Dental Luck in Nairobi.

Whew!  What a day!  In the dentist's office for 3 hours....got a cleaning, x-rays, oral evaluation.....the female dentist (loved that it was a woman!) and I decided on three teeth for crowns.  Two of the teeth had pieces of tooth missing so instead of wasting money on fillings I am just going for the crown....the other one, well, let's just say I am very happy that I am going to have a porcelein tooth of one color to replace it.

Got back to the Mennonite Guest House and was enjoying another awesome Cadbury milk chocolate bar and one of the temporaries came out.  Had to go to reception....borrowed the cell phone and called the dental office, the front desk ordered a taxi for me and off I went to get the temp glued back in. 

While I was there I heard that I was absolutely the last person whose order was taken for crowns being done before the Christmas break in the labs.  As the dentist said, God was with me on that one.  I felt really bad though as there was a young boy who had fractured a tooth and she couldn't find a lab to do a crown for him.

She usually sends the ceramic work to South Africa because apparently the labs there do a "better" job of the crowns than the local labs in Nairobi.  We had a long discussion about this.  As it turns out it is all the better that I am just thrilled to be getting old, discolored teeth with way too many fillings replaced, I don't have a need to have a million dollar look.  She said that folks in Nairobi are very particular.  I apparently am not.  Since all of the South Africa labs were already closed for the Christmas break I rejoiced that I am not!

In between all of these trips to the shopping mall where the dental offices are the only thing on the 4th floor I was the only person who enjoyed the scrumptious lunch that the cooks cooked up here at the Guest House.  Did they read my mind that my most favorite thing in the whole world is mashed potatoes?  Now if they come up with macaroni and cheese before I leave I will know that they read minds!  Anyhow, wonderful salad, scrumptious Mexican bean dish and the chef shared the receipie when I asked for it!!!  The excellent garlic bread again.  All I can say is, wow.  It is going to be hard to go back to my South Sudan cooking. 

I have definitely lost weight again from being in Malakal for three months.  My clothes are hanging on me.  I am planning to find African fabric here in Nairobi to take back with me to Malakal.  I have been introduced to a good tailor there and I want to have more of the wonderful African clothes made for me.  I like to support the local economy (both in Nairobi and in Malakal) and these African clothes are creative and interesting to boot!
Blessings,
Debbie

Friday the 7^th of December, 2012

We have little slugs here in South Sudan.  At least they aren’t big ones! 

The finals for my two classes are done, the grades turned in and a semester finished.  I can now turn for a while to my own research proposal reading and packing for Nairobi.  I like the rhythm in teaching, the rhythm of the academic year.  There is closure to things; unlike with, for instance,  housework.

Someday the doctoral work will be done and then the end of a semester will signal time for myself….to read whatever I want, to travel for pure joy, etc. 

Today was the last “breakfast” at the college until next February when the Concentrated Course will begin.  We had lentils and wheat berries cooked together.  The food here is without imagination, of a very humble nature.  The point of the food is to be filling and provide nutrition.  This is the kind of diet that causes me to ponder:  “Eat to live, don’t live to eat, in order that others may live also.”  With food like this one has no desire to live to eat for the eating does not provide a satisfaction besides the filling of the belly.  I imagine that it is something like this in refugee camps.

For the next week I will be putting together my own meals.  I am finding that the solar oven, or cooker, is indeed very helpful.  I can do soups or grains in it easily.  One ambitious day I actually did both a lunch and a dinner.  The problem with dinner is that I have to eat it quite early as the only way to keep the food warm is to wrap the entire cooker in a blanket and I don’t have one appropriate for that. 

While in Nairobi I will be stocking up on food; interesting food that is easy to cook to get a little bit of variety into my diet here. 

I am also looking forward to eating meals at the Guest House where I will be staying, and to eating meals out in restaurants!  Pizza is at the top of my list. 

Blessings,

Debbie

December 11, 2012

I experienced graft this morning in a government office.  I was asked to pay 100 South Sudanese Pounds for a paper giving me permission to leave Malakal and the officer would not give me a receipt.  The Principal, who had accompanied me to the security office, said he wouldn’t give me a receipt because it was illegal for him to ask me for payment.

Government officials are not paid well and the pay is often late.  The supervisors of some officials tell them that they can take money from people to help make up for the lack of salary.  So that is what this man was doing!

In the past week or so I have had pieces of the truth about dowry come to my attention and today a whole has come from the pieces.  During the Civil War many men were off flighting and were not marrying.  Once the Civil War (this was a war between the northern and southern parts of the whole country of Sudan which is now Sudan and South Sudan as well as fighting between tribes in the south) had been terminated by the Peace Agreement of 2005 the men who returned from fighting wanted to get married.  There was little money in the country and dowry became extremely expensive, 150 to 200 cattle.  Without dowry a man could not marry.

Cattle rustling has become a major problem and it is now growing in violence.  Women and children are not only being kidnapped but also murdered with impunity. 

I will be teaching Apologetics this coming semester.  The basic meaning of Apologetics is the defense of the faith and explaining the hope that is within us.  One of the first questions I will be asking my class this coming term is, “What does it mean to you to be a Christian?”  What kind of faith are we defending?  If Christians are involved with murder and kidnapping in order to marry then we must really examine, what has this to do with Christianity?  If I am a Christian can I engage in these behaviors?  What would Jesus do?

Blessings,

Debbie

December 11, 2012

I wonder if feet shrink?  I am losing weight because of the lack of food here in Malakal and the lack of variety and I am noticing that my Birkenstock sandals seem to be larger on my feet….

Such a feeling of relaxation has come with the ending of the academic semester!  I still have tons to do:  packing for Juba and Nairobi, planning two classes and continuing my own reading for my doctoral thesis proposal, and yet I feel as though a great burden has been lifted.  This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!

I have a new househelper (housekeeper) with me today.  She is cheerful with helps a great deal already!  I have three weeks of laundry and a house that hasn’t been swept in three weeks for her to deal with.  I don’t have the right touch for a floor that has dust on it all the time even when it has just been swept.  People who have lived with these conditions all of their lives have learned how to deal with them and somehow things look fresh even when the reality is that they are not!

Blessings,

Debbie

December 18, 2012

Left Juba this morning and am in another reality now.  The touchdown on the plane into Nairobi late this morning brought back memories….Nairobi was my first port of entry into Africa three years ago in 2009.  This was the first continent where I saw dirt coming in to land….

It was clear even from the airport that Nairobi is a major urban metropolis, much, much larger and more developed than Juba.  It is really quite a good thing that after Malakal I had two days in Juba before coming here.   That time in Juba gave me a bit of space to process leaving Malakal and adjusting to modernity.  Coming into Nairobi I realized:

There is an enormous difference between the smallness of a little town, or village, like Malakal and the impersonal secularization that I could sense in Nairobi.  Life feels more out of control in a large city, a city that is spread out and actually has outskirts.  Malakal is much more self contained and the sameness is one of the characteristics for small.

Of course Kenya is a different country and that may account for some of what I am seeing as different, as “other”, it may not be only the sizes of Malakal, Juba and Nairobi, respectively.

I remember when I went to China being thankful that I had had experience in the Middle East first.  The culture of the Middle East is vastly different from the United States, and yet it is much more familiar than the culture of China which was so very different that having had an in between experience was helpful.  That is what Juba was on this journey between Malakal and Nairobi.  Juba was my Middle East.

Having arrived at this compound I am filled with amazement.  It is huge.  And it is green.  I thought a friend had told me that it had a garden.  No, it IS a garden.  Somehow it makes me think of the Swiss Family Robinson.  I don’t know, it is just so odd to me to think that something this green exists when my soul is dying of thirst in the heat and brownness of Malakal.

There are huge trees here, big enough for children’s swings to hang out of them.  One of the joys this afternoon was seeing a brother swinging his sister on one of them.  There is grass everywhere, and the folks who thought through how to minister to weary missionaries have put tables and chairs all about on the lawn so that we can sit out and enjoy the green and rest. 

My room is wonderful.  Not like a Hilton.  A big bed with four pillows.  I am so thankful not to have been given a single, twin bed.  Those things are quite horrid for anyone who is used to sleeping in a large bed.  There is no mosquito net.  I am taking this to mean that mosquitos are not a problem here.  Wow!  No wonder the room looked so normal to me when I first saw it!

The desk is piled with my books now, even though I also brought my Kindle.  I have reading to do for the Research Proposal for my thesis through UNISA (The University of South Africa).  I also have lots of shopping to do, primarily for groceries to take back with me to Malakal.  Peanut butter, nutella and coffee top the list.  Tomorrow I have a dentist appointment, the next day I must go to the South Sudan Embassy to purchase a new visa for the one that will expire that day so that I have a valid one when I return to Juba on the 30^th of December. 

I have now had two Cadbury bars!  I hadn’t had chocolate in three and a half months! 

Dinner was amazing.  I was drinking the filtered water and suddenly realized that it was cold and that was why I was feeling so satisfied. 

Tomatoes and avacados!  SALAD!!!  Actual lettuce.  Green beans.  Tremendous garlic bread.  Real coffee with real milk.  Okay, this place is a treasure for a starving missionary.  How am I going to go back into the desert after this?  Literally, Malakal is a desert.  Which wouldn’t be so bad if there was power.  With power there could be refrigeration and cold water. 

The Guest House is going to bring Diet Coke in for me so I can purchase it at the front desk!  There is a frig for guests so tomorrow after my dentist appointment I am going to see if I can find yogurt to bring back and place in said frig.

And I plan to try and spend the afternoon outside in the quiet and green.

Will write more soon…

Blessings,

Debbie

Blog

December 1, 2012

I continue to learn how to teach by the teaching itself.  The students have enjoyed doing team work in their tests, group tests if you will.

This is fine and good, it is an important thing to learn how to negotiate, listen and create documents of substance with others.  As I watched how the four different teams worked on their final today I realized that it is also important to make a balance with individual work.

There is at least one individual, perhaps more, than is so very quiet in the class that team work is simply not the best vehicle for him to tested with or learn from.  He needs to draw from his own information and will not do that willingly in a group.

I remember that there are oral learners, visual learners, kinesthetic learners, musical, spatial, etc.  I try to meet at least most of those needs at times during the semester.  I must now remember to balance the needs of the ultra quiet with the abilities of those who enjoy the group work.

Blessings,

Debbie

December 4, 2012

As I awoke this morning to the sound of an animal that I could not identify outside the walls of my home, I realized again how different life here in Malakal is from life in the United States. 

I see animals everyday that I walk outside of my gates.  Not only cats and dogs which are everywhere in the Seattle area, but goats and sheep and cattle.  The babies are so cute as they trot about and make desperate calling noises to their mothers.  I have only lived on a farm once, for a very short time, when I stayed with a friend and her husband in a rural area outside of Seattle.  That time and this is similar in terms of the closeness to nature.  I was not raised being close to animals.  While I am glad of having only two cats calling my yard home here in Malakal, it is gratifying to be experiencing something so different in my life for this season that will be gone from my life when I return home to the United States.

I was invited to a memorial service, they call it a Service of Prayer, here in Malakal on Sunday of this week.  A colleague’s husband had died.  After people shared about his life, prayers were said a sermon preached, food was served.  The women were in one part of the compound and the men in another.  I found myself thinking, “ah, the women’s court.”  As my hostess walked me through the different groupings of men to reach the car that would bring me home after the food was eaten, I found myself a bit unnerved by the tradition that still exists here.  Very unlike a memorial service in the states where the genders would sit together in service and in feasting afterwards.

Blessings,

Debbie

Blog

December 1, 2012

I continue to learn how to teach by the teaching itself.  The students have enjoyed doing team work in their tests, group tests if you will.

This is fine and good, it is an important thing to learn how to negotiate, listen and create documents of substance with others.  As I watched how the four different teams worked on their final today I realized that it is also important to make a balance with individual work.

There is at least one individual, perhaps more, than is so very quiet in the class that team work is simply not the best vehicle for him to tested with or learn from.  He needs to draw from his own information and will not do that willingly in a group.

I remember that there are oral learners, visual learners, kinesthetic learners, musical, spatial, etc.  I try to meet at least most of those needs at times during the semester.  I must now remember to balance the needs of the ultra quiet with the abilities of those who enjoy the group work.

Blessings,

Debbie

Reflections on Life in South Sudan.

Friends,

This morning I looked around at my classroom of South Sudanese students.  Each one of them had Western clothing on.  This bothered me and it did so in particular because these Seniors are having a class picture taken today.

We are in Africa and the students are wearing shirts and ties and the two women have shirts and skirts on, Western style.  When I inquired about this someone said that African clothes are very expensive and that the Western clothing is much cheaper.  So typical.  The colonizer makes it cheaper to buy the imports from the colonizing power than the local goods made from locally sourced materials and created by the indigenous people. 

I found myself just about in tears.

Later I had a discussion with another teacher.  I don’t sleep well at night here in Malakal.  There are many reasons for this, one of them is that the power comes on and then goes off at unpredictable times and often I am awakened by its beginning and its cessation. 

The other teacher asked me if I was tired from cooking.  She asked if I cook on charcoal like the African women who must kneel to stir their pots on the charcoal stoves.  I said I try to avoid using charcoal.  And then I pointed out that I do not have what to me is a normal kitchen.  I don’t have a kitchen sink or a kitchen counter.  I don’t have a refrigerator.  Nothing is normal about my experience of trying to provide food for myself here in Malakal. 

It is difficult to live day in and day out in an environment that is so utterly foreign to my own.  I am essentially camping.  I never did like camping and I don’t enjoy it now. 

I wonder how it was for Jesus?  When he came to an utterly foreign environment how was it for him to live day in and day out?  Was it as hard for him as it is for me?  I’d like to think so. 

Those of us who work and live in South Sudan get to take quarterly R & R’s.  Some of the reason for these times of getting away from the country have to do with being able to experience a sense of normalacy that is closer to what is normal in the United States….at least for me.   It is HARD to live here.  The saving grace is the fact that I believe that my students are gaining knowledge from me that they would not gain in any other way.  And hopefully it is invaluable knowledge.  That is what makes my being here worth the sacrifice for living a totally abnormal life.  Otherwise this sacrifice would be untenable.

Here and there, but NOT everywhere....

July 7, 2012

Dear Friends,

Greetings from the skies over Washington State headed for California!

Early run to the airport this morning. I realized once there, and once again, how much we take for granted in this country.

There were stacks of white boxes on an attractive wagon at the security point. So different from South Sudan where the machines aren’t working any longer and all of the luggage has to be hand searched for contraband.

The ladies’ bathroom was clean. Toilet paper, soap, running water, towels. When you use a bathroom at an American airport please try to remember the countries that offer only traditional toilets and have nowhere to put ones purse or backpack or rolling bags.

When you take a drink from a water fountain at an airport in the US remember the countries where a person cannot safely take a drink of water anywhere.

July 9, 2010

Tomorrow is the first anniversary of the independence of the Republic of South Sudan from Sudan. May the country make it to a second anniversary.

I am reading Nelson Mandela’s Long Road to Freedom. One of the things that he talks about in the book is how the Afrikanner (white) government tried to bring disharmony between the tribes in South Africa in order to weaken the blacks and make it easier to maintain control of them. This rings a bell for me because I have inquired of my students before about the tribal markings that many of them have. Some tribes have “life lines”, also known as scarification, deep lines cut into their foreheads which can be seen after death on their bones. Some tribes have bumps created on their foreheads, or dots which form different patterns.

My students told me that these markings began at the suggestion of the

British colonizers as a way to sow disharmony among the tribes in Sudan. Before the markings one tribe could not differentiate other tribes and everyone lived in peace. With the markings came “the other”; dissention, resentment, jealousy and competition. This of course was the intention of the colonizers. Divide and conquer takes on new meaning when related to colonial rule.

As I am reading this book by Nelson Mandela I am reminded that it is not only South Africa that has seen oppression. The State of Israel continues to illegally occupy the Palestinian Territories. Sudan oppressed the south of Sudan to the point where the Southern Sudanese voted to become a country of their own. There are many places of contention in the world where the desire for power by one party tramples upon the rights of another party.

As I read the book I realize that some of NM’s experience, to me, mirror what Myanmar/Burma’s Suii Ki lived through. Her times of house arrest, of being cut off from the outside world were perhaps experienced somewhat differently by NM, but there was a general belief again that divide and conquer would silence.

July 11, 2012

I really love Southern California. It is so very different from the East Coast. It is somehow more earthy and raw. It is big and vast. The East is more refined, perhaps because the folks that populated the East (the ones that originally colonized the “empty” space and the native population) were from Europe. The people who populated the West Coast were made of different stuff. Not that it didn’t take courage and guts to come from Europe to the New World, it did. It took something different to come from the colonies and New England and the South to California. Go West Young Man (and Woman)!

Friday, September 7, 2012

My time in the states is over and I am now in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. In two hours I’ll be going to the airport to begin the third leg of a journey that took me from Seattle to Dubai (United Arab Emirites) to Addis Ababa. From here I will go to Juba, South Sudan and from Juba I will make my way “home” to Malakal.

I understand that water is not flowing to the homes in Malakal. How does one live without water? I am walking into an unknown situation once again and I don’t know how long it will take to find solutions. I am essentially camping in Malakal. I have never been one to enjoy camping and so I am having to try and perceive the experience in new ways.

On the airplane sometime early Wednesday morning we flew over the North Pole. I took note of it because when I looked out the window I realized that what I was seeing was a frozen landscape. That was when I realized that it was a polar landscape.

I move into and out of so many cultures as I traverse God’s claim on my life. I seem to be particularly sensitive to the cultures where I sense a male arrogance towards women. After being in the United States for four months this can be a particularly heightened experience. Most men who are third or fourth or uncountable generation American, at least of those that I encounter, understand the worth and the value of women. When I encounter the alien (to me) attitude that women are objects and our value lies in our usefulness to making life comfortable for men, it is a painful encounter for me.

September 9, 2012: Juba

I had a great if brief talk with a young woman from the UK (she is English) this morning over our hot coffee and bread that is considered breakfast here and in some parts of Europe where I have traveled before.

I could not sleep last night as I am probably still on US time and so I had lots of time to think and reflect. Some of my thoughts were about the differences between missionaries, or Mission Co-Workers as we are now known in the PC(USA), and short term mission workers or even NGO workers. NGO’s are Non-Governmental Organizations, technically the PC(USA) is one of these as are other church mission sending organizations. Usually NGO is associated with, for instance, World Vision or the United Nations.

Missionaries are usually alone in their posts, or if married, alone as a couple. Whereas short term mission trips, perhaps sent by a particular church, are normally made in teams. Missionaries are aware that we are going to be in a said situation for a lengthy period of time and pray for the grace to be able to survive that time. Short term mission trips have the luxury of knowing that shortly they will be leaving the country and any difficult circumstances, like four hours of power a night. That sounds like so much now having come from Malakal where we had power only one night a week!

It can be enlightening to reflect on different lifestyles and the minimal existence of most missionaries. The NGO’s whose facilities I have had occasion to visit in Malakal have been like islands from another world in a sea of heat, humidity and lack of water and electricity. I feel so normal upon entering NGO buildings and slowly it occurs to me that it is because there are lights during the day and air conditioning is running. While a wonderful occasional perk it can also be quite devastating to have to return to my own particular reality after visiting such a paradise, in part because I have been made aware that even in a poverty stricken third world country ravaged by 50 years of civil war, a different reality is not only possible but actually exists.

On my travels through the United States this past summer I remember that in Detroit I realized that there were parts of that city that I would term dead. Boarded up, crumbling, deserted. Even so there had been an infrastructure at some point on those dead streets. There had been utilities, water and electric and probably garbage pick up as well. Maybe that is one way to look at Malakal, or one way to look at Detroit. Even at its deadest, Detroit is more alive than much of Malakal. People have moved on from Detroit. In Malakal there are people who are not able to move on. The present lack of life, lack of services, lack of opportunity or hope for change is their reality. My reality is that I have the ability to leave Malakal every so often and thereby keep my sanity intact. For many of the locals in Malakal, their reality is that now and always.

Living on a compound with other missionaries, or Mission Co-Workers, would probably be easier. The problem with compounds is that they are insular. The people inside them are “protected” from the local people and their crumbling, less than beautiful lives. It may be possible to do a more productive job while living in a condition more like one’s native country. On the other, God’s hand touches the eyesore differently when a person lives in its midst.

There are pros and cons to both sides of the argument, or the thought. When I was in China I spent most of my time with my students. I began to lose vocabulary and my spelling skills diminished. I needed to have more time with other westerners. I am finding a similar situation in Malakal, in part because there are so few other westerners. I need more balance. I need not to leave all of the comforts of home, of the west, behind and this means that I am not going to be able to live at the level that most of the folks in Malakal live. I am possibly just not capable of that. I live more like them because I am not short term. And I can’t live like them or I won’t be able to be long term.

September 10, 2012

There are some shows on television, which shall remain unnamed, that make unreality appear perfectly normal. There are times here in South Sudan where I find myself thinking how amazing is it that situations that cannot possibly be real or true or what is actually happening are indeed real, true and what is actually happening.

The airport here in Juba is one of those things. It is chaotic and dysfunctional with several flights of people from places such as Uganda, Eygpt, Ethiopia and Kenya all hunting for luggage in the same small space. Yesterday I think we nearly saw a passenger rebellion. Luggage is lost or misplaced, throwing lives into disarray as people must rearrange schedules to compensate for the lack of organization on the part of the airlines. The only comfort in all of it is that most of the people who come from the outside see it for the zoo that it is. Perhaps because of the civil wars when the north and the south were simply Sudan, one large country, the locals are not as aware of how disrespectful the process of retrieving luggage is. My hope is that as time goes on their demands for order will grow and they will accept less and less situations which suck the life out of everyone else. Perhaps it is a sign of health when previously acceptable situations begin to suck the life out of a person and they come to recognize that it is not life giving.

Blessings,

Debbie

Languages

Dear Friends,
Greetings! I have learned that South Sudan and the United States have a similar struggle when it comes to indigenous languages versus colonialist languages.

In the United States many of the American Indian tribes have languages/tongues that are nearly extinct. This is true in many parts of the world that have been colonized. The reality of the United States is that beginning with Europe, the American Indians were colonized by outsiders coming in, taking their land, changing their culture and forcing them to use languages that were not their own. I learned this a few years ago myself when a friend from Belfast in Northern Ireland corrected me as I talked of the culture in the US as if it had never been anything other than a European culture. In the current day and age it is not so much a European culture anyhow as so many parts of the country are becoming much more Latino, for instance.

In South Sudan Arabic was the first colonizer language and then English became so. At this time in history as far as I can tell in South Sudan there are first the tribal languages, then Arabic and then the further layer of English which has been named the official language of South Sudan.

A country seems to need a common language in order to function as a country and yet the question becomes, what is being lost as people no longer function exclusively in their own native tongue?
Blessings,
Debbie

Catching you up....

Dear Friends,
Greetings! My goodness it has been a long time since I have written to you! I left Malakal about three weeks ago, which was about three weeks early and have been in the United States for the three weeks since.

I was scheduled to leave Malakal tomorrow, May 31st. At the time that I left, border closings between South Sudan and Sudan were creating fluctuations in availability of
fuel in Malakal. It was decided that it would be better for me to leave before the possibility of fuel shortages might make that more difficult.

I chose to fly to the United States on Emirates Airline this time. I had gone to Juba on a Mission Aviation Fellowship (MAF) flight out of Malakal. This is a small plane which delivers medicine and other supplies several times a week from Juba to Malakal and other remote areas of South Sudan.

In Juba I was met at the airport by an employee of the Presbyterian Disaster Relief Association (PDRA) of South Sudan. He and his driver were very helpful and i was grateful for the help getting my airline ticket to Addis Ababa Ethiopia the next day and airtime so that I could go on line and use the internet for the first time in a couple of weeks. Internet had been cut off in Malakal and we were unable to access it which was another reason that I left early.

They also got me to the Episcopal Church Guesthouse in Juba. I had only an overnight stay there before leaving in the afternoon the next day for the airport. Emirates Airline provided good service and a good flight -- and I have a new passport stamp for the United Arab Emirates where I had an overnight stay at the Airport Hotel and two excellent buffet style meals! The next morning it was back to the airport and on to the 14 hour flight over the corner of Iran, over Russian airspace, over a corner of Norway, over the North Pole, Alaska and some parts of Alaska. I was very grateful not to go over Europe, the Atlantic and the United States to get to Seattle!

I recovered well from jet lag at the home of my daughter and son-in-law and am now visiting a cousin on Whidbey Island. She and her husband invited me to use a mother-in-law type apartment at their home for two weeks while I work on my Dissertation Proposal for my degree program with UNISA, the University of South Africa. It is a blessing to have a place with heat, a refrigerator and a constant supply of electricity where I can spread my notes on the living room floor and be on-line as much as I need to be. My cousin is a good cook and has been feeding me dinner in the evenings!

Stay tuned for my stories of adventure and God’s movement in my life!
Blessings,
Debbie

Border Closing Causes Price Increases

Dear Friends,
From China to Khartoum to Malakal I have found that the best way to get around is with my students.

I thank God for giving me students in all of my places of oversea services who are generous with their time. It is also a good way to fellowship and talk in a more relaxed manner.

Today Buay and I ventured by the local taxi into downtown Malakal. The price had gone up from 2 pounds to 3 pounds. That was just the first shock!

My first stop was the bank where we spent an hour. Again I thank God, this time it is for air conditioning. I am also very grateful that my money wires seem to coming through from the United States without a hitch now. In the beginning, it was very, very difficult to get money out of the states by wire through my bank account there. The US government held the first wire my daughter sent me. For some reason the banking system thinks that South Sudan is still a part of Sudan. Even though my bank is the Kenya Commercial Bank and the money goes to Kenya and then is dispersed from there, the destination codes apparently show Sudan. Sudan is under sanctions from the US government and having money wired from a bank is not possible. I can’t remember for sure at this point but I must have been using Western Union exclusively when I lived in Khartoum.

I was doubly grateful for the money wire when I found out today that Western Union in Malakal has not been working for about two months because of equipment compatibility issues. Western Union was my back up plan.

The market was a lesson in economics today. I bought a half a kilo, just over one pound, of potatoes for 10 South Sudanese Pounds. At a 1 to 3 exchange rate that is about $3.30. And we had to hunt for those potatoes too.

I am assuming that it has to do with Sudan, aka the Khartoum government, closing the border with South Sudan again to goods coming south. Prices go up when that happens. One roll of toilet paper was ten pounds today, again about $3.30. Four little tomatoes the same thing, over $1.00 per LITTLE tomato. These were not beefsteak, they were LITTLE. I did not buy any of them.

We had power last night and I was able to things like my cell phone charged. I also ate a pasta dish that i got made quickly in case the electricity got cut. I am hoping we will have power again tonight and then I will quickly fry up the potatoes.

Power is tight here because fuel comes from Khartoum, and the borders are closed. Again I marvel that it took living here in Malakal for me to think about -- where does electricity come from? I believe that this is at least in part because in my hometown area of Seattle we have hydropower, that is, dams. Water supplies our electricity and for many, many years it was very cheap. I have never heard of a an entire town being powered solely by generators. Those were the things that the people who could afford them had for the power outages during our rare Seattle snowstorms. They weren’t for daily use.

Buay and I also went to the tailor to pick up my latest pieces of clothing. I have been hauling fabric from the Philippines that was made in Indonesia all around the world now for about four years! While in China I had one piece designed as a pretty two piece top and skirt that really looks quite African, so that I could come to Africa with at least something that looked local. That outfit was green. Last week I took in the red and purple pieces and today we picked the tops up -- the tailor forgot to put the pockets in the new skirts so I have to wait for a day or two to get them. I cannot figure out why, when everything else in Malakal is so darn expensive, the tailor charges very reasonable prices. Granted at some point I had to buy the cloth, but $10 (30 South Sudanese Pounds) for a top and skirt is a downright bargain in my eyes. I don’t even try to negotiate because I’d feel guilty if he did the work for less.

Well, on to dealing with some other things now, it’s been great sharing with you!
Blessings,
Debbie

Catching you up....

Dear Friends,
Greetings! Malakal is just hot. Probably dusty too but you know at some point I begin to forget everything else because it is so hot that is all that I can focus on!

My new home is increasingly organized and this is a great blessing! I could not believe that the lynchpin of the house seemed to be the overdue and much anticipated bookcase that was finally delivered last week. One of my students kindly accompanied me into Malakal town on Wednesday. We did several errands, including the tailor, and then went to get the bookcase. The carpenter located us a donkey cart whose owner and driver both assured my student that they knew how to find my home.

James and I walked a few blocks and caught a taxi for the taxi system that runs up and down a main road that is very close to my home. We got to my house and James went out to locate the driver and owner and the donkey and the bookcase and bring them to the exact location and I waited...and waited...and waited.

At least two hours later James showed up at my gate. I had decided that I misunderstood him and he must have asked ME to go and wait for the donkey cart since he had not returned earlier. It turned out he had waited at the BAM Pharmacy, a great landmark on my street, He too had waited....and waited....and waited. When the cart didn’t appear after probably half and hour he started walking down the road towards town (this is a different road than the taxi road), thinking he would meet the cart on the way and be able to direct it from where he found it.

He ended up walking all the way back to the shop where the carpenter works. No donkey cart although the carpenter assured James that he knows the people. James told the folks at the shop that when they would see the cart, if it still had the bookcase, to tell them to leave the bookcase at the shop. He wanted a different donkey cart to bring it the second try!

So he came to my gate and relayed all this to me. Then he told me that he would go back to the shop the next morning. I was amazed at this man who was going to make sure that what he had begun with me, getting my bookcase delivered, was going to be completed by George! We figured the cart either got lost, or the folks stole the bookcase, or perhaps they’d been in an accident.

The next day we found out that the cart had been lost. I’ve now had one cart make it to the house while I am and another student took a taxi. One cart where a student accompanied the cart and the other student went with me in the taxi. And another cart that got lost. I think the plan now is to stick closer to the carts....

At any rate, the drama was soon over and the bookcase was in its new home in one of the rooms in my house. And very quickly it was filled with books! Five containers full of books went into the shelves of the new bookcase! And suddenly the room became exceedingly more organized, it was like a miracle as the pieces fell together....I was able to clear out the middle of the room because the boxes were now empty....boxes are around the periphery of the room in an orderly fashion and I feel like the house is becoming a home! The bedroom is organized and really the only thing that would be different in the states is that I would have a chest of drawers (instead things are on a piece of glass with a covering that is resting on two upside down lidless containers) and in three trunks. And I would have a closet...instead the clothes are hung neatly on a clothesline on hangars across the width of the veranda on one end.

With the glass that is covered with a quilt that is covered with jewelry, etc., a smaller table was able to go to the “living room”, aka a veranda....the Katadyn went on that and the wood crate that the Katedyn had been on went over with the clothes on the side of the veranda which has a working electrical outlet. Now I can use something besides a plastic stool to cook on when I have electricity. All in all, a great deal of progress! When Mama is happy, everyone is happy! The more organized the house the more organized the Dissertation Proposal....go figure!

My students have cause for celebration as last week the Administration of the Nile Theological College made the decision to close this semester a month early. I had already planned to leave a month early as I have to get two and a half months of Mission Interpretation done in the United States and still get back to Malakal in time for Winter Semester, 2012 which begins in September. So this is not of advantage to ME, it sure is to the students though! There was a lot of whooping and hollering with joy around the college last week!

I preached this past Sunday and was honored by the congregation giving me three gifts that the women in particular had been involved in making. This was the church that I have been attending. I am saddened by the soon to happen transfer of the woman minister of the church, I had enjoyed very much having a female in charge! I hope that my own continued presence will be an encouragement for the women.

There was an unplanned (at least I hadn’t known about it) lunch at someone’s house after church and I was able to vocalize a concern that I have. I am trying to express to the leader’s of the church here that ordination is gift-based and not gender based.
Why should uneducated men be ordained but women are required to be educated? Make the requirements the same. Either no education required, but if there is education wonderful! Or education required for both and help the women with the additional roadblocks that they face as wives and mothers. There are no women that I have met yet in Malakal who are not wives and mothers.
Blessings,
Debbie

Easter in Malakal!

Dear Friends,
Blessings to you on this Gregorian calendar Easter, April 8, 2012.

I attended a Unity Worship service this morning...apparently there were three churches together in the yard at the BAM Center....this is the center which hosts, among others, the Nile Theological College.

As I listened to the drums helping the singers keep rhythm I realized again that there was no keyboard -- and I like not having a keyboard. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a piano in South Sudan, they are probably too expensive, and certainly I have never seen an organ. Keyboards are rare but present.

I watched the children today especially. I have heard that children have absolute authority over the children who are younger than they are. That appeared to be true. Lots of little kids being carried in the arms of slightly older kids who had to keep shifting the weight of the little kids on their hips, they were probably really a little too heavy to be carrying.

At the end of the service some of the children did a beautiful presentation for the church -- probably some mother’s were involved in doing their best to create costume’s that gave some cohesion to the group. I saw a lot of what looked like the embroidered sheets and pillowcases (incredibly beautiful embroidery in lovely, lovely colors) that were being used as skirts. The idea seemed to be white on the bottom and red on top.
There were three older girls who it appeared had been in charge of the children learning dance movements with their feet and hands as well as the words to the song. They herded their little charges along very well, it really reminded me in some ways of Christmas pageants at home in the states....the director mouthing the words to the kids and the kids bright eyes upon the director and seeking direction out also from one another.

It is humbling to attend a worship service in another country and another tongue. I find myself thinking how it would have been done at “home” in the United States. Sometimes I miss the order and the liturgy, and the bulletin. On the other hand I know that this is for only a season of my life and I try and milk the time for everything it is worth. I know that there are many people in the world who will never be able to worship with another people group in another country on Easter.

It is difficult working on the Doctor of Theology in Missiology here. Right now I have disconnected the computer from its lifeline of the solar generator. I watch the percentage of time left go down and I know that if I write very much on this blog and we don’t have power tonight I will have to wait until tomorrow’s new supply of sunshine to do anything else.

It is very hot here. There really isn’t relief from the heat because I am living in a Nuer (one of the tribes) area and we have not been getting power consistently. I admit that when I decided to move to this house i thought that there would be power every night. It turns out that it is more like two to three times a week. This is not enough for a refrigerator, at least I don’t think so, and doesn’t help in the way of allowing me to use fans, swamp coolers or air conditioning. The water that I drink is hot.

The point of my sharing all of this with you is that i am finding it difficult to work on the Doctor of Theology in this heat. I also have moved into a family neighborhood. This is not a bad thing, it is kind of pleasant to have the sounds of everyday living all around me. It also means however that there are inconsolable crying babies, there are little children’s voices constantly in action, there are shrieks and laughter, and lots of adult conversations that I can’t understand late into the night. Last night the singing for Easter began by 3:30 a.m., maybe before that. Hard to sleep. Without sleep hard to work on the DTH.

There are so many new things that I observe everyday that I am eager to share with you, some of them I remember and others I don’t. What it is like when I go out the gate of my house and see the dirt road. How I get stared at, the people who are dressed differently than me even though I try to dress African. The donkey carts that are hauling water in large cylinders down the road. The groups of little children. They are so often dressed in what looks to be recycled Western clothing. I can’t figure out where it has come from. The culture here has an expectation of very large families and it must be very expensive to try to clothe all of the children who are produced. I consider it a miracle to see as many school uniforms as I do when I venture out around noontime. And I thank God for that miracle!

Tomorrow, God willing, someone from the college will take me to a tailor who works with clergy apparel. I have beautiful green material to be made into a top and a skirt to match the clergy outfit I had made in Ghana almost two years ago. When I am home this summer June - mid September I will be preaching and doing talks and I want to have another African clergy outfit to add to the one I already have. I’m also hoping that the tailor has other fabrics as I’ve realized how nice it would be to have clergy shirts made in the African style, with the special sleeve treatment available here, in many colors....I have a real problem in having only one suit (top and skirt) and one shirt with collar opening here. For instance, today at the Easter service most of the clergy were wearing their clergy collars. If I can have a pink, yellow, blue, green, etc., shirt made in African style then all I need is my jean skirt and I’ll be set to go when I need to look the part...so to speak.

I feel a need to dress as clergy here as often as possible so that the church sees that women clergy are a reality in God’s church, in Jesus’ realm. I was seated in the men’s seating at the service this morning. I didn’t protest because I realized they really wouldn’t know where else to put me. That is another of the things that is so eye opening to me. Families do not sit together, this church (in South Sudan, and possibly Africa in general) continues to be segregated.

It was a lovely service and it is clear that people love singing. The women’s group sings, the youth sings, the little children sing. This is their gift to God and to God’s people. Unfortunately my camera batteries died at the Easter Retreat on Friday that the college had. We have not had power for the past two nights and so I did not have a camera at church today. That was very hard!
Blessings,,
Debbie

Better Together

Dear Friends,
March greetings from Malakal! I do not know exactly what season we are in here but since the weather is into the 100’s (although probably under 110F) I presume it is not winter and probably not spring.

I returned from Ethiopia just under a month ago. It has been a busy month!

Last week I came down with a terrible sore throat and very swollen glands. One of my students took me to a doctor’s clinic and I was prescribed antibiotics which did not surprise me at all considering just how horrible I felt! I realized during the office visit, which was very brief, and then the finger poke for blood (I ended up screaming involuntarily because it hurt!) that diagnosis are done very differently here than in the states or even in China. The doctor asked me my symptoms and took my blood pressure. The rest of the work relied on the blood analysis which did show bacteria and of course explained why I felt so ill.

Based upon the results of the blood analysis the antibiotic was prescribed. So we went and got the antibiotics and then headed home. I was really dragging by then! Thankfully the medication kicked in and within a few days I was up and running again.

Yesterday, with faithful assistance from other students, I brought home a bed frame for my full size mattress that was hauled here by the college (Nile Theological College) from Khartoum. I no longer have to sleep on a mattress on the floor! The zipper on the mosquito net tent has stopped working and will need to be repaired so this new bed was none too soon!

The two rooms and veranda are beginning, bit by bit, to look like home. It is a challenge with no Target, Costco or Ikea nearby to accomplish this. The bed frame was brought home by donkey cart yesterday. Things move a lot more slowly by donkey than by truck.

Not having transportation of one’s own does create challenges here in Malakal. I have now learned that the taxis have specific routes in town. As long as one is going on their route the price is fairly inexpensive, say two (2) South Sudanese Pounds....a little less than $1. each way. However, if a person wants to deviate from the route and go someplace a block or two over, or to another part of town, the sky is the limit on the price and it will often shoot up to 30 or 40 pounds. In China the taxis used a meter and went everywhere, they may have had difficulty finding a place, but if they got lost they would usually reduce the price to compensate for time spent finding the place.

The best thing in the case of transport then is to only frequent places that are a direct route for the taxis, shop light, or expect to spend a lot of money. Clearly then as I furnish this new home I am spending quite a bit of money on transporting items to the house. There is no free delivery with purchase here.


For some reason this semester is longer than most of the semesters have been. I think it has something to do with working around rainy/muddy season. After this semester the seniors will have only two semesters left and, God willing, will graduate in June of 2013. I think that some of them have serious cases of senioritis already. Even in a well developed country with established infrastructure and routines it can be difficult to concentrate on college for four years, or more depending on how many classes one can take per year. Here in South Sudan, and especially with the disruption caused by the move from Khartoum last year of the English Track to Malakal, it becomes much more difficult to focus. Students are worried about their families. They are worried about finances. We have no printers and to make copies in town is very expensive. There is no lighting in the library which makes it hard to study. Some of the students receive only one meal a day to eat, that is the breakfast (around 10:00 a.m.) which the college provides....the students pay a small monthly fee for the meal.

God is faithful and gives us all strength for the journey and for each day. As my student’s often say when I ask how they are doing, “somehow”. Somehow we are all struggling through this together. We are stronger as a group than any of us individually. I think that is probably how Jesus planned it. When two or more are gathered in his name....
Blessings,
Debbie

March 14, 2012

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Malakal. We experienced a severe rain/wind/thunder and lightening storm here last night. I have never been alone in a house before during this kind of an event. I am grateful that God placed peace in my heart that I was not truly alone, Jesus through the Holy Spirit kept me company as the fury of nature’s wrath was unleashed all around my new little home and one side of the veranda flooded.

I had two visits this morning from three different people checking on me to make sure I was okay. That was awfully nice! Last night was a good preview of things to come and helped me to learn about the work that needs to be done on the house in order to be ship shape and battened down for the rainy/mud season that is soon to come.

In the two rooms of the house there are two windows in each. The bottom 2/3 of the window is covered with a double metal shutter. The top 1/3 however has no covering but mosquito netting and bars. The rain slashed in through those openings and I had to rescue several items in the library/storage room and get trunks buckled shut. I am really hoping that when I open the trunks of books that are located near the one of the windows that I will not find water logged pages. I now know that I will have to reorganize the room, placing boxes (plastic trunks) as far away from the windows as possible. I also have to get some kind of a covering for the top 1/3 of the windows. The bedroom did not fare as badly but it is mostly bare except for a mattress on the floor and a mosquito net tent placed upon the mattress. I hope and pray that a bed frame and clothing rack will be soon to come.

ln the larger community outside of my little life the storm was very destructive. There was a loss of life and at least one person was injured. Houses were destroyed and I have heard that many fences were blown down. There is no fury like a woman scorned? I beg to differ -- perhaps not worse but equal if the fury of the first storm of the season as it vents its power upon human beings and our perishable lives and structures.

I did realize last night that I have placed myself in a position where I am no longer on a compound shared with other people who I could shelter with if necessary. That was part of the sense of isolation last night. I am in a Nuer neighborhood and it is going to take time to get to the know the folks here. It isn’t the same as being in an ex-pat, foreigner neighborhood where we have history and heritage that gives us the commonality for relating to one another and quite often the English language in which to communicate, even if that language is a second language for many or some.

Life is different here. How to explain? It is slowly, bit by bit. Instead of looking at just today’s schedule and compartmentalizing I have to look at the week. What is to be accomplished in a week or a month? Things go along and somehow tasks get accomplished, it rarely works in a linear fashion and this takes some getting used to. I believe that the past ten year or so in my life have been preparation for this way of living in life. I have learned to be flexible, very, very flexible. In a country which is not developed there simply cannot be the expectations of a developed country in terms of life as clock work. It is more like circle work. It gets done when it gets down. Eventually.

Now, I will remind myself of that as I try to get help with having my solar generator reinstalled on the roof of the new house and the plastic on the windows -- both before rainy season which is approaching rapidly. Not to mention waiting for help from a computer expert for reinstalling the internet software on my Apple computer after a non Apple computer used it for over two weeks. I of course want technology instantly available as I know it can be. I’m not in Kansas anymore.....
Blessings,
Debbie

March 10, 2012

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Malakal! I am back in the hot and dusty little city, or big town, whichever way a person chooses to look at it.

The possibilities for mishaps on the way back yesterday were multiple. All things considered I made it back with a very small amount of drama. I do have a deep realization that one of the wounds in South Sudan from the many decades of civil war is that there is not an innate sense of being civil among the South Sudanese and certainly not with foreigners. When disembarking from the plane in Juba, which we must do due to a lack of coordination on the part of immigration officials (those who are going to Malkal should be able to have passports stamped in Malakal and not Juba) the passengers just kept going in the line, never stopping to ask if another person wanted to get out. It was better going to Malakal, there was more courtesy extended at the end of the long route.

Even though I had a valid visa and was making my single entry on that visa I was required to purchase another visa. $100. for one month. Very, very expensive. To give a comparison, Ethiopia is $20. for one month. I always have a feeling of pressure inside of me at immigration in Juba. There are no lines per se, it is a pushing match and people all sticking their passports at the ill equipped people working behind the counters. I am fully aware that I have less than an hour to get the visa stamped, pay the money, and have my luggage and person checked manually at two points before reboarding the airplane. It always feels like, and is, a race against time.

I got into Malkal during the daylight for which I was very thankful. Upon first sight of the new house I thought, oh dear Lord can I really do this for another three years? Do I really want to? After spending over two weeks in a nice house in Addis Ababa, a house with a proper bathroom and a kitchen that has a sink, running water and a stove I looked around at the cracked cement floors and ripped plastic shades on the veranda mosquito netting -- the area where light and air comes in can’t really be called windows, but it does sort of serve that function. I looked at it all and nearly wept.

Fortunately since my initial shock my sense of adventure has begun to return. The house is not good as houses go. However, it is a fine camping house for a church camp site, and it is also a good cabin in the woods.....so I just have to put my imagination cap on and the view becomes very much better!

The new Western toilet works, more or less, meaning some local adjustments have needed to be made on it but it does work. The shower is in place and today workers came and began work on getting a storage tank on top of the shower room. They will come back tomorrow and, I sincerely hope, finish the project. I am going to have to miss church which is a pity.

I have discovered that just about my first priority is finding someone to help me clean the house and do laundry. When the house is dusty I can’t think clearly to organize it.

I can’t access internet for the time being, so this post will be posted later. When I loan my modem to other people it doesn’t work for me again until an Apple expert has reinstalled the system. I was able to get on once yesterday in the early evening and all subsequent attempts have failed.

I’ve got to get charcoal very soon as I have realized that is one of the things that I left at the old house and must retrieve shortly...right now I have no way to cook anything....although in 41C weather the water is generally hot enough to do some good. The tough part is having nothing cold. At the old house there was a freezer and for me there was nothing better on God’s green earth than that very cold water. Sigh.
Blessings,
Debbie

March 7, 2012

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Addis Ababa!

My time here is running short. Tomorrow is my last full day and then Friday I head to the airport in the morning and back to South Sudan. Prayerfully I will make it to Malakal on Friday as there are possible visa challenges and/or flight challenges facing me once I make it to Juba. Actually, the first challenge will be at the airport when I find out if the visa that was obtained for me in Malakal before I began my journey at the end of February will be sufficient to get me back into South Sudan in the first place. This is a good time to remember to eat breakfast, have a cuppa joe, and stay calm. I also need to remember to pack my scissors in the check in bag and not accidentally leave them in my carry on this time! I’ve lost a good metal nail file and a good pair of small scissors in the last few months by forgetting to pack them in the right place.

Tomorrow is my last day in Addis until June when I plan to pass through here on my way back to the states for about three months. I’ll only be in Addis for maybe two days, long enough to be sure that I won’t have problems with connecting flights and to pick up extra luggage that is packed and ready to go back to Seattle from Addis.

I plan to return to South Sudan in early September and may not be returning to Addis until December for Christmas. So tomorrow will be a day of good byes and packing. I am allowed 30 kilos going on Ethiopian Airlines from Addis to Malakal. I really do hope that the flight through to Malakal is still happening. If I have to take a local South Sudanese carrier such as Kush from Juba to Malakal I have a feeling that I won’t be allowed 30 kilos and then I am going to have to figure out how to approach that challenge. It may be that I’ll be knocking on the gate at the Mission Aviation Fellowship in Juba asking them to deliver my 30 kilo suitcase to Malakal on the next flight that they take there!

So, packing, good byes and last minute eating of things-that-I-cannot-eat-in Malkal are first and foremost on my list for tomorrow. We are enjoying a pan of Giralldi (probably the wrong spelling) brownies here since yesterday. Oh my gosh are they good! I think I am going to bring some back with me in September because I am pretty sure I can cook them in the solar cooker I plan to bring back with me.

This has been a good R & R and I feel more ready to begin life in my new house in Malakal now. This will be the first time I will be facing a full three month stretch there and in the midst of it the rainy season will begin. As I am gaining experience in living in a town that is so different from anyplace I’ve ever lived before my confidence is increasing in terms of handling the different situations that arise. I’ve had some practice now with using a charcoal stove so I know that I can make that flame again that will light the charcoal and I should be able to get it hot enough to get water boiled. The more the successes with everyday life the less dramatic the failures are. I still cannot envision life without a sink and yet that life is coming in about two days!
Blessings,
Debbie

It's Almost Friday....

Dear Friends,
Greetings from Addis Ababa!

My time here is running short. Tomorrow is my last full day and then Friday I head to the airport in the morning and back to South Sudan. Prayerfully I will make it to Malakal on Friday as there are possible visa challenges and/or flight challenges facing me once I make it to Juba. Actually, the first challenge will be at the airport when I find out if the visa that was obtained for me in Malakal before I began my journey at the end of February will be sufficient to get me back into South Sudan in the first place. This is a good time to remember to eat breakfast, have a cuppa joe, and stay calm. I also need to remember to pack my scissors in the check in bag and not accidentally leave them in my carry on this time! I’ve lost a good metal nail file and a good pair of small scissors in the last few months by forgetting to pack them in the right place.

Tomorrow is my last day in Addis until June when I plan to pass through here on my way back to the states for about three months. I’ll only be in Addis for maybe two days, long enough to be sure that I won’t have problems with connecting flights and to pick up extra luggage that is packed and ready to go back to Seattle from Addis.

I plan to return to South Sudan in early September and may not be returning to Addis until December for Christmas. So tomorrow will be a day of good byes and packing. I am allowed 30 kilos going on Ethiopian Airlines from Addis to Malakal. I really do hope that the flight through to Malakal is still happening. If I have to take a local South Sudanese carrier such as Kush from Juba to Malakal I have a feeling that I won’t be allowed 30 kilos and then I am going to have to figure out how to approach that challenge. It may be that I’ll be knocking on the gate at the Mission Aviation Fellowship in Juba asking them to deliver my 30 kilo suitcase to Malakal on the next flight that they take there!

So, packing, good byes and last minute eating of things-that-I-cannot-eat-in Malkal are first and foremost on my list for tomorrow. We are enjoying a pan of Giralldi (probably the wrong spelling) brownies here since yesterday. Oh my gosh are they good! I think I am going to bring some back with me in September because I am pretty sure I can cook them in the solar cooker I plan to bring back with me.

This has been a good R & R and I feel more ready to begin life in my new house in Malakal now. This will be the first time I will be facing a full three month stretch there and in the midst of it the rainy season will begin. As I am gaining experience in living in a town that is so different from anyplace I’ve ever lived before my confidence is increasing in terms of handling the different situations that arise. I’ve had some practice now with using a charcoal stove so I know that I can make that flame again that will light the charcoal and I should be able to get it hot enough to get water boiled. The more the successes with everyday life the less dramatic the failures are. I still cannot envision life without a sink and yet that life is coming in about two days!
Blessings,
Debbie