the women. There were so many of them. The organized piles started to look like a sidewalk sale table, and the women began to crowd in as the supplies diminished. Caroline and Rebecca solved the problem by picking everything up and putting it in the bags and waiting. We got the women in a line and started over.

Some women from Patuenoi, a nearby village, had to return home after church, and we promised we would save some for them. But it wasn't possible. After we returned to the compound, other girls from the village—perhaps not at church—came by and the panty supply was depleted. The leftover pads will stay at the clinic for distribution to their maternity patients.

SEWING MACHINES

Back at the ranch, Victor had started putting together one of the three treadle Singer sewing machines I bought in Nairobi. There was quite a group helping him. These are the first sewing machines in Duk Payuel. We got it up but couldn't get it running. I know how to use an electric sewing machine pretty well—I like to quilt, but I have never used a treadle machine. It comes with a leather belt that has to be adjusted and cut to size. Within a day it had loosened in the humidity. The instructions were all pictures. Nice for multi-language communities, but the pictures weren't easy to understand. Eventually we got it threaded and got it to sew a few stitches. But we weren't very smooth.

Maduk, a Dinka who works as a private contractor for himself and the NGOs in the village, strolled by, saw the machine, sat himself down in the chair and proceeded to sew like a tailor. Turns out he used to work as a sewer (seamstress?) I think his father told him it was important to learn many trades, that way if one doesn't work out, you will have another way to make a living. So he is a carpenter, a seamstress—maybe a mechanic, too? Several of the men helping to put the sewing machine together are interested in learning to operate the machine as well.

That afternoon, Joh and I walked to Gideon's compound, where he invited us into his tukul so I could see the advantages of this type of construction for our project. One of the barriers to beginning our work here with orphans is that the cost of construction is doubled by the cost to transport materials, and made more challenging by the lack of skilled labor. The tukuls are primarily made of local materials, the labor to build them is available locally, and they're suited for the climate. Tukuls are built with mud adobe walls over a framework of local wood—twisted, rough looking small branches. The roof is thatch, which is supported by "tick" poles, the same supports that form the corner posts. The tukul is cool in hot weather.

Like all tukuls, it was necessary to bow to enter the low doorway. It was much cooler in Gideon's tukul than outside or in my stuffy army tent. The ceilings and walls are draped with colorful printed fabrics—we saw this in the huts at Kakuma Refugee Camp in 2007. The ceiling fabrics keep dust from falling from the thatch (which is waterproof); the wall fabrics are cosmetic. The windows are screened with simple curtains for privacy.

One outside wall of Gideon's tukul was slightly damaged by the heavy rains during this flood season, but he will add new mud when it dries up. I shot some photos inside and out and will post them to Facebook in a few days. There are always difficulties knowing when the power will be on, and likewise when the Internet will be on. If the generator is running, which it does daily but no longer than necessary, then all is good. But the cloudy days don't allow the solar panels to charge the storage batteries, so then we conserve. And it's been cloudy the last few days. The plus for me is that it isn't so beastly hot.

After dinner, I watched "The Other Guys" with the crew and then retired to my tent. From inside I could hear them playing African Soul, American Heart. When it was over, they played the bonus features and then watched it through again.

The Internet here isn't the speediest, and the navigation tabs on many websites show up in Arabic. I guess they figure if you're in Sudan you read Arabic, so it's a bit of a click and wait, click and wait, until you find the proper page. I'll get this posted so I can catch up on Monday and Tuesday since it is now Wednesday.

Day Four--Duk Payuel

It’s a beautiful morning in Duk Payuel. From my tent I see a cleaning woman bending to sweep the dirt near the dining hall with a broom made of local grasses. Just beyond the tent, Tom breaks up dirt mounds in his garden with a spade. He brought kale seeds to Duk. Now people are growing and eating it.

I’m working out a plan with Tom and Joh Deng about the best way to distribute the seeds contributed by Shotwell Floral in Fargo. They gave me 35 pounds of corn, beans, and many varieties of vegetables. We are at the tail end of a much-too-rainy season, so the new growing season begins in the spring. And more seeds would be welcomed.

This morning I dragged two duffle bags from the stifling container to the shade to sort panties by size for the distribution Sunday morning. This caused quite a stir on the compound. First one of the cleaning women came by and asked for some. I let her pick one out. Soon, other cleaners and cooks arrived. We settled on two pair each. My neat piles were disrupted as the women pawed through them like at a sidewalk sale, seeking the most desirable color and the closest size. Then Rebecca, the Sudanese midwife, put a stop to it because a patient stopped by, though they aren’t supposed to come into this part of the compound. Rebecca was afraid all the clinic patients would come. We decided to give this woman her panties, but Rebecca told her to keep mum.

Later that afternoon, Gideon, the son of 90-year-old Gideon, who I remembered well from our last visit, arrived to talk with Joh and me. Gideon works for IRD, International Relief Development. They built the school here and have done some construction for the clinic. Some of the construction has developed problems with cracking and shifting. Apparently the ratio of sand and concrete wasn’t ideal. This part of the world is challenging to build in even if you have all the correct materials.

Gideon and Joh are concerned about the situation of forced marriage for many girls in the village. Keeping girls in school longer helps prevent this. And educated families are less likely to marry their daughters off for a few cows. Gideon encouraged us to move forward with our project to help female orphans, and offered assistance and suggestions to help us achieve our goal.

Along with the school teachers, they will help to assess the situation, identify a target group of orphaned girls between the ages of 13 and 15 (those most at risk of forced marriage), who are also living with caretakers who neglect them. They believe that if we educate these girls through secondary school and encourage them to learn a trade or go for additional schooling, that they will become leaders of women in the area, and will be better parents to their own children. This type of change will help bring about change in the community as a whole. There has never been a boarding school for girls in Duk County, and there is no secondary school in the county, either. ASAH would set a standard here that could be adopted in other areas.

JDF (John Dau Foundation—the clinic) and IRD will work with the Duk Payuel Community Improvement Agency to assist us on the ground in reconfirming the land previously assigned to us. Gideon will arrange a meeting for me with the chiefs as a courtesy and to elicit their support. With the help of teaching staff, they will be cautious and selective in selecting the students and staff. We would need matrons to provide counseling and oversight of the girls, a pastor to act as principal, teachers, cooks, and cleaners. In addition we would need to fence the area and provide security guards, who could perform other duties as well. They advised the purchase of a 7-ton truck to transport materials and supplies as renting transportation greatly increases the cost of these items. With a truck, we would need a driver/mechanic. This individual could also provide other mechanical assistance for a generator, grinding mill, and so on. Currently, the only grinding mill in the village is a hand mill in use at the school. But it is a small mill, not suited for large-scale use. A fuel-operated mill could also provide ground grain at a charge to people in the village. The principal would control the use of the truck and also rent it out when it is not needed. Currently the only vehicle in the village is the JDF utility vehicle.

They advised that we begin with tukuls to house the girls and Gideon invited me to visit his tukul on Sunday to see the construction and comfort of such housing. This would be affordable, perhaps 500 Sudanese lbs—about $2000? I’m not sure of the exchange rate. The school could be a tin hut to begin with. We would need latrines and shower facilities, a kitchen, and clothes-washing area. And a fence. There is already a bore hold with clean (tested) water on site.

The girls would need uniforms. Joh recommended they be white, to teach them to care for white clothing—a terrific challenge in a place like this. ASAH will work together with Gideon and Joh to develop a budget for the facilities, for salaries, and supplies.

As I relate this, I may not be expressing the reality of the marginalized life here. There is not enough food. Many don’t have clothing. Education is respected, but some illiterate parents don’t understand the value for their children. There are few jobs. Some families care for cattle, but a small herd of a few cows isn’t sufficient to support their lives easily. They are aid dependent, but the groups working here are trying to help them move toward self-sufficiency over the longer term. The village is very peaceful now. I am safe walking around throughout—as long as I’m willing to walk through the water. On the outskirts of the village one evening, a villager spotted a lion! The water has kept them somewhat safer from the Muerle, an unfriendly, uncivilized neighboring tribe suffering from venereal diseases that have caused sterility for a great number of young men and women. Thus they kidnap children, and it isn’t safe for children to go outside the village.

Gideon and Joh stressed that their preeminent concern was for the safety of these girls in a school that offered protection and education and a chance for them to eventually improve the lives of others in the village. Much as we export educated young people from North Dakota, here, with few jobs, and the low pay of jobs like teaching, some educated members move on to greener pastures. Others, like Gideon and Joh and the others here working in the clinic, gave up more lucrative positions in Juba to return home and help their community develop.

This is Joseph Akol Makeer’s dream, and ASAH will work hard this winter to realize that dream for at least twenty-five orphaned girls. The key to success is efficiency, effectiveness, and close control over the operations. The school will follow the Kenyan curriculum, which allows for three month-long holidays—December, April and August. Those girls who have a safe situation with their extended family caretakers could return home during the holidays. Girls who don’t have an appropriate place to return would be cared for at the ASAH compound.

Gideon asked me to return in March. He will arrange meetings in Juba with the larger NGOs working in Sudan and suggested the IRD will dedicate 25% of their committee men to support us here on the ground. For money transfer, we need to establish a bank account in Juba, the capitol of Southern Sudan, at the Kenya Commercial Bank. The money can be transferred from the US and picked up in Bor, the capitol of Jonglei State, which is closer to the village than Juba.

The larger NGOs provide support for smaller NGOs. For example, we can ask World Food Program (WFP) for food supplies; UNICEF for school supplies (though currently IRD has sufficient supplies to get us started) and possibly furniture—beds, mattresses, etc.; seeds, from POA (?); UNHCR for sustainability of a generator; UNDP (?). Eventually, we could work with extension workers to start a garden at the school as well.

We would need beds, mattresses, sheets, a simple cabinet for the girls to store clothing and supplies, tables, chairs, bathing kits, a generator, and solar panels, a grinding mill, small tools, wheelbarrows, pangas (scythes), and building materials. Some items are needed immediately, some can be added as funds allow. The tukuls can be built of local materials, except for the corner posts and posts to support the thatch, which must be transported from Bor.

Tomorrow I will visit Gideon’s tukul.

Day Two in Duk Payuel

Thursday, November, 11, 2010

It’s 11 am and already I’m sweating, my arms and legs glistening. Isn’t sweat supposed to cool? Perhaps, if there was a breeze.

For breakfast: hot milk with a little Nescafe and a granola bar from my food supply. I share with my roommate, children, and the staff when I have enough. I gave a bag of cranberries and walnuts for the cooks to add to some of our meals, but I suggested they taste them, which also brought out the midwives, and we may never see them again. Tom prides himself on his stoicism in the face of hardship, but he isn’t immune to the lure of variety to the limited diet here. Food supplies are low due to flooding—the supply plane was unable to land in October, and only essential supplies arrived in November.

After breakfast, Joh Deng and a young Sudanese helped me to carry the supplies to the school. Heavy stuff. We arrived at ten and met with the senior teacher. I unpacked a duffle bag full of markers, crayons, colored pencils, chalk, pencils, and legal pads. For the small library: some early reading books, a picture atlas, a stars and planets book, a puzzle of the world (each country is a puzzle piece), several copies of Joseph Akol Makeer’s book and a DVD of African Soul, American Heart. As I unpacked the big bags, it reminded me of my trip to Siberia with my husband and father to adopt our daughter, Svetlana. We lugged huge duffles full of supplies for the orphanage, but after we distributed everything amongst the caretakers for each of the seven family groups of 15, my dad remarked, “It seemed like a lot of stuff when we carried it in, but it doesn’t go very far for all these children.”

I met with the midwife, Caroline, who helped Joseph distribute the first load of panties and pads. We agreed to distribute them after church on Sunday. I figured I better count them to know how many we could allow for each girl.

First, I lugged all the bags of reusable menstrual pads from the container to my tent. into my tent. More than 600 pads. I don’t think my brain works that well in the heat, though. I lined them up in piles of five to make the task easier, counted one load, and repacked most of it before realizing I couldn’t remember the total.

Late in the afternoon, Peter, the senior teacher came back and talked with Joh and me about orphans. They agreed that we should focus on females. Joh recited a quote, though I don’t know who said it first—“When you educate a woman, you educate a family.” They believe helping girls will help the community, and they are anxious and willing to help ASAH do this. They see orphans as a future burden to the community or the country—without parental support and education, they may turn to crime, robbing, dealing drugs, or prostitution.

What prevents girls from going to school:

1. Some children have no clothing at all. Some may have clothing, but no soap to wash them and are embarrassed by their grimy or torn clothes.

2. Some don’t attend because they are kept busy all day fetching water, grinding grain, taking care of the younger children and babies. Some may come for a while, and then be kept home. After too many absences, they feel embarrassed to return.

3. Some families are so poor or so neglectful that the children may come to school, returning home after one only to find that there is no food left from lunch—their only meal of the day. After a few days of this, they stay home.

4. Some children in the village are disabled, blind, and deaf.

5. Girls are often forced to marry at puberty—twelve to fifteen years old. So they drop out. Or their fathers, who make these decisions, don’t think it’s necessary to educate them, since they will marry out of the family.

6. Many families are illiterate themselves and don’t see the value of education.

7. Some girls don’t attend because they are never free in the day—after four to six hours in school, they return home and work until bedtime. No time to read or study or play. Or they may be kept home on washing day.

After dinner, the clinic staff watched our documentary, African Soul, American Heart, in the dining hall. They were a rowdy audience—gesturing and exclaiming when they recognized people and places. The clinic guard, Geu, was there to see himself in the film. Before the war, he was a renowned wrestler in Southern Sudan. He’s the man with the pink shirt and the pipe in my photo exhibit. When the movie showed the old news footage of starving children, there were gasps and sighs. Some of the staff had been those starving children. They laughed when Joseph dipped a container into a hole full of water and commented that it looked dirty today because he was coming from America—one man said—it looked good then, just as Joseph commented, “But then it was like gold.” That brought a laugh.

Day One in Duk Payuel, Southern Sudan

November 10, 2010

It’s about 6:30 pm in Duk Payuel, and I’m watching the sunset from my hammock on the veranda (concrete extended foundation) of the green canvas army tent I’m sharing with Tom Dannon, the 26-year-old Duk Lost Boys Clinic Executive Director. I could hear my husband shrugging his shoulders about it when I asked if he was okay with it. It was the only real option. Tom didn’t want to displace the only staff member who has her own tent. She’s a nutrition consultant from Kenya who is here through December. The clinic compound has been taken over by uninvited guests in the past and it causes a lot of stress, even when they are here to do good work. I intend to make myself as useful as possible, in addition to easing the financial burden by contributing to food costs and so on. The flooding has diminished food supplies, and Tom is trying to arrange for AIM Air to fly some in when they are coming this direction—soon.

I just took a shower, and I’m already sweating again. I was hoping to use a low wattage hair dryer while here to preserve the “do” but it won’t do me much good in this heat and humidity. The only positive thing for a vain woman like myself is there are absolutely no mirrors. I did bring a makeup mirror, but it only shows magnified portions of my face—I can’t get the full view, so I don’t know how bad I look and can’t see how my hair is responding.

Shortly after my arrival, the cook fed me some delicious spaghetti—cooked with some lovely carmelized onions. I was the only one eating, but the same meal was served for dinner. This time, Bibiera, the Kenyan woman was serving herself, and she offered to pour some tomato sauce on the spaghetti. Big mistake. It’s a giant plastic container of sauce they use like ketchup. It’s always on the table and it’s NOT Ragu.

So how did I get here?

I arrived at Wilson airport in Nairobi at the terminal used by little airlines like AIM Air. AIM stands for Africa Inland Missions. They are costly compared to commercial flights, but they fly places commercial airlines don’t go. There are some competitors—who may be more or less expensive, but a bit less safety conscious, perhaps. A lot of rogue pilots. AIM’s pilots are all volunteers—they raise the money to pay their own salaries—so the cost of the flight is the equipment and fuel, not the pilot. The pilot prays with the passengers before takeoff.

At the terminal, I went through customs—a tiny room with a window. I passed my passport through the window to a woman. Behind her a man in a business suit slept in his chair, his arms folded across his wide chest. Most of my cargo had already gone through security—so I only had two bags to put through the screener. Outside I waited with two small groups of Americans, each flying to different locations in Sudan on missions of one sort or another. A group of four flew with me in the caravan—an eight-seater that accommodated my 400 kg and their cargo as well. Good conversation and learned a few things that might be useful for our work in Duk. The Moringa plant--also called Olipheri--native to Southern Sudan (but not grown purposely many places). Highly nutritious fruit (or nut), leaves make tea that is anti-bacterial--the roots and bark have other healthful properties.

They dropped me and my cargo in Lokichoggio, and then the new pilot and airline folks performed a miracle—they said they do it every day—fitting my load into a tiny two-seater like puzzle pieces. I don’t know the type of aircraft—I’m sure Ron Saeger, our board member/pilot knows. This is the type of plane where you wear headphones so the pilot can talk to you and you can avoid the noise. The air vents are little tubes that bring the outside air inside. We had a lively conversation about mission air service and the politics and development issues in Southern Sudan. If you talk to lots of people and read lots of articles about Southern Sudan—you’ll find lots of differing opinions, little consensus. The reality is no one really knows what will happening after the referendum.

Aside: I was cocooned inside the mosquito net in this hammock but it became remarkably stuffy. So I opened it up—cool air, not many mosquitos yet—but the tsetse flies are nasty biters. They don’t carry sleeping sickness, here, so that’s a plus. Tom advised me later to lay diagonally—better air circulation.

I should have asked pilot Jerry to fly me around the village so I could more fully appreciate the flood effect. I’m kicking myself because he offered just as we approached the airstrip, and I thought I was imposing. Once on the ground, it isn’t as easy to access. It’s wet--really wet--or it’s dry.

The airstrip was diked with sandbags and mud. After each rain villagers bail it out! But the end of the runway was really muddy and I felt the plane slide—I thought he might get bogged down in the mud and THAT would be a problem. Oh—BTW—Jerry has a year of flight experience. He grew up in a missionary family, as did his wife. He used to be an engineer and gave it up for this. He is also an airplane mechanic.

It was a good thing I brought yellow rain boots. The walk to the village is about a half a mile. When we were here in 2007, the walk was nice and dry. Today the entire path was flooded—from ankle to knee deep. My mid-calf high boots were under water much of the time, so my feet sloshed around inside. But they protected me from stepping on the plum-sized snails and other unknowns in the murky water. In front, in back, and alongside me, walked barefoot children and adults. Villagers and clinic staff carried my cargo through the water to the clinic compound on their heads and backs.

THE EVENING

I had a shower before dinner. They have a couple of them—concrete floors, gravel-like—enough room to hang your clothes on a nail, and a shower head attached to the ceiling. It’s only cold water, but it doesn’t feel so bad since the air is so hot. I started to sweat again as soon as I toweled off.

After dinner the clinic gang gathered in the dining hall to watch a movie. The dining hall was built after our 2007 visit--but the cooks still cook outside. The movie was"Jonah Hex' with Josh Brolin—I don’t think it’s one of his better films. There was a tame sex scene that got the mostly male audience roaring. I can remember as a kid that television programs showed married couples sleeping in twin beds. Things have certainly changed—but this crowd hasn’t had much exposure to television, let alone the subject matter that’s common in America today. Tom Dannon tells me the staff really loves American Westerns--the cattle rustling and gun "play" are familiar.

I went to sleep about ten and slept well until about 3:30. I haven’t adjusted to the time change—nine hours later than Fargo. I got up to use the latrine—thank goodness for the headlamp I brought along. There are a few latrines, but the one I’m using has a combination lock. It’s a pit flusher. You carry a jug of water in with you to flush it. It works pretty slick, but the old knees aren’t happy squatting.

Starting about 4 am there were babies crying in nearby tents. People talking. There were some groups walking in the pitch dark with flashlights, sloshing through deep water nearby. I later learned some of these are the cooks who come to work at that time! Sometimes it's patients. There is no way to get to the clinic without walking through deep water.

My tent is on the outer side of the compound—only a few feet from the mud dike. The sun rises on my side of the tent, the silhouetted trees reflecting in the still flood waters, the gorgeous colors bursting into the sky.

For breakfast there were several thermoses. Of what? I asked the female staff person (I don’t know her name) if it was tea. She said no. I asked what it was. She said a Sudanese word I didn’t recognize. I poured it into my cup. It was warm milk. Very tasty. As I was leaving the dining room, the cook came in with a box of tiny square biscuits. I took two. Literally the worst biscuits I have ever eaten. Like soggy animal crackers but not as sweet. Tom later told me he hasn’t really figured out the morning routine. Sometimes there are tea bags and a strainer—you pour the milk through it. Sometimes the Nescafe. And he’s lived here for months!

I’ve been asked to take the staff photo for their Christmas card. The photos they took before apparently weren’t acceptable to the graphic design person. So I have parameters to follow. I’m not really THAT KIND OF photographer—but thank goodness Norm made me take a tripod.

This is Africa.

Day 2 Nairobi—Long and slightly off-topic

I’d like to say I had a great night’s sleep after catnapping on the flight from Amsterdam to Nairobi. Even if I’d been sleepy at the half point of the eight-hour flight, I would’ve been kept awake by two phenomena. First, numerous humorous Dutch men gathered near the exit row across from the aft restrooms just behind me. They were told they must sit if they were drinking alcohol. So then they gulped them down and kept talking. Loud.

Though I was able to ignore this, engrossed as I was in my Kindle version of The Curious Case of the Dog in the Nighttime was the (we later learned) drug-addled, young man who growled in a voice so low and loud I would have guessed he was old, old, old, and very very crazy. His voice was one of loud desperation, calling “Heeeelllp me, heeeelllp me, spurring various doctors at various times to offer their services. He got help in the form of handcuffs and ankle bracelets, which caused a little wrestling (heard not seen by me) and resulted in a move behind closed galley curtains. There, a few rows in front of my row, his pleas grew in intensity, his help me’s punctuated by Mama—which stirred my own instincts as though I could offer assistance, which I didn’t. He also used called other less-universal names, but they didn’t help either, and then he started up with some pretty outrageous obscenities. This continued about every ten minutes for approximately three hours. In truth, it was not nearly as tough as sitting through an airplane crying baby episode primarily due to the novelty. I imagine that would wear off if I experienced such things frequently on flights—Oh no, not another wolf-crying druggie sitting behind me, kicking the seat. One bonus about this ride—there wasn’t a single moment of air turbulence when we were asked to return to our seats and put our seat belts on. I believe officers were waiting for the turbulent passenger on landing.

This blog seems overly-long and not humanitarian-aid oriented. I’ll try to shorten it up from here. And I did feel sorry for him.

I was worried about customs—how to physically get my eight bags from baggage claim through customs without a problem. I envisioned my two arms, one with a rotator-cuff impinged shoulder, and fine-tooth combs examining a thousand pair of undies. But a young porter named Kevin helped me get all the bags onto carts and the two of us wheeled our way through the masses to customs, where I handed my sheet which declared 35 lbs of seeds destined for Sudan among other things. The official didn’t look at the sheet, said, “Anything to declare?” while shaking his head. I shook mine, and he waved me through.

Pacing back and forth in front of the lineup of drivers with little signs—one read “James Bond,” but none said “Deb Dawson, ” I started to worry a little because I didn’t have a phone. I was thinking of asking Kevin if he had one, when I spotted a guy with a Fairview Hotel sign. I signaled. Turns out he wasn’t there for me, but had been waiting for a guy for two hours who hadn’t seen him and took a cab to the hotel. Francis was hanging around in case, by chance, someone wanted to go to Fairview. Lucky me that I stayed at the Country Lodge and ate at the Fairview a few steps away and owned by the same folks: the Fairview is the elegant elder aunt to the upstart boutique nephew, the misleadingly-named Country Lodge. No lion heads, no brass and wood—it’s all chrome and white and down. It’s the setting that gives them their names—an oasis in the midst of the city.

This morning, Carol Wamuyu appeared after six-hour night bus ride from Kisumu to spend the day helping me get ASAH business done in Kenya. She was a nurse at the JDF clinic in Duk Payuel when we were there in 2007 and is now working in the slums of Kisumu. The whole clinic crew lives in the slums as well, thus experiencing the full reality of their patient’s lives. She is continuing the humanitarian work she was doing in Duk Payuel in her country of Kenya. When I posted on Facebook that I was preparing to go to Sudan—Carol thought—I bet she’ll be in Nairobi—and arranged to come see me and help me out.

Our driver, Patrick, filled his vehicle with bags to be taken to AIM Air to be weighed and taken through customs early so as to speed our departure tomorrow.

We spent the entire day in the car, dodging pedestrians, boldly forging our way between vehicles or yielding to those more forceful than we. I asked Patrick if a lot of pedestrians got hit. He said, “No, we know they are there.”

First, we made a stop at a hard-to-locate business Ron found on the Internet—but couldn’t find on his last visit. The address describes itself as “Besides the fly over bridge.” A more accurate descriptor would be “below.” A fly over bridge is a pedestrian bridge over the highway. We were looking for treadle (manual) sewing machines. Apparently this company doesn’t keep its website up-to-date—though they do have grinding mills—all sizes and shapes. Fortunately Patrick had purchased a machine at SINGER and knew where that shop was. Still, it took several hours to complete the transaction. Deciding on the machine—should we go with the one with the sturdy table or the rickety one—we chose sturdy. And decided to get three. Which meant all of them had to be opened and assembled to make sure they work, then disassembled and repacked.

While this was happening, we went to a money exchange—got 80 Kenyan shillings to a dollar—a good rate—but the 20 $100 bills I exchanged for 1000 shilling notes resulted in a three-inch-stack. Don’t worry—I didn’t spend it all on machines—the three machines with tables, spare parts, accessories, extra oil, and so on cost about $800 total. They gave me a teeny tiny discount for buying three—I didn’t have time to negotiate as AIM wanted them by one. We loaded them up and got them there by two but had to return to Singer for the bobbins and bobbin cases that they had assured us they had in stock, but when we arrived to pick up, admitted they didn’t. If they didn’t have it, and they couldn’t get it, probably nobody could so came back. On each visit, we were the only customers in the tiny shop, though there were more than a half a dozen people working on our order—the sales girl, her manager, two finance ladies, and three or four guys who schlepped the equipment in and out of boxes. At each juncture and decision point and delay, they urged Miriam and me to sit on the two available chairs they moved in place depending on where we were in the process. There was also the unseen manager who approved the tiny discount. I wish I was a better haggler. I bet if board member Ron Saeger had been with me we would have gotten a hell of a deal.

Carol brought me to another spot for more thread. Turns out she’s working with a group of girls in the slums, and hygiene is one of the primary areas they are teaching. I dug a sack full of pads and some of the precut, unsewn pads and liners and gave them to her along with some thread and needles to get her going. Talk about paying it forward Bismarck and Fargo ladies!!

She helped me put some credit on the phone Jeremy Groce, our Kenya/Sudan work-experienced board member gave me to use on the trip. He recommended Safaricom, but she got it through Zane because you can call nation from Kenya for three KES per minute—about four cents and she says they’re cheaper for other calls, too. Jeremy Groce texted me and I texted back—no problem. And then I called my husband and he said—how does that work? All I have to dial is a + sign and 1 and Area Code and number.

Enough said. 8:30 am flight to Loki with Jon Hildebrandt, the AIM pilot we met at Mayfield Guest House, a mission hotel. He didn’t fly us, but he did tell us about Country Lodge since Mayfield was closed near Christmas and unavailable. And introduced me to Jean Wood in Colorado, working with two Boulder Lost Boys from Duk Payuel who will be adding on to the school there in February.

Yay Delta!

Posting this from the Amsterdam airport at 7:01 am on the 8th--just after midnight for Fargo folks. I wanted to give KUDOS to Delta for the wonderful woman who checked eight bags through to Nairobi. Travelers are allowed 2 bags free and 3-10 bags at $200 each. An additional $175 for bags over 50 lbs. I showed her our ASAH certificate of registration as an NGO with the Government of Southern Sudan and she checked in all bags for free. She put HEAVY tags on the heavy bags. We weighed them on Norm's office scale--not exactly a digital scale--and obviously not entirely accurate. I leave for Nairobi in a few hours. AIM Air (African Inland Missions) and I have been communicating for weeks--the communication has been slow and frustration--turns out much of my mail has gone to their SPAM--but not all--so they want me to Reply All even when only one person has written to me--finance, or scheduling, or freight!!! They're getting me a GOSS visa--and asked me to send photos--which I dutifully got at the post office--and scanned. NOT okay. They want digitals! I didn't bring my hard drive with all my photos--but I had my facebook photos in jpgs on my desktop--hope one of those will work. TIA. This is Africa. But somehow it always works out.

Deb Dawson traveling to Duk Payuel

Deb Dawson, ASAH Founding President and current treasurer, is heading to Duk Payuel on Nov. 7th. She will be in the village for a few weeks, collecting stories, taking photos, and re-establishing ASAH's connections with the village. Watch for updates here.