An Eye Opening Experience

I always have difficulty describing what exactly I do, when asked. Immediately after I open my mouth to mention the Sudan BRIDGE, people reach conclusions: building bridges across the Sudan. No. I build mutual bridges, not physical. I create linkages between the servants and the masters; if this idea exists in Sudan its remotest sense!

The government entities and the communities are supposed to work together, in any country in the world, to attain the highest standard of development. They must support/complement each other for the welfare of both. This concept is none-existence in Sudan’s Southern region. Here, we (the Southern Sudanese) have better excuse: the long civil war in Southern Sudan overshadowed whatever role the government’s institutions would play in the last 23 years. Only UN and other INGOs are seen as saviors of lives here. And the government is running on that propaganda: “we have no money to provide for all that is needed by a common man”! This is a song so much desired by government’s agencies here.

Now, who is responsible? This is a reason USAID came up with “Building Responsibility for the Delivery of Government Services: BRIDGE”. The BRIDGE I build stands on pillars of responsibility to deliver services to the people. That must be a new protocol. The war (I should qualify, the high level) has stopped and people must show they have fought a justified war by means of delivering whatever little they can. This is where my role becomes critical.

The government, or whoever is able, can only do deliver only if they knew whatever it is that to be delivered. The needs must be clearly articulated, prioritized, and presented by whomever these needs concerned. I make sure the matters understand and know what exactly, or close to that, they need to be delivered.

So, I work to empower people on issues of education, livelihoods/agriculture, water and hygiene and sanitation. These are areas which I called, “citizens empowerment”. So last week, I traveled to the field to work on promoting enterprise in rural communities. The program is to support small business enterprise through either expansion of existing small businesses or opening of new ones. We were surveying, by means of observation and discussions, within market in Nyamlell in Aweil West County, when we came to a small food serving “restaurant”. It was packed with people eating delicacies (according to local standard). We got so curious and wanted to investigate more on the nature of the business.

The owner of the business is a single mom with four children and has been running the business for over six months. She has few workers, but none could read and write to keep records. To her, “it has been a profitable business”! So we dug in more. We wanted to see how we can help her business expand. My colleague, Henry Jurugo, the enterprise officer, set in with some technical questions. We went down item by item so that we better judge the profitability of the business. With the help of our Agriculture Liaison Officer, who is a local, could do a better job of interpretation, because my (Dinka Bor) language varies a little bit from that of Dinka Malual’s. The businesswoman gave us prices of item bought per day and we calculated that against the daily revenue less expenses on workers.

If she was close or exactly right on her estimations, we discovered, she was running at loss! Yes, the devil is in the details! This was an eye opening event: she said, repeatedly, that she would hire someone to keep records of her all transactions. We jokingly agreed and suggested our staff to keep the records for her at a price of a meal per a day. But, the good news is, we are working with her to expand the business and this will be one success story. This is what is meant by building responsibility for the delivery of services. This is it for now. I hope you enjoyed reading this article!!

The Trigger

I feel ashamed and embarrassed for having betrayed your loyalty and suddenly popping up here after so long gone! This is despite so many reminders from Abel Mote that the last time I posted something was in 2009! This is true but, I have countless excuses to make: work, marriage, and so forth. And be cautioned, with too much accumulated, the theme of this article will be so sporadic: the Triggers! Never in my lifetime have I ever imagined how costly a price for a wife is! I sometimes feel I should have waited and saved enough to finish with everything at once. But, someone has advised me against such plan: “never think you have to feel completely prepared for marriage!” he warned. I took the advice and now I feel there are endless marriage problems to solve.

That being said, something special is here that gives me a great deal of comfort. I have finally felt self-structured. I have someone in my life that I called “sweetheart” and soon-to-be mother of my child(ren). Her name is Yom Deng Bul. She is one unique character. Her story of childhood is a testament to what I so much love about her. She lost her mother at a very early age. She and her younger brother lived unimaginable life. I am not fit to recall her story; I just hope she, one day, will be able to put it down on a paper. But, I can authoritatively say, her story is one of resilience.

On the work front, there is something to feel proud too. With the kind of work we (community development persons) do, hearing your name being praised is just priceless. If you can recall from previous articles, I assist communities to establish community-based entities, namely community action groups, to work on their community’s behalf. I visited one of the villages we work in, when my wife visited, here in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, and it was incredible to see a village chief running to greet me! Even more exciting was the presence of my wife to see, in person, the kind of work and the people I sacrifice for.

I became well known in this community, because I brought them new approach to development and new techniques to their farming systems. Well, technically, I mobilized and sensitized members to adopt new practices and the farming techniques were later on imparted on them by our agriculture team. As part of our livelihoods effort, our project (Sudan BRIDGE) works to change peoples’ attitude and give them new skills to be able to produce food and diversify their productions.

In this particular village, Majok Adim, the members adapted and embraced new approach so well that they continue to produce variety of vegetables like never before. I was humbled when one of the producer group members testified that (paraphrased) in their village, they only know of one season (rainy) for growing crops. But, with Sudan BRIDGE, they are now able to grow and harvest in dry season. This example is just for one village; there many others with similar stories. However, I must admit, not every community work in has embraced efforts for self-reliance. Others have been so disappointing: way entrenched in old relief mentality. It will take mountain to move them. Or better still, it will take World Food Programmes move away so that people think this is endless supply.

Recently, something phenomenal happened on this soil. People all over Sudan went to the polling stations to vote for their leaders. But, this article is limited to South Sudan people. They conducted elections against all odds that faced them. Chief of which was the nature of voting ballots. A voter had 12 ballots to cast. Mind you, this is a region whose major of its people have never witnessed art of voting. They all did what any citizen of any country could do, if given the opportunity to do so: voting. And if you followed the Sudan’s election, the South Sudanese voted overwhelming for their leader; Lt. Gen. Salva Kiir Mayardit for President. The elections had hiccups here and there, but I felt the completion of the exercise is just good a trigger to resume my blogging.