Halfway Home

The serenity of the River Nile in Juba.

Wow (not to be confused with Wau, the capital of Western Bahr el Ghazal State in South Sudan, as was the case in so many of my conversations over the past couple weeks).  That one word sums up my life since I last wrote a few weeks ago, encompassing all of the intensely wonderful, saddening, and frightening experiences I had.  I came back here to Kenya earlier than I originally had planned, but only because things actually went a lot faster than I anticipated they would or could, leaving me in the position I only hoped I could be in after twice the two weeks I spent in South Sudan.  Having never been involved in starting something absolutely from scratch, with only vague ideas and zero contacts, I found myself somewhat discouraged the first few days I was there, during which time I was simply walking around trying to familiarize myself with the town of Juba more than doing anything that felt productive.  I kept telling myself that I was there primarily to learn, and only if an opportunity presented itself would I pursue a project.  Once we met a certain man at the hotel we were staying at, things really began to fall into place and roll quickly.  Before we knew it, we were at a gigantic Anglican church with his family on Palm Sunday, were moving from the hotel to a room on one of his properties in town, and were meeting all the people we were seeking and many others we didn’t even know we wanted to meet yet.  You know that strange feeling when you connect unusually quickly and strongly with someone?  Well, that is what I felt with this man’s entire family – himself, his wife, his son and two daughters, and even his brother and nephew.  He is a prominent doctor and business man in the country, is friends with all the leaders in both the north and the south, and is even president of the Sudanese Basketball Association, which meant he could connect us with pretty much anyone he felt could help further our understanding of the country and also set me up to play in the basketball league in Juba.  I was only able to play once, but had a blast as the shortest and palest player on the court, and look forward to playing more when I return in June.  He said he will register me on his team so I can play whenever I am around.  I am pretty sure I am the first white man since Kevin Bacon to play in the Sudanese basketball league (sorry if you didn’t get the “The Air Up There” reference).  After spending days chasing elusive meetings with country leaders, with just a few phone calls by our new doctor friend, we were sitting with countless village elders, county commissioners, members of parliament, national ministers, and even the former vice-president of all of Sudan.

Giving my speech to the elders of Adior, a village outside of Yirol.  I am locking arms here with my new friend, Cheran, to demonstrate my point that if you link up and work together with your neighbor, regardless of which tribe they are from or what they have done to you in the past, you both become stronger.

I can’t even begin to explain how impacting and intense it was to be sitting with these people and the people in the communities they represent, talking through their experiences and their now optimistic visions for the future, following a 99% vote for secession from the north in the referendum in January of this year.  The former vice-president was intimately involved in all of the discussions that finally lead to the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005, which made the referendum possible this year, so hearing his insights was really fascinating.  For those of you who haven’t read about it, Southern Sudan will officially separate from Sudan and become an independent country on July 9^th of this year, hopefully putting an end once and for all to the conflict between the mostly Muslim north and the mostly Christian and Animist south, though religion isn’t the end all of the friction between the two.  That remains to be seen, but so far it has been startlingly peaceful in the transitional period.  I have read so much about the conflict of the past twenty-plus years, so to be finally be walking through and sitting in the villages that hosted it, and the especially to be chatting with the people who carried it out was incredibly impacting.  Simply put, all of Southern Sudan was an absolute war zone for decades, apparently leaving no corner untouched by the conflict.  Anyone who refused to leave their home and become part of the more than 2 million refugees fleeing to surrounding countries inherently became a soldier, which has produced more than a generation of people who know only the fight or flight system all too well.  They have either learned how to take and carry out unimaginable orders or flee and rely on donations for survival.  I talked with countless men who fought in the first Sudanese Civil War, which began in 1955, and then found themselves fighting again in the second war, which began in 1983 after an eleven year ceasefire between the two.  Though it has been years since the CPA was signed and the fighting effectively ended in the south, the pain and anger is still very evident on their faces and in their voices as they talk of their experiences and what they have been fighting for for far too long.  The good news is that sprinkled in with this pain and anger, there is now hope and optimism that they will finally see peace and autonomy for their children and grandchildren. 

Greeting the wonderful children in Adior.  If only I got the kind of reception from everyone that I get from the kids here.

I have been desensitized to a lot of the suffering I have seen in the past few years, and have learned to very much live in the moment with the people I am with, saving the tears for later when I am alone, but I found myself having to drop my head and pretend a bug or some dust had flown into my eyes more than a few times during these conversations.  This was especially challenging as I was surrounded by evidence that their struggle was just beginning in many ways, as they now face the daunting challenge of rebuilding their communities and developing with minimal resources.  When in the villages of central South Sudan, I saw more underdeveloped naked bodies with swollen bellies than I care to recollect, making it increasingly difficult for me to justify that I was simply a visitor who would go back to Juba, to Kenya, and ultimately back to the comforts of home in Seattle, surrounded by friends and family and only missing a meal when I chose to or when a bug temporarily entered my system.  We even stopped at a UNHCR camp for returnees to the south, who, unfortunately, became overexcited when the referendum passed and returned to their “homeland” to find that they no longer have claim to the land they owned when they fled years earlier.  I don’t understand the situation all that well, but it sounds like no one had documented legal ownership of the land they called theirs, which was just understood within each community to belong to different families.  When the families fled and their villages were obliterated by the war, they effectively forfeited ownership of their now unrecognizable land.  Since the referendum in January, thousands of people have excitedly returned to their areas expecting to find everything as it was and many systems in place to help them start over, only to find that it is now barren or has been taken over by people who stayed behind or beat them back home.  I cannot imagine the heartbreak they faced when they endured the 10-day bus ride from Khartoum or surrounding countries only to find that they are now in a desert with nothing of their own and only hope for food donations to sustain them.  When we pulled into the camp, I saw two big buildings for sleeping, made of tree branches and “UNHCR” emblazoned plastic sheets, a row of pit latrines, a few bath rooms made of large market bags, and a large pile of garbage, mostly consisting of tins of WFP donated food.  I was stunned to see that this was the dreamland these people had returned to after almost certainly living in refugee camps abroad for years.  I was even more stunned when hundreds of smiling faces came out to greet us.  There were plenty of Wazungu (white people) in Juba, but I hadn’t seen a single once since we arrived in Lakes State, though I am sure there must be some around, so I was hoping these people weren’t putting too much hope in me bringing some resources or good news for them.  I had neither.  Since none of them spoke English or Kiswahili, I found myself in the familiar territory of respectfully greeting the adults and goofing around with the kids.  As hard as it is to face the reality of these kinds of situations (believe me, I understand my facing it observationally is nothing compared to them having to face it as their existence), I have learned to accept that I cannot solve their problems for them, as much as I desperately want to.  What I can do is acknowledge their humanity and connect with them on that level, which usually takes shape in being incredibly goofy and doing whatever I can to get a laugh out of the kids.  When I do this, the adults usually take notice and join in, and everyone forgets about their problems for a few minutes.  Since I humbly accept that I cannot solve their problems immediately, I figure that is the greatest gift I can give to them in that moment.  It really makes you take stock of your life and think about the meaning of it all when you share unadulterated joy and laughter with a group of people who are so different from yourself in so many ways, in such a grim situation, not even knowing if or when their next meal will come and with seemingly no prospect for a fruitful future.  I have been for years, and continue to be absolutely amazed at the strength and resilience of the human spirit.

The kids at the UNHCR camp in Yirol.  I was trying to teach them how to turn their hands upside down to make glasses, but you can tell none of them really got it figured out.  Just look at their beautiful smiles and all your problems will melt away.

Speaking of the resilience of the human spirit, I have an agreement with my mom, bless her heart, that whenever I am planning to do or happen to encounter something that will make her worry about my safety, I cannot tell her about it until I am through it safe and sound.  Though I know this is just her next best option in her concession that I am not going to stop encountering these situations in the life I have chosen to lead, I think it is a pretty good deal for both of us.  I seriously debated not telling her the stories I am about to share with you all, but I figured if I just put a warning in here for her to skip the next couple paragraphs, it would be a lot like telling someone who is afraid of heights to not look down when they are walking along the edge of a cliff.  So I called her last night from the safety of my room in Kenya and told her about two of the most frightening experiences of my life, one of which had me really believing I had reached the end.  I know I am overly dramatic a lot, but I sincerely mean that this time.  So, Mama, I am glad we could have a laugh about it all last night and now you won’t be surprised when you read the following.  The first story, which is the one that had me mentally running through my life and deciding whether I was satisfied with how it had gone or not, began in the middle of our second night in our new place on the doctor’s property in Juba.  It is a small gated compound consisting of a u-shaped series of prefabricated, construction-site-like rooms.  There were nine rooms in total, seven of which were occupied with people of vastly varying nationalities and situations.  On either side of the room I was sleeping in, there were three Egyptian brothers and a single Indian man.  Across the way was a group of young Sudanese and Ugandan boys, and at the far end were two Sudanese, one a police officer and the other a casual laborer.  Everyone was very friendly, though only only very limited and broken English and Kiswahili were spoken.  On our second night there, after a very long and positive day, a Kenyan friend about my age and I lied down in our beds on the floor, tucked our mosquito nets around us, and settled in for what we imagined would be a long and peaceful night’s rest.  About two hours into that peaceful night’s rest, we were torn from our deep sleep by blood-curdling screaming in Arabic and our door being literally kicked in.  We both leapt to our feet after untangling ourselves from our mosquito nets and prepared to fight whatever insurgence had just made its way into our room.  Keep in mind that it was about 12:30am and was absolutely pitch black, so we couldn’t see a thing other than a dark figure standing at our door.  Since neither of us speaks Arabic, we also couldn’t understand what he was screaming at us.  I will never forget the sound or the word of his high pitched shrieking though – “Fatar! Fatar! Fatar!”  In my foggy-minded stupor, I was certain he was either preparing to fight or die, or, more likely, both. After what seemed like an hour, but was likely 20 seconds, we finally turned on our flashlights and shown them on the man at the door, only to discover that he was covering a gaping wound on the back of his head with both hands.  As he continued to shout expectantly at us, and as blood continued to fill the doorway, I became concerned for the man, confused about whether he was wanting help or wanting to fight, and nauseous at the sight and smell of it all.  I tried to grab a t-shirt of mine to help him stop the bleeding, but as I approached him he shouted louder and more desperately, so I backed away, still unsure of what his intent was.  After what felt like another hour, but again was likely less than a minute, during which time I seriously contemplated finding my phone to call my mom and say goodbye, the boys from across the way came over and grabbed him, spoke to him in Arabic and took him to the field in the middle of the compound.  He quieted down for a few seconds, until a soldier rushed in from outside the compound with his AK-47, inciting more excited yelling from the man.  The soldier burst into our room pointing his gun around for a few seconds before running back out to the scene in the field.  After a few minutes, the injured man was being carried off to the hospital and one of the young Egyptians was being arrested.  We sat in our room for about 10 minutes, mostly silent and pacing and looking out the window for any signs of a continuation of the madness, considering whether we should stay inside and wait for the sun to come up, grab our essentials and make a run for it, or go talk to the others outside.  When we were confident the episode was over, I persuaded my friend into going out to talk to the others to see what had happened, and make sure there was no misunderstanding that we were somehow involved in it.  I feared that, since the man had been standing at our door, the neighbors may think that we had been the ones who attacked him, which would almost certainly, I was convinced, mean some sort of retaliation from them.  We did our best to step around the blood as we walked out to greet them, and luckily they had no inclination that we had been involved.  I was so thankful for their graciousness as they offered me one of their chairs and sat with us for over an hour, listening to our concerns and telling us what they knew and saw.  As it turns out, the young man who was arrested was not involved, but it was his two older brothers who had been involved in a fight that eventually led to one of them attacking the other with a machete, which explains the nasty head wound.  They had been fighting in the next room over from us, and when the man was attacked, his brother fled and climbed over the wall “like a monkey,” as it was explained to me later by the young Sudanese boys, which is why the injured man came to our door, the nearest one to his, and kicked it in.  I was told later that Fatar was the name of his brother, but since I have been informed that it is a declaration of war.  I am still not quite sure, but I definitely will never forget the sound of the word.  Apparently what the injured man was yelling when the soldier showed up meant something along the lines of, “Kill my brother, go find him and shoot him!”  That explains why the soldier came busting into our room with his gun drawn, as I am sure he just followed the trail of blood.  After talking with the neighbors for a while, everyone calmed down and became tired enough to retire to their rooms once again.  I didn’t find more than a wink of sleep the whole rest of the night, as even when my eyelids became heavy and took an extended blink, I was startled awake by a small sound of the wind or an animal outside.  We moved rooms the next day and had no further incidents the rest of the stay, and I am happy to report that the man who was attacked returned from the hospital a few days later, battered and bandaged, but, miraculously, alive.  I really didn’t think he would make it.  The attacker has not been seen since, and the two others staying with him were kicked out of the compound.  The whole experience really brought the rest of us together, so I am confident there will not be a repeat of anything remotely close to this.  Let me save the other story for later since this entry is getting pretty long, but just know that, obviously, I survived.  It wasn’t quite as intense and was a whole different setting.  Though it didn’t have me seriously thinking I was at the end of the road, it definitely left me thankful to be alive.  I will tell you all someday.

The evening hustle and bustle at Lake Yirol.  This is what sustains Yirol Town and surrounding villages, as most people come here for their water, baths, and fishing for food and income.

Within all the emotionally and physically (the heat and bugs are relentless, and I caught some sort of stomach bug for almost the entirety of my stay there) difficult situations I encountered, there was a lot of promise for future involvement.  The places we visited in Yirol, in Lakes State, really grabbed a hold of my heart and imagination, so I plan to put together an outline of my ideas that I will share with the doctor and former vice-president when I go back in June, in hopes that they will give me their input and will agree to partner with me in making them a reality.  I have already shared them with the doctor and he told me that he would love to look for some land to work with and schedule meetings with the right people when I come back.  I obviously make no promises, but within a few months hopefully we will have some solid plans and you all will have a video of these wonderful people telling you their story and asking for your partnership as they look to rebuild their communities.  I would love your prayers and support as I navigate the planning stage of this very challenging process.  Let me end by just sharing my gratitude for everyone that has been supporting me in so many different ways along this journey.  I am halfway home now, with my flight from Nairobi to JFK three months from today, and as I reflect on the first half and look forward to the second, I want to acknowledge all of you and thank you from the bottom of my constantly breaking and growing heart.  Without each one of you, none of what has been accomplished would have been possible, and none that is still waiting to be accomplished would have a chance.  So on that note, be good to yourselves and those around you.

Hooping it up with my new teammates on the nicest court I have seen in Africa.  If you can't pick me out in the photo, I will give you a hint - I am white and under 6'5".