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