More on South Africa.

August 12, 2013

I am back at the guesthouse in Pretoria today.  I find my heart crying for South Sudan.  Coming back from Johannesburg was a world much like the United States.  Large cities where the outskirts basically blend the cities together, going from one to the other the only way a person can really tell the change is that at some point the buildings become more sparse.  Freeways and freeway signs abound, as do overpasses and vehicles. 

I assume that even South Africa has pockets of deep poverty hidden away in small villages that exist somewhere in such a large country.  I didn’t see anything like what exists in South Sudan.  In all honesty I have seen only Juba and Malakal in the South.  Juba is not nearly as massive as Johannesburg or Pretoria; it is however much more developed than Malakal. 

What hurt me the most was Soweto.  I could see that the people there definitely live a different life than the people in the neighborhood I am in here in Pretoria.  One begins to “see” the lack of educational opportunities in the kinds of clothing that are worn, in the weariness on faces, in the way that people clump together outside of neighborhoods.  Even in this economically disadvantaged area I did not see anything like the kind of poverty that we live with as “normal” in Malakal.  And frankly the most stressful and visually clear poverty I have ever seen in all my years of traveling and cross-cultural experiences were in a town in Mexico in 2005.  Not having lived in the town, only being a visitor, I don’t have an intimate knowledge of that poverty.

I found a woman at the Conference who has been in South Sudan and understood the things that I was saying.  I didn’t receive an invitation for Easter.  After church I went home.  Alone.  This woman told me that South Sudan is not typical of Africa, due to the amount of trauma that the country has experienced and not receiving an invitation to someone’s home is a part of that trauma.  I shared with her about people, both adults and children, using the streets of Malakal as a toilet.  I have seen adults using the streets, or the large empty fields as well, as toilets.  At one point when I was ill and a colleague took me to a clinic in the town the doctor talked to me about how unsanitary Malakal is.  He mentioned the fact that people defecate in the streets.  I know.  I have witnessed this.

As she said, it will take Malakal, and South Sudan, many many years to catch up to the development of other parts of Africa.  And this means catching up in many, many ways.  Developmentally the social, emotional and spiritual aspects of human existence must grow as well as the ability of the government to educate all of the girls and boys in the country.  The infrastructure must grow as well, including a system of roads and increasing food security.  People don’t want to grow crops because someone else will likely steal what they grow.  If what they grow remains in their own hands there are few ways to get excess to market, as there are not paved roads to access other locations.  Rainy season renders the soil of South Sudan impassable and crops rot in the places they have been stored.   I was asked if I knew of any women in South Sudan who would want to participate in the work of the Circle.  Not yet.  It is going to take time to bring the education levels up to the point of participation in the kind of work that the Circle, and other organizations, do.  The awareness that Theological Education is for females as well as males is going to have to be developed as well.  I am not sure that we will have any female students at the Nile Theological College this coming academic year, and no one but myself seems to find that incredulous. 

My heart weeps for Malakal and for South Sudan.  Prayers abound that change will be more readily sought and seen.

Blessings,

Debbie