Completely Preventable Adventures

 

This post is once again about the road over-traveled and under-maintained. Juba to Mundri is never a fun trip unless you can go by private car. I could have. But I decided not to call my drilling friends because I thought, “Really, what are the odds that they would be driving through Mundri on the same day as I will be?” It turns out that the odds were really high for that, and I could have traveled in luxury, and remembering this fact—that a simple phone call could have saved me a lot of pain and discomfort.—was not an encouragement to my soul. Truthfully, I will do almost anything to get out of having to make a phone call to someone, and I always procrastinate calling people, which often has a detrimental effect on my work. Sorry, People I Work For.  Currently, there are at least 2 important phone calls I was supposed to make last week that I have found brilliant reasons to put off until this week. Now that it’s this week, it has suddenly come to my attention that next week might actually be a more appropriate time for these calls. I keep trying to remind myself of the lesson I should have learned from my Juba-Mundri trip, but I’ve had so much practice ignoring my inner Responsible voice. Anyway, as always, the trip had some very entertaining moments, which I will share with you. However, if you really want to be able to truly understand what I went through on this trip, you need to go roll around in the dirt until you have grit in the creases of your ears, and then, still fully-clothed in dirt, go sit in a sauna for 12+ hours. If you can somehow arrange for that sauna to be situated next to a construction site that is busy using dynamite for whatever construction sites use dynamite for, so that you are consistently being bounced around, that would help with the accuracy of the simulation. And make sure you are squeezed between the door and a large man. If the Pringles you spent way too much money on in the store happen to spill out all over the muddy floor—DO NOT PANIC. Eat them anyway because, for real, Pringles.  You probably might not get some horrible floor to foot to Pringle to mouth disease and die.

Note: I have no photos of this trip, but please enjoy some photos from my recent time in Khartoum, sprinkled throughout.

Can you tell me what the English on this says? I can't read it, but I remember it being really funny to me somehow. The Arabic part isn't funny, so it must have been the English.

So I was already trying to get on the Land Cruiser I had arranged the day before when I found out that the drilling team was going to Mundri and I could have hitched a ride, if they had known and weren’t already half-way there when I called. This put me in a supremely bad mood.  That mood was not helped when the Land Cruiser I’d arranged to travel with decided to foist me off on a different Land Cruiser because the President was coming to town and the shop it needed to buy stuff from was closed for security reasons. I agreed reluctantly to change to the other Land Cruiser. The driver proceeded to have a very loud argument with the lady sitting in the front seat with her child to kick her into the back because of me. This made me mad because the lady was there first, and also I became the opposite of Rosa Parks, which is not ever what I ever wanted to be, but the guy insisted that I had arranged the ticket first (probably true since I called the afternoon before), and Rules Must Be Observed. Then he showed me my ticket, which had been purchased previously. In the spot for the traveler’s name, he’d just written, “Khawaja.” My mood lifted slightly because—that IS funny. It dropped again later when I had to go re-register with the police because they wanted to check my passport and visas and yell at the driver for his unprofessionalism—“You MUST write the passenger’s name. What is this ‘khawaja’? This is not a good way to do Business.” Though, to be fair, there were no other khawajas anywhere on the premises of the Bus Station.

Finally we were on the road. But we were stopped at the last check point out of Juba by a couple of power-hungry soldiers. “You must all get out and take all of the luggage off the top of your car.” This is not a welcome statement. It takes a long time to get everything tied up nicely on the car. It was already getting late. Untying the luggage, taking it down, inspecting it, packing it up again, heaving it up to the roof, re-tying it—this is a process that takes time. Our driver patiently climbed to the roof anyway. I huffed and rolled my eyes at the soldiers, who took that as an invitation to conversation.

This Sudanese cereal tasted horrible but--GMO free! (Is there a connection?) And yes, I ate it anyway. Anything tastes better with added sugar (also GMO free).

Soldier: “So. Where are you from?”

Me: “America.” (I am pretty good at shutting down unwanted conversations with one-word answers, but this guy was persistent.)

Soldier: “Right. So where in America?”

Me: “Yeah. America.” (Because even when having pointless conversations with soldiers, I really don’t know how to answer that question, and it’s easier to play dumb.)

Soldier: “Yeah, I know, but like where in America? Which state? Canada?”

(In South Sudan, people will make Canada jokes FOR you. Saves so much time.)

Me: “No. Just America.”

The soldier decided to try a new tactic.

“So. Why are you traveling alone? You work with an NGO? You should have a bodyguard.”

Me: “What? Why would I need a bodyguard? I’m totally fine. I always travel this road.”

Soldier, “You might need one. For your children.”

Me: “I don’t have any children.”

Soldier: “Why not? Where is your husband? Are you married?”

Me: “No.”

Soldier: “Why not?!”

And then, inspired by those Oscar-red-carpet female movie stars who are fighting for feminists everywhere by pointing out that there are better questions to ask women than “What are you wearing” and “who did you hair” and “why aren’t you married,” I decided to turn the question back on him.

Me: “Why aren’t YOU married?”

Soldier: “I am. I have 4 wives.”

Me: “Oh.”

(It turns out feminism is only for movie stars.)

Soldier: “You should really get married.”

Me: “Oh yeah? Why?”

Soldier: “Because you’re running out of time.”

(And feminism is dead.)

By this time we were halfway done unloading. The soldier, having made all his important points about the need to travel with a body guard (for the children) and the need to get married (you’re not getting any younger), glanced up at the driver and said, “Ahh. Don’t worry about the rest of the stuff. It’s getting hot now, and you have a Khawaja with you.”

We packed up everything so fast before he could change his mind. Meanwhile the other car with no khawaja and 3x as much stuff secured to its roof, including a wheel barrow, several shovels, 45 jerrycans, tents, pillows, mattresses, and more, was still unloading everything. 

I love it when I can use my Khawaja privilege for the benefit of others. The guy sitting next to me grinned and secretly high-fived me for my white burning skin.

The bottom of this tissue box kept me entertained during a long meeting. Please enjoy! Note: even if you think you've noticed all the funny things about it, read it again, and you will notice even more. But only when you have unlimited time to observe it, like I did, will you really be able to appreciate it.

The first half of our journey was uneventful. We made it to the lunch-time-break town where cars and busses and trucks MUST always stop (I always hold on to a vague hope that just once we can make it through without having to have a 30-45 minute break, but it’s never happened). While there, another soldier decided to ask me where I was headed. “Mundri,” I said laconically. “Ah,” he said, “You’re almost there. You’ll be there in another hour.”

It’s about 40 or so miles to Mundri from Janbo, but this is South Sudan roads, and 40 miles on South Sudan roads is like 200 miles on paved roads elsewhere.  So I said, “It will take AT LEAST another two hours.” Little did either of us know that it would actually take another 7 and a half hours.

Shooting guns in celebration at crowded weddings is not a bad idea because gravity only applies to apples.

A little ways down from Janbo, there was a horrible crunching noise and we fishtailed through the sand to an abrupt stop in the middle of the road. The men piled out with all the tools and got busy. We were back on the road for a little while before there was a repeat of the situation. This time I got out to see what was happening (Note: I now had nothing else to do since I had finished my book that the Frizzes kindly gave to me for my birthday—Ungifted, by Gordon Korman, Canadian genius, so I had nothing else to do.) I helped the guys unscrew the bolts on the tire (they were really impressed) and then watched as they chopped off a bit of rope and used it to tie the tire tightly to the bar connecting it with the other tire, which also secured a spinning thing in the middle that must have some important role in making a car move forward.

The guy turned to me and said, “See? This will totally work. The car won’t break down again.”

I said, “Uh-huh. You really expect me to believe that you actually fixed this car with a bit of rope?” Truthfully, there was much hope in my heart because I love a good “fixed the car with rope” story, but there is something in me that has to be cynical, and I gave him the “raised eyebrow look of skepticism.”

He said, “No really. Believe me. This is Africa. We Africans know these things. These are things that Khawajas don’t know, but we know them.”

And of course, when the car broke down again 15 minutes later, I couldn’t resist. “Tell me again about what Africans know about fixing cars with rope?” I said, because I am a horrible person of minimal self-control. In the Book of Three, Eilonwy tells Taran that “Saying ‘I told you so’ is like putting worms on someone’s head,” and she was my childhood hero, but I couldn’t resist.  Fortunately, my traveling companion had a good sense of humor and we laughed together before we both got out again to re-tie the car. I mean, it DID work for 30 minutes, and there was nothing else for it.

Look at the shoes my friend made me wear with her thobe to  the wedding!

Meanwhile, we stopped passing trucks and cars asking for tools, water, various items we needed. It was a party. Guess who else stopped to check on us? The wheelbarrow car that had been detained unnecessarily in Juba, not having a sun-sensitive khawaja to illicit sympathy in the hearts of inspecting soldiers. The driver said, “Hey—I remember you! We’ve totally traveled to and from Juba together before in the past.” Me: “Yeah, I remember. Want to squeeze all of us into your car and take us on to Mundri?” Sorry, Khawaja (Remind me someday to tell you the story of “Sorry, Khawaja.” The drilling team told me the story originally, and it made me laugh for 20 minutes. And then for the rest of the day, if I happened to think about it, I would start laughing again, which meant that throughout the long trip we were making, periodically I would burst into laughter for seemingly no reason at all. But there was a reason—Sorry Khawaja.)

Finally, it was dark. Our driver had given up hope and was just sitting by the side of the road. I was trying to call Repent to tell him to hire a car to come pick us all up, and I would pay, but the phone network was really bad. I would get a tiny bit of signal, call, hear his voice, and then lose the connection. And then, along comes a rickety old short-tired van.

“Hello, friends!” said the driver. “Are you going to Mundri? I’ve just been in Janbo picking up some bamboo. Hop in, and I’ll take you with me.”

We hopped. We piled everything in the van, waved goodbye to our exhausted driver and the man who offered to stay back with him, and left.

“Make yourself comfortable, my guests! I’ll have you home soon,” said the driver, our new best friend. And he would have, but he also stopped another time to check on another stranded car and offer his mechanical assistance. We finally made it home by 10:30pm. Repent greeted me, smiling, “I cleaned your whole house for you. Here’s some food and water too.”

South Sudanese people really are the best.

Roger slept in my pillow while I was gone. He missed me. He also resented it when I kicked him out, but I don't think either of us would be very comfortable with this continued arrangement.

Post script to the story:

I went for a run the next morning, on the Mundri-Maridi road. Several of the trucks that I passed by waved and smiled at me, “Ah—you made it to Mundri!” They recognized me from passing me the day before on the Juba-Mundri road. Most truck drivers will spend the night in Mundri, stock up on food and then head on to Maridi or Yambio or wherever. It was so fun for them to see a friend from the day before, and let’s just be honest—you don’t see many white women squatted down by a car, screwing in bolts and yelling at passing trucks to stop and let us borrow a wrench. They knew it was me.

This truck is from a while back on a field visit with Repent. It was broken down by the side of the road, but I read the mudflap, so as we passed by I yelled helpfully to the guys working on it, "Just be determined! That's all it's about!" They were a bit confused, but it worked because I saw them on our way back, putting along, and I stopped to get this photo. That is the wisdom of Mudflaps.

Sometimes I Write About Serious Stuff

JJ (BF from different island), me, and Kristen,
after a night of hard-partying probably, since I still
look hung over.

When I was in sixth grade, Kristen and I were BFBD (Best Friends by Default). This is a thing that happens when you are the only girls in your class in a small international school. But for us, it worked out great that year. Together we learned so much—how to ruin chocolate chip cookies by dumping an entire bottle of vanilla essence into the dough (because if a little is good, so is a lot—you would think anyway), how to write “DUS” (‘Don’t UnderStand’) as an answer to weird workbook questions that didn’t make sense, how to make more paper footballs than any of the boys and win the contest (there were more of them, but we had more passion and I have a debilitating strain of extreme competitiveness and I’m pretty sure Kristen has one too).  And then, people don’t tell you this, but memories of sixth grade antics can often stay with you for life. Kristen had a phobia of anyone, especially a boy, seeing her walking towards the bathroom because he might be able to guess why she was going there. I don’t know why she thought that was so embarrassing because actually we often went to the bathroom just to hang out and not be in class. (Sixth grade me was not the model of motivated academic integrity that I became in later years.) But this post is not actually about sixth grade. It’s just that the other day I was thinking about how Kristen and I would pretend to be going to our lockers or staring off over the balcony if someone came out into the hall while we were heading towards the bathroom.  A couple weeks ago, while I was doing some village site selections, I was thinking of that because I kept having to obviously leave the meeting to use the facilities, which in this case were the various scrawny trees that were far enough from the main path to provide a modicum of privacy. But not too far because whatever it was I ate wanted to be free of me.

Sneaking out of this meeting while sitting in the front:
not easy. But I pretending to be taking photos.
I think I fooled everyone.

Side note: when you work in places like I do, you become less sensitive to talking about topics like this. If you are sensitive, you might want to skip this post, but I’ll try to use as many euphemisms as I can come up with (and I’ve had a lot of practice, so I’m pretty good at it), and hopefully you’ll be fine. But still, this post is not about sixth grade me, and it’s also not about diarrhea.

As I was squatted down, leaning against a tree, with dead dry grass poking me in places that grass should never be found, I had two thoughts. The first was “WHY didn’t I just take a sick day today?” and the second was “This is where most people in this area have to go every time they need to do this, and since these people are drinking water from a mudhole, they are probably in this situation a lot.” This was not the first time I’ve had that thought, but it’s always more real to me when I’m squatting in the bushes.  And I always feel thankful again for my bathroom—be it ever so humble, it’s attached to my house, and I love it. No more being accosted by drunk guys at the outhouse. No more putting on rubber boots before trekking through knee high grass potentially hiding a deadly snake on the walk to the outhouse. But definitely haunted by plenty of lizards, mosquitos, crickets, spiders, and an occasional cockroach. I still love it. Do you love your bathroom as much as you should?

Guava leaf tea--natural
remedy for diarrhea,
thanks Mom and Internet.

 Neverthirst is not constructing bathrooms in South Sudan. Maybe someday we will be at that point. We are still currently at the point of dealing with clean water. I usually think this is the right thing to focus on because—you need clean water to drink for survival. But did you know that clean water by itself only takes care of about 30% of all water-borne/water-related diseases? I heard that statistic somewhere, and I don’t currently have the internet on to check its veracity, but it’s possible that it is at least close to accurate.  Hand-washing and good sanitation techniques take care of most of the rest of the diseases, and probably that hand sanitizer gel stuff gets everything else. I haven’t confirmed that, but Westerners love that stuff like it is the mother of their children.   My friend and colleague here has recently tried to get me to use it on all of my cuts so they won’t get infected and give me another staph infection.

I don’t really have a point here. I’m not trying to make you feel guilty for what you have—that isn’t going to change the reality of what people don’t have here. And it also won’t change their situation for you to realize the blessing of what you have and be thankful for it (but I think you should do that anyway). And frankly, your life might not ultimately be that much better than the lives of my friends in South Sudan. In fact, it is possible that your life could be worse.  Having a lot of great stuff doesn’t make you happier than everyone else or we would never hear about anti-depressants and suicides in Hollywood. 

I guess I just wanted to share some stories with you and let you think about them. Because these are real people who have situations in their lives that are hard. I’m going to tell you a few of their difficulties, but also remember that these are real people who are more than just the sum of their hardships, just as you are more than the sum of yours.

So here is my friend Edward. He is a village elder in Kyara (pronounced ‘Chara’). He’s blind. During our meeting about drilling a hand pump in his village, he said, “It is so difficult for us to have water, that I don’t want to wash my clothes often. You see these clothes that I’m wearing [they were full of holes]? I have nice clothes! I do, but I don’t want to wear them because then I couldn’t wash them because we don’t have enough water.” Note: my life is a million times easier than his life, but our pump was broken, and for a long time I was trying to conserve the water in our tank, so I dispensed with many watery tasks because I just didn’t want to waste water on trivial things. So I get where he is coming from. His situation was worse, so he prioritized even more.

Edward

Below somewhere is a photo of my new friend Lajanti. I was following up on an application for water. I noticed a hand pump about a mile away. (The location where we were was on a small hill so we could see all around, where the other pumps were.) I thought, “This situation doesn’t seem too bad.” But Rejoice, the woman living in the home where we were visiting said, “The well has a low yield." [Repent confirmed this, as it is the pump that is drilled outside of his church.] "We can pump for a while, but then we have to wait for the water to come back. Also, there are so many people using the pump that you have to wait in line for an hour or more sometimes. For me, if I want water, I have to get up at five." [It’s still pitch black at 5:00am in South Sudan, and there are no streetlights or other lights at all—it’s great for stargazing, but not so much for doing anything in the wee hours of the morning.] "Then I can go down to the pump and fill up my jerrycans. If I don’t go then, I won’t be able to get water for my family. I just won’t. People start queuing up as soon as it’s light and I won’t be able to sit there and wait until my turn.”

While I was at Rejoice’s house, I saw Lajanti coming by. I saw she had two jerrycans with her, so I knew that she was going down to get water. I decided to talk to her to hear about her water situation. I wanted to know what her opinion of the pump there was because sometimes people will tell you completely different things. Lajanti said, “Oh, I don’t live here. I live way back up there in the forest.”

Lajanti

 “How long does it take you to get here?” I asked.

Laughter from both Rejoice and Lajanti. “Oh, a long time,” she said.

“A very long time!” said Rejoice. “It’s so far, she will have to stop and rest sometimes on the way. Maybe it will take about two hours to get here.”

“So you have two jerrycans,” I point out obviously, “Do you carry them both on your head?”

“No,” says Lajanti. “We can’t do that. I bring my jerrycans to Rejoice’s house. Then I leave one here. I go down to the hand-pump and fill up one jerrycan. I bring it back here to leave with Rejoice where it will be safe. Then I go down to fill up the other jerrycan. Then I take one jerrycan home with me. Then I come back here and get the other jerrycan.”

“Do you do this every day?” I asked.

“Pretty much every day, “ she said. “We don’t have any pumps where I live.”

“So you use only 2 jerrycans of water for your family each day?”

“Oh no. I use only one. The other is for my blind neighbor who can’t get down to the pump to get water. I just want to help him out.”

Readers: Lajanti is a hero. A genuine superhero, who manages to wear her underwear under her clothes and doesn’t need a cape flapping around behind her. (Though she would probably find it very convenient to have super-strength and/or super-speed.) Repent and I are looking into how we can find a way to get water in her area, but it’s not so easy. We don’t have our drilling team back in town until December. Meanwhile, Lajanti never even asked me if I would drill in her area. She just told me her story very simply and honestly. That’s her life. It’s hard, but she is quick to smile and laugh and help out her neighbors. She can’t imagine a life of cars, electricity, supermarkets and washing machines.

I did not take this photo of Samiha, so don't blame me
for the thumb at the top, but I still love this moment.

And meanwhile, away up north in Khartoum, a feminist moment in honor of Women's Day: at a meeting with a potential national partner requesting a funding partnership, a beautiful kickass Sudanese girl spoke up about her work in women’s empowerment in the area. “The men [from her organization] would call me often and say, ‘Are you in the office?’ and I would say, ‘Yes, I’m working.’ And they would say, ‘Where did you get the funds to do your work?’ and I would say, ‘Who is going to give me funds? You are the ones who hired me and the only ones I could get money from anyway.  If you haven’t given me money, then I don’t have any. But just because I don’t have any funds, does not mean that is going to stop me from doing my work.’” And this is what she said to other women she recruited to help her in her work, “We can’t sit around and wait for foreigners to come help us! This is our country and our people, and we need to help each other out!” And she is awesome, and then when the other guy said with typical male condescension, “See how even women can help this organization!” I had to think about rose petals and flying gummy bears to stop myself from yelling, “WHAT?! She is not ‘helping’—she is the ONLY ONE DOING ANYTHING.” Fortunately, thoughts of rose petals and levitating candy are notoriously helpful to people who need to find the strength to keep up the silent ‘nod and smile.’ And fortunately, she is not alone in actively caring for her people and her country regardless of foreign funding. Another good friend of mine is constantly scheming ways to help disabled people here, helping those with new cochlear implants learn how to function in a hearing world and teaching Arabic sign language to university students interested in working with the deaf. “Why don’t you start a school for children with disabilities in your hometown?” I asked Samiha the other day.  “Oh yeah, I already did that. Five blind students just finished high school this last year.” The power of one hard-working woman...

There’s not really a purpose to this post.  And the problem with writing purposelessly is that it is hard to know how to end. I’m not asking you to donate money, though you can if you want: neverthirstwater.org or ias-intl.org (for Sudan), but I thought these stories were important. These people are important. It’s important for us as human being denizens of Planet Earth to care about each other and not live in total ignorance of others and their joys and difficulties and differences.  I think it’s important because I believe each person has been created in the image of God, and that He loves us and wants us to know each other. He doesn’t discriminate or differentiate between us, and one of the first ever recorded statements propounding human equality is in the Bible: There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s offspring according to the promise.” (Galatians 3:28-29). And while this world isn’t perfect and it isn’t going to last forever, God does genuinely care about what happens to us in this world. He cares that we have what we need, and He cares that WE care that others have what THEY need too, though, like I said before, the things that we think we need in our fancy “developed” nations may not be the same things people in other places think they need. Anyway, Lajanti knows this, and she’s helping her blind neighbor get water and my friend Samiha in Khartoum knows this. And I’m sure there are plenty of people all around the world who also know this and help others in various ways, and I know some of them, but I’m really trying to end this post somehow someday, so I’m not going to write them all down. You feel free to write their stories on YOUR blogs though.  And then send me the link so I can read them too, but make sure to do that before next week when I go back to the South and no internet.

Mundri sunrise--this is why you run with your phone.