Our Voting Is Done in Public

The kind of work that I do here in Sudan’s Northern Bahr el Ghazal State can be very stressful. I am trying to establish systems that aren’t there. I work from village to village facilitating village development committees, known as Community Action Groups (CAGs). The word to underscore there is “action”. I emphasize on this because leadership is slightly misunderstood here. To some, leadership means giving peoples instructions and boosting them around. And this is commonly practice in Dinka communities. I say this because am a Dinka and understand the concept well. I must point out though; the concept of leadership is also understood differently among the village illiterates.
Traditionally, leaders who won hearts and minds of their followers were those who demonstrated spirit of shared responsibilities. As far as I can remember, when I was a young boy growing up in the village, I witnessed some pretty impressive layers of Dinka’s leadership. There were leaders in what they called “Beny Wur” also known in other Dinka’s version as “nhom e Gol”. This is a position attains when one shows these two traits; a good wrestler with many herds of cows. You have to be also generous to help the needy ones at times when your help is needed. The other area one becomes a leader is the village. In many cases, village is where elders retire in. Cattle camps are left for young energetic people who are able to take cattle grazing in some distance places. It’s also a place where young Dinka boys and girls are sent to learn some useful live skills there. While in the village, elder now practice farming to support their livelihoods as well as that of those in the cattle camps in cases where there are few or no lactating cows. But, more importantly, the village is where important issues are discussed and resolved. In other words, even those in the cattle camps are within the jurisdiction of village chiefs.
This traditional leadership is less corrupt and more caring then what is seen with more affluent leaders. In fact, village chiefs were used and still are used for levying taxes. There is usually a great accountability and transparency in the way they do their things. Many issues are discussed in a caucus of elders (chiefs) and disseminated in the same manner.
So when I say “leadership means giving peoples instructions and boosting them around”, it is in the context of elites. This is why word “action” becomes a centerpiece of my discussion when I do community mobilization. Additionally, I am dealing with communities devastated by war and sense of self-reliance has been completely shattered. Their independent live style has been replaced by relief services in the last twenty two years. People have gotten used to free things that it has become a detriment to their own livelihoods.
That is why I am focusing on establishing these action groups. As part of the USAID program to create sustainable livelihoods in these villages, my work is to make this goal achievable. I have my team of community development stationed in the counties that our program operates in. This was to maintain visibility and closeness with these communities. Besides, I get immediate feedbacks from them about what the community thinks about our work. So far this had worked.
But, the most important strategy has been election of the members. To able to form a Community Action Group (CAG), there are few things that are done before. First, we employed the widely known development methodologies known as Appreciative Inquiry (AI) and Appreciative Planning & Action (APA). These methodologies stimulate the community’s curiosity, which, therefore, calls for action. At that point, the idea becomes locally born and is immediately own by them. The call for action is that members have to be elected by the community. Perhaps, I have mentioned in my previous article, that these gatherings are attended by a number between 200 to 300 villagers. As such gatherings are new in many of these areas; they draw people of different ages and sexes. In election, members are first nominated by the assembly and then elected through plurality.
I must point out that our elections, although quite remote a process, are the most transparent you can ever ask for. Candidates are lined up, and general assembly chooses by lining behind a candidate of choice. Given the communal way of live in these communities, it must be hard to show favor in public. At first, I feared this would be the case. But, it never did. Almost everyone who attends these gatherings tends to vote. This is why I think we have just established “a brave democracy”. We do not need secret valets here!

Becoming A Star!

Abel Mote keeps reminding me that I run a risk of losing my audience if I don’t update my blog soon. This has been my worry all along. I never anticipate that I will never have personal time to write! This is because, even with greater effort I put to meet every dateline I set for my project, I still find myself way behind. First of all, I traveled to the States and stayed there for more than a month. And recently, I got a medical condition that kept me away for treatment for about two weeks. And then there are some other programmatic delays. All these have made me feel like I am chasing a train that has already pulled away from the station…not quite…maybe I feel like boarding and discovered that the Charlie card is missing; and now feel disorganized completely! I am trying to catch up with everything. So, I must say, this is the reason you have not heard from me, my dear readers. But I will keep my promise to give you updates as much as I can and as time allows.
So here are some few updates. I have come to like my work so much. Being a community organizer feels unique in its own way. You have to be ready for disappointments as well as excitements. It brings you closer to common man—mankind, no offend!! I see real desperations as well as optimisms in the eyes of people on daily basis. But, what is so rewarding about this kind of work is that I feel like am sowing seeds of development as well as roots of progress in the villages I work in. My community development portfolio aims to establish what we called Community Action Groups (CAGs) and Women Support Groups. These are provisional councils of Bomas. A Boma is a small, but bigger than a village, administrative entity within a Payam. And a Payam is an administrative boundary lower than a County. Sorry for all these Southern Sudanese terms!
To get a community action group, I do multiple visits to the village where the CAG/WSG is to be established. I meet with villagers, chiefs, and local government officials. In these meetings, I make sure it clear to everyone who different our approach to development is from development during war times: Building Responsibility for the Delivery of Government Services (BRIDGE) is to change things from relief times to sustainable development. My project is to create that sustainability at the community level. My goal is to assist these communities to own development of their own villages so that nonprofit organizations don’t worry about long term sustainability.
This ownership starts with members of the community elected to a CAG/WSG. These elections draw very large crowd. For many in these communities, elections are new phenomenon. Everyone is excited to be part of this new thing. People line up behind their candidates of their choice. In one of the Bomas that I my team has established a CAG/WSG, something fascinating to watch happened. A woman candidate was neck and neck to a man. This was especially interesting given the culture here: patriarchy. A man later won 107 to 103 votes. I really was hoping the woman win; people in this particular Boma continue to amaze me, nevertheless.
I feel am becoming a star in doing this community mobilization activities. I just find it interesting to standing in front of 200-300 people, and to explain to them how development of their communities must come from them. I share with them my experiences and what I have seen in all the places I have been to. Sometimes, I surprise myself when people give me round of applause every time I open my mouth! But, what is important to me is my conviction to them—my people. I want to see that they change from the state of dependency to become self-reliance. This, I believe, will be achieved when these communities realized their potential and work with these action groups to initiate process of development.

Me and My Money-belt

I did not want to appear stringent. But promoting corruption is not something I would ever encourage either. Plus, I was already feeling anxious about the prospect of my money-belt being stolen. I had made a grave, soon to be regretted, mistake by pulling out my money-belt, fearing it would trigger security alarm at the security check –in. While I was getting ready to pass through the checkpoint, between two to three guys crowded to help me to go through the security checkpoint. I wanted to tell them, “I have been here and I had gone through this checkpoint several times; back off!” But, as I was getting my perfume and other essentials out of my computer bag, one of the guys had already pushed, through into the baggage check machine, the tray I had placed both my watch and the money-belt. And more importantly, he went on to the other side of the checkpoint. I was still struggling to get off the rest of stuff that would trigger security alarm, when my most valuable item arrived on the other side of the conveyor belt.
When I arrived on that other side of the security checkpoint, the guy who went with my money-belt, more mysteriously, traded ways with me out. My fears got deeper. I wanted to start counting my money right there. But, I was also conflicted by this act. I did not want to appear either suspicious or showing off. And my more pessimist side told me, “If the guy stole the money, counting the remaining would not help bring back that which has been stolen”. This was the “inconvenient trust” part I had to come to term with.
So! Next, at the check-in desk, the attendant wanted to talk. I had excess luggage. I figured, “this must be kitu kidogo thing!” And this other guy, who was standing next to me, but different from the one at the security’s gate, said, “This is too much luggage, but we will talk”. I got confused. But, the lady at the desk really wanted to talk! She put the price at a hundred US dollar. This was just to bribe myself out!
I had emailed our office in Nairobi to inform them of my excess luggage out of Nairobi to Juba. And I was assured of this request, and out associate in Nairobi reminded me the night before my flight that “all is set for me to fly on the East African Express”. So when everyone appears eager to get my money, I told the attendant, “I was told excess luggage has been booked by our office here in Nairobi”. That got the attendant edgy. And the guy next to me set off for other lucks out there. I offered to call the person who booked the ticket. They wanted to call their office, instead. Nothing seems to be working out, so I went ahead and called our associate who later on contacted the airline. Problem solved! I was told to go ahead and enjoy my flight—to which, I responded, “I sure will!”
I understand you have to pay for an excess luggage anywhere in the world. But, I was deeply troubled by the way this whole thing was being handled. Also I understand those who were involved don’t get paid well enough, so they feel the need to make extra bucks where they can. Or, for some like the guy at the gate and at the desk, doing what they do is an employment in itself. In fact, my taxi was signaled to pull over by the police just as we were approaching the airport facility. The driver, knowing what exactly this policeman wants, lowers his right hand and drop what appeared to me like 50 ksh, and said, “Here you go boss!” Honestly, I do feel sorry for them.
I am, however, a strong believer in legal system. Inadequate is not a good reason to keep beating the system. If I were to pay a hundred bucks, I need a receipt. Plus, I wanted to make sure I don’t double pay, even if this were at all genuine procedures!! That was my introduction to Africa. I only have few hours left to fly to my final destination. Till then, I hope.

The Roundabouts

Some of you may be wondering why I haven’t been posting blogs for this long. And I must apologize for having introduced you and promise to keep feeding you back some description of my Sudan’s stay and about my work. Things have been incredibly busy here. Just to get my project rolling, I have been running here and there between governments and NGOs offices and from county to county and from Boma (village) to Boma. So I am taking this little time, 7 am in the morning, to try to fulfill my promise to you: to write at least one blog for this month. I am also doing my master’s paper and it’s not fun!!

In my first to trip to one of the counties I will be working in, Aweil North, I saw these hilarious scenes of roundabouts. This area is mostly populated by returnees. Years before the war and years after, the Arabs sponsored militia has been operating here. Literally, they are equivalent of current Janja weed operations in Darfur. Even the locals here call them jur aa jiewak (people of the horse). They are raided cattle, abducted children and women (in most cases the rapped them). I heard grim stories of how the lynched people here during the war. This was good enough a recipe for complete desertion of the area. So when war came to an end just about four years ago, people who survived these atrocities quickly came back to settle in their places. And with the creation of the semi-autonomous government of South Sudan, they started to design administrative boundaries between states, counties, and payam. This also meant creation of local governments for these administrative entities. Now begin the real development. They started making roads. By the way, as a side note, this roads construction caused great destruction in many of the villages in Aweil areas. The road construction company literally thwarted waterways and creating no passage for the water to flow. In places where they should have built bigger culverts, they put in place something that looks like an open barrel of oil on both ends. These were not enough to drain water away fast. So the water decided to show its might: whole of Aweil town and the surrounding was underwater in the last rainy season. This is not meant to bore you; I am trying to put this into development’s perspectives. Once can see clear neglect this whole entire story. This can be an example of where consultation has gone terribly wrong. Either the road construction company failed, out of ignorance, to consult with local communities or they just cared about achieving their goals of building roads to be paid their contract agreement’s money.

So as I was driving north of Aweil town to Gok-Machar, administrative head of Aweil North County, I saw another example of failure of this roads construction company to consult with communities. Huts after huts were sitting in the middle of the road. When I talk about roads, I mean piles of mud compacted hard enough to pave way to these remote areas. They are good until it starts raining; and we may be back in square one again. But the whole point of this discussion is to see relevancy in doing development. In the mind of this roads construction company or whoever sponsored these roads constructions, development meant physical existence of roads. While this may be true to some extent, development must mean more than that. It must mean physical existence up to a point where other necessary conditions are met. It must mean sustainability. It must mean overall public awareness and serious community consultations. And when these preconditions are not met, you end up being force to unnecessary roundabouts such as the one you see in the picture.

Mango trees are also sacred here and you don’t want to touch them! They can have their own roundabouts
I hope you enjoy reading it. More will come when I find some times in the morning such as this one.

The Morning Prayers

After a long and tiresome orientation and training for our new Building the Responsibility for the Delivery of the Government Services (BRIDGE) program funded by the USAID, I was now ready to be deployed at my field based office. In the morning of January 26th, 2009, I boarded a UN charter plane heading to Wau, Southern Sudan. Wau will host our team while our compound or best arrangements are being made for us to eventually move to Aweil. Aweil is the capital of the Northern Barh el Ghazal State where I will be building capacities of the local communities and governments to work collaboratively to identify and address their needs. Our flight on Monday morning to Wau was a short, but fascinating one. Topography of the land as we cruise high in the air was amazingly beautiful. The season here is very dry (locally known as summer). But trees are generally green. And streams still follow constantly. But what amazed me the most was the change in the sky. I sat at the window so that I can continually enjoy this incredible look of the ground from the sky. I was mapping everything I saw our route. Suddenly, something interest happened. I saw, ahead of us, what looked like a mountain of snow/cloud. Then came a block of could which mushroomed an entire area for about 10-15 minutes of our flight time. At the movement, I felt like I was cruising in a snow-belt of Northeast of the United States of America! Fascinating! A movement later, we passed that and the space below us started clearing up. I could see bushes burning from the ground. A few minutes later, our plane started descending to Wau area. There, I could see a meandering of tributaries. I saw what appeared to be nice beaches at the river-beds. And as we get closer to landing, I saw what looked like a bricks making industry happening along the riverbanks. Our plane landed in Wau and plane attendance graciously welcomed us to Wau city. The airport control tower is a UN mobile facility. We got out and were directed to a common place where our languages would be sent to. There, our driver was waiting for us. Temperature here felt extremely hot! Generally, Sudan’s weather feels hot. You would think I am a Sudanese and must be used to it! Anyways, we started off to where we would stay for the next few days. While in Juba, we were told to stay in River Lodge Hotel. But, it appeared we headed to the Afex camp where several tents were booked for us. I asked the operation manager “what happened to the River Lodge Hotel booking”? He told me, there were some miscommunications from our Nairobi’s office logistics coordinator. So we spent two days in that camp before we finally moved to the River Lodge. I must confess I felt in love with tents. When we moved to the Hotel here; and I checked to my room, I was so excited by the fact that this was a step up from the camp. Well, I couldn’t be more wrong! These big red-brick walls rooms just feel like oven at night. All the heat observed during the day is released internally at night when its start cooling down from external. And fans in the ceiling are too high that fanning at the maximum does not even matter. So I asked to rent a tent instead. In fact, I am writing this now in my tent! It is a self contain tent and just feel as comfortable as any other well furnished facility. But the whole point of this blog is to tell you a bit about Wau city. As we drop through this city, I got amazed by how much different it is to the rest of Southern Sudan’s cities. In fact, appears more metropolitan than Juba is. Here, you see an urban designed city where streets like that off New York can be seen. Besides, this is the only city in Southern Sudan that you can see street lights perfectly spaced to lighten the streets. More importantly, this is a place where Arabic culture is more prominent than anywhere in Southern Sudan. There are more mosques than there are schools. And in the morning you hear loud microphones almost in every corner of this town shouting morning prayers. I believe this might be only explanation to this disparity in city designs over Southern Sudan. After all, its culture brings it one closer to powerful Arabs countries. In fact, someone just told me the city power here was donated by Hassan Mubarak of Egypt.

Christmas With Family

Christmas celebration with family was great as this was first time with them in 22 years. I arrived at home on the 23rd and found that my folks were concerned I was not going to make it for Christmas day! Interestingly, they remembered I told them I would arrive on the 23rd, but for some reasons their level of anxiety had already risen when I arrived. It was not just to celebrate with them that topped their agenda, it seems. They expected me to bring for them new clothes and other Christmas amenities. Indeed, I had packed a duffel bag of used clothes and brought it with me. What mattered to me really was for them to have something to wear—old or new did not concern me much. Marching for Christmas celebration started at around 3 pm local time on December 24th, 2008. Here in Sudan, the weather is so hot. I failed to brave it so I retired to just standing under a tree to watch people singing and marching. They were singing with a rhythm that was family from my childhood. In Dinka, it goes: wo be rur ne cath duurku, wo be rur ne cath abe piny run. Dor ku wa ee kool ebenydit ee cen ben. Aa kaar be meenh ebeny dhiil ben. English translation: We will march praying. We will march the whole night till dawn. Let’s praise the lord, this the day He came. I want the son of God to come. This use to be a hit song! People kept singing till morning of Christmas day. But this time things appeared different. Everyone gathered at the church compound to waiting for the birth of the Messiah—the midnight baby. They all came with their mosquito nets as malaria is till the top killer in the region. In fact, I was so careless on this trip and I am about to pay for it. I had called home, while still in the States, to ask whether the floods that were there when I visited the area were still a problem in the village. I told the water had receded and that it was completely dry as the dry season started. I foolishly equated that as a recess for the mosquitoes! So, I left the US for Sudan unprepared. I arrived home the conditions where just as worst they were in September when I first visited. Mosquitoes’ pandemic disturbed church’s atmosphere of praying as the congregation waited for the son of God to be born at midnight. There is widespread level of insecurity as well. In a normal circumstance, or at least from what I remember of how Christmas celebration where done years prior to 1987, people would marching whole night as the song indicated. But, these are not normal circumstances—there is pandemic of mosquitoes coupled with greater insecurity. So I ended up sleeping at home and hoped that the blessing from the baby Jesus would trickledown to us who were sleeping away from the church. The morning came and the service was about to start. I hurriedly went to the church for prayers. The prayer leader led us to prayers and singing began. It was something I never imagined; certainly not what I saw 22 years ago. You see elders jumping up and down full with joy and spirit. Honestly, the environment was no longer soothing—I was caught off guard. Even the preaching got very interesting. The preacher was preaching and someone in the congregation got offended. Normally, you would take sermon that touch you in any way, good or bad, to be God’s message to you. Again, that is normally as I remember from 22 years ago. But, now is now and things must work, I suppose, the way they do now. That’s how much Christmas celebration went. Now, I am back in our office in Juba and will be traveling to Nairobi Kenya for our program’s launch workshop. It looks like I am going to have very interesting materials to work with for my blog in the next few months. Until then, I wish everyone Happy New Year 2009. Salaam alakum (peace be with you)!!