This Week (Part 1)

All this week I’ve been thinking, “I should save this story for the blog” or “I need to remember to tell this to my family/friends/Neverthirst people.” I never found time to write about the event before I was hit with another, so I thought I might as well write about the whole week. Besides, this will give interested parties (my mother) a small look into my daily life, which clearly doesn’t stay the same from day to day, but when you finish reading this you will think that you know what it is that I do, even if you will only be half right. For me, every time I think I have figured it out, it changes, so I stopped worrying about it. Still, people will ask, so here you go…

SUNDAY:

There is a village here where we drilled a well for a community that hadn’t finished collecting their Repair Fund. This was due to a small miscommunication between Neverthirst, the drilling team, and our local partners (part of what I’m here to do is minimize those miscommunications—sometimes I do this well, other times…). Currently we have a well in place, but we’ve locked it until the community meets the requirement, otherwise, they won’t have much motivation to meet the requirement. This is important for many reasons, but not important to the flow of the story, so we’ll get back to the point, which is that I wanted to go and talk to the community about the fund again. Our local partner is a pastor who spends several Sundays each month visiting churches in his parish that do not have an ordained pastor to give them communion (the Episcopal church is the dominant one here). Osho is one of those communities, and hearing he was going, I thought I’d tag along and get a chance to speak to everyone in their main meeting place: the church. Lexon anxiously informed me that we’d have to go on foot, as he has no other means of transportation. I assured him that I could keep up. He told me to meet him at his house at 8:30am so that I could have half an hour to rest before we walked another hour to church, which starts between 10:00 and 11:00. I said ok, and planned to arrive at 9:00, not feeling the need to have half an hour’s rest to recover from walking 2ish miles. Turns out, some friends saw me and insisted on taking me to Lexon’s house when I was about half-way there anyway, so I was still early.

So we set out. We walked through the jungle for an hour or so, fording streams and squelching through mud in patches, but not as much as we would have done if there had been more rain this season. We made it in time for church, which was uneventful except for the presence of the foreigner. After church we had our little meeting, which didn’t seem to make much of an impression, and then we headed on to give communion to sick people who couldn’t make it to church. That took even longer, as we walked around various jungle places to get to their homes, but it was definitely a blessing to everyone involved, including me. There were a few hysterical children, terrified of the foreign devil in their midst who ran off screaming to hide. But that’s not unusual for me.

Walking through the jungle, talking on the phone

Holy Communion

MONDAY:

Repent's finger and me on the path

I hopped on the back of the motorcycle and went to visit another delinquent village that hasn’t raised all their funds and another village where the platform was being fitted. I got my legs and feet slashed up driving through grassy fields on what might have been a road once a long time ago. We made it in, said our piece, made it out, but not without leaving plenty of my flesh behind on sticky jungle plants. I made a mental note to buy boots in the market again, but I have ignored that note so many times since then, always to my regret when I’m back in the jungle the next day.

This is where they are getting their drinking water. That's why they need the bore well!

TUESDAY:

The second anniversary of the country of South Sudan!  A joyous day! I happen to live right across from the football field, which is where all the festivities are held. This is great for me because it was impossible for me to miss any moment, and I really didn’t want to miss any moment. In fact, I left early with a young boy who works here but wants to be a general in the SPLA when he grows up (Sudan People’s Liberation Army—their name from the war which is what they still call their army) so we could watch the soldiers parade in. They paraded so well. I do have some militarian experience, thanks to my bro-in-law Capitan Frizzell, and I’m not sure, but I want to say that while American soldiers are likely better armed, I doubt they are better singers.  Of course, I have never heard them sing while marching in a parade on Independence Day. They might do that in some places, and those guys might be good singers. But would they be cheered by a crowd of ululating women? The soldiers were followed by parades of children from all the local schools who arrived at various times and from various places, at variance to the schedule which they were given (so I was told later). Eventually, everyone made it to the field to start the celebrations: a series of speeches from every important person in the near vicinity, each of whom began their speech with “I don’t have a lot to say” and proceeded to speak for hours and hours, ending with “Well, like I said, I don’t have a lot to say, so thanks and HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!” To uproarious cheers from people who were dozing off minutes earlier.  Every time I thought I’d just pop on home for a bit and wait for something exciting to happen, something exciting did happen: one of the schools would preform or a group of Somalis would come up and spontaneously dance around waving the South Sudanese flag and the Somali one (ok, I admit, that nearly made me cry. It was so special to see the people here cheer them on and wish them well and welcome them to their celebrations, knowing that they really do not have much to celebrate in Somalia right now). 

Somalis celebrate with South Sudan

After the celebration, I was courteously invited to the Commissioner’s grand party for VIPs only. We had food and listened to a billion more speeches, while I thought about Indonesia and the beautiful way that they celebrate Independence Day—playing games outside, eating crazy snacks, and taking turns trying to climb to the top of a greasy bamboo pole to get the prizes at the top.  Seriously, why are they the only people who know how to celebrate nation-hood? After the “celebration,” I went back and joined in the real fun—communal dancing. Various groups of people danced near the drummers who were playing the beats they liked the best or who came from their particular tribe, and danced the appropriate dance. I had fun until too many drunk guys started noticing the one remaining foreigner, and then I slipped away home to rest and recover from the fun.

Singing soldiers

WEDNESDAY

Most people were still resting and recovering from the fun, so I used the day to catch up on email and charge my computer up the hill at the fancy foreigners’ compound where they have electricity and internet. When I came back I practiced driving the motorcycle around the yard, and discovered that it is way heavier than I thought it would be. It also took me a while to find the catch between the clutch and the break, which reminded me of my driving lessons as a teenager in Indonesia. My dad had the brilliant idea to drop me off at a driving school in Indonesia where the instructor always told me to “main koepling” (the Dutch/Indonesian word for ‘clutch’), and I amused myself by watching other “experienced” drivers stop dead in the middle of the road to stare in the window of the latihan car (student car) at the foreign kid. After I drove around a while, I realized that my hands were cramping. Squeezing the brake felt like using one of those grip-strengthening things that my cousin used for golf or baseball or croquet or something and always left lying around my grandparents’ house. The reason for this might be that when I asked Repent about changing gears, he solemnly informed me that you always squeeze the brake when switching gears. I said, “You mean the clutch” and pointed to it. He said, “No, the brake” and pointed to it. This may also explain our slightly jerky rides. It also impressed on me the importance of becoming jungle-motorcycle-riding-ready for our future safety.

Rainbow!

The chicken that laid eggs in our kitchen