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)!!