Working

One thing that I do love about my job is the variety. Of course, having variety also means accepting that there will be days when I sit under the mango tree waiting for people and doing nothing.  Actually, moments sitting under the mango tree waiting for something to happen are one of the few things that are pretty much guaranteed in my South Sudan life, it’s just the amount of time I sit waiting that varies.  Recently, I’ve had some pretty specific jobs to do, so that time has been less, but more annoying when the job is time-sensitive.  This is no longer making sense, so I’ll just say that this week (the week that I wrote this, not the week that I'm posting it) I’ve spent a lot of time on the back of a motorcycle getting sunburnt and drenched (often on the same day), riding around little villages and wearing rubber boots. Naturally, the days that I actually remember to wear the boots are also the days when I don’t need them.

Here’s a photo of me in the work clothes off to track GPS locations of future wells (Want to donate to Neverthirst so that we can actually drill these wells? Great idea. I’m so glad you thought of it. Our website is neverthirstwater.org):

Beautifully centered photo courtesy of Baby

On this particular day, in my pink thrift-store skirt and boots, I rode out with Repent for about 2 hours to a place called Karika, which is actually where his mother lives. I’d met her once in Mundri before where she’d gone for treatment for a sickness that everyone called “malaria” that might not have been (side note: when I first got here, it seemed that everyone had malaria, but the more I hear people talk about malaria, the less sure I am that they actually know what malaria is or how to get it. For example, one day sitting in the sun in the early morning to dry my hair and make myself less white, Lexon gravely informed me that I was going to get malaria. I looked around for mosquitos, but he said, “No. From the sun. When it comes down on your head, you will get malaria.” That week, about 5 other people said the same thing to me at different times, so maybe there is a new strain of sunstroke malaria that is attacking the world. SPF50, people. Just do it. Or get malaria). Repent’s mom greeted me with open arms, calling me her daughter, and then fed me up on mangos, peanuts, and some juice that she made from powder and the really muddy water that she drinks. Yes I drank it, and yes it’s a good thing I was raised in Indonesia, because my stomach is strong and I can drink unfiltered, un-boiled water from a hole in the ground with no long or short-term effects. My stomach is iron-wrought.

Here is a photo of me and Repent’s mom:

Even with sweaty from work (her in the garden, me staying on the motorbike),
we are stunning.

Here is a photo of Repent’s niece and nephew playing Angry Birds on the iPad, which was with us because we needed it for iForm, where we record GPS coordinates and other important information.

EVERYBODY love Angry Birds.

We stopped at Repent’s mother’s house first (it was the location farthest/furthest? away from us), and then we went back along the same road to stop at each village where we needed to get the information. Along the way we were greeted by screams of excitement and terror. Once a group of girls saw me and ran after us screaming and giggling. I felt like the Beatles.  Still, I don’t let the pointing and squealing go to my head. Their excitement isn’t like ‘you’re-so-cool-like-a-celebrity’ excitement, it’s more like if you happen to see a Sasquatch while hiking through the forest—you always knew they were living somewhere in forest, but so few people actually get to see one in person, so it’s exciting. But if my weirdness can bring a little hysterical laughter to a child who was otherwise perfectly fine and enjoying his vacation from school by picking the last mangos off the trees and running around with his friends, then it’s worth it. And it’s a good thing too because I’ve started wearing sunscreen now, so this whiteness is going to stay…mostly. I came back from this trip with a sunburnt knee (just one—the left one) and after working in my garden all day on Saturday, I found that my lower back was sunburnt too from my shirt sliding up when I bent over to build mounds to plant my zucchini in. Now I can imagine what it would be like to get a lower-back tattoo, and I think I’ll skip it. Face tattoos for me, only. I’m thinking—Rainbow Brite star…

Here is a photo of a 4 year old chopping a mango with a massive knife, because kids in South Sudan are badass:

Sisters: you both have 4 year olds--
what are the odds you let them chop their own fruit?

When we were almost at the halfway point on our return journey, it started pouring rain—thunder, lightening, torrents and torrents. We stopped under a tree to apply ponchos. Ponchos are good for almost nothing, but they protected the iPad and kept me a tiny bit warmer than I would have been without it. Still, as the rain dripped down the front, soaking my shirt and as water from the puddles filled up my boots, I was pretty miserable and cold. Repent soldiered on because he is awesome like that. We drove through raging rivers, not knowing what we were driving over, and made it home a little more than an hour later. I changed clothes quickly, but Repent didn’t have any other clothes, and he is too big to borrow mine, so he brought in our little coal stove and sat over that until he dried while we drank tea and ate beans and rice.

I have no photos of the raging river of mud that we drove through, but here’s a photo of what the day looked like BEFORE the apocalyptic flood:

Here is a photo from the morning after, which I took while on my run--running and taking photos is one of my skills:

Besides sitting on the motorcycle, I’ve also been known to sit on tree-trunk benches for hours at a training on sanitation and biosand filters. My butt still hurts. They offered me a chair, but I thought, “I’m tough. If these ladies can sit for hours on this thing, then I can too.” Though, to be fair, a lot of them brought their own chairs from home. Still, I decided to make a point of not being the khawaja in the fancy chair, who eats lunch at the fancy table inside the small house. I sat on the log benches and ate outside on the ground with the other women.

Note the seats in the back (I have a permanent dent in my rear)
in this photo of a kid who cried in terror when he saw my foreign devil features,
but was later won over by my gifts of candy and origami paper animals.

Below is a photo of me outside with the other women that Repent took. It looks like I’m grimacing at nothing, but I think I’m laughing at the lady sitting behind the person in the chair, who has either offered her son to me to marry or is telling me that yes, it’s right that I sit outside with the other ladies because we all have boobs. That is Truth, people.  But maybe I was grimacing because I was trying to force myself to eat all of the beans and rice that I was given, which was a heaping plowl-full (plate/bowl thingy—Marian knows what I’m talking about). It was also steaming hot and really hard to eat with my fingers. The ladies offered me a spoon, but I was committed to taking the pain and doing it right.  Of course, these are ladies that I have watched lift a metal pot off the fire, where it had been sitting for half an hour, with their bare hands. They are truly impressive women.  They ate all their beans and rice and asked for more. They told me I wasn’t strong enough to do that because I’m short and my stomach is too small, but if I practice, I can get there. I was going to defend my stature because, HEY-I WAS TALL IN INDIA! But I guess here I am kind of runty. Even the Commissioner greeted me with, “Oh wonderful, our small girl is back!”

Picnic lunch with the Small Girl

And now—some photos of cool people:

When your gorgeous baby girl falls asleep on your friend's knee,
what does an African mother do?
She puts tiny braids in her hair.
They thought my amusement was funny.
But seriously. I was so impressed.

This is the size pot you need to make lunch (aseeda/ugali) for 40 people.

Isn't Mimi the cutest? She was kind of interested in me too.

During the sermon at church, I noticed a commotion by the door--
it was Repent's youngest son Ruben (not pictured here because he was helping take the photo),
dancing and laughing and pointing at me (his foreigner). I went home with them after church.
Here is a photo of the neighbor girls fixing my hair while two other neighbor kids look on.
Gadi (on the far right) is Repent's older son, and he showed me how to chase hoops around and be cool.

I was afraid that Helena (Repent's youngest daughter) wouldn't remember me,
but she held out her hands to me to hold her, and fell asleep in my arms, when
I carried her home. She kept sleeping on my lap while the kids and I talked.
She snores like a freight train, and it's adorable.

I went to go help Esther's mother shell peanuts for planting in the garden,
and the kids came along to help out,
i.e. eat the peanuts we were shelling while the adults yelled at them.

Here is where I am giving up trying to put in a photo of Ruben, who is cute and hilarious and should be in this post, but even Burundi internet has its limitations. Also, I need a photo of Repent's oldest daughter, Esther, who is beautiful like her mother and so sweet and shy. Next time.

This is Repent's stunningly beautiful wife, Joy.
Her Moru name is Kenyua, which means 'sesame.'
She was named this because her mother gave birth to her in the sesame field,
 where she was working. There is no one tougher than a South Sudanese woman.
She never went to school was was illiterate, but she's going to night classes now to learn.
Repent is helping out around the house, washing clothes and things like that so that she can.
I love their family SO. MUCH.
When I said to Repent, "Whoa! Your wife is gorgeous!",
he said, "I know. She's God's wonderful gift to me."
Sorry for the terrible photo--photography is not one of my skills, you know.