Yesterday was kind of a quiet day. We spend a few hours trying to jack up a large metal container and place it on cement blocks a foot or so off the ground. We were partially successful after several attempts. Because the ground is so soft due to rain, the first few tries only resulted in the jack going into the ground instead of the container being lifted up. We were eventually able to find a heavy metal grate on which to support the jack, and succeeded in getting one end of the container off the ground.
And yet even uneventful days like yesterday are full of amazing things for me. For example, there were two food-related "revelations." First, it was termites on the menu again for lunch, but this time fried or roasted, and really looking a lot more like termites than the "antloaf" of the other day. I found out that "harvesting" this delicacy depends on a specific type of rain that takes place for an hour in the afternoon and is always preceeded by a specific type of rain in the morning that let's you know what's coming later in the day. After the afternoon rain, the termites come out of their nest in droves, and can be attracted by a strong light. Apparently the ones that were served yesterday were purchased at the market downtown. No, I still wasn't able to bring myself to try them. Later in the afternoon, when I went for a walk down by the river, I met a young man carrying a handful of uprooted plants. As I approached him to ask what they were, I immediately recognized them as peanuts (or "groundnuts" as they are called here), which grow wild in the region.
As I continued my walk down to the river, I was suprised to find a large UN camp situated along the path. Two South Africans greeted me as I walked past, and upon asking them what brought them there, I was told that they were a land mine detection and disarming unit. They were using military maps of 25 years ago to try to discover and eliminate any remaining mines in the area. It was an impressive operation, with several detection units, a small backhoe, a number of other vehicles and a whole tent village - all set up within the past few days when I last walked in that direction.
After reaching the river and walking along it for a little while, I ran across a tomato patch and encountered two brothers from Kenya who are doing some agricultural experimentation to see what crops would grow best in the area, so that they can teach the local Sudanese how to cultivate them. In addition to tomatoes there were beans, corn, cabbage, eggplant and some other African vegetables that I had never heard of before. The elder of the two brothers is the oldest of the family. He's 50, has 8 children, is a grandfather, is working to help his youngest daughter go to college, was a Quaker and became a Moslem at the invitation of a friend. The younger of the two is the youngest in the family; he's 25, single and Catholic. Both were very friendly, and were very happy to explain to me what their project was all about. There was something really beautiful, healthy and dignified about the way they till the soil with their own hands for hours each day to unleash the natural fruitfulness of the soil. I told them that I believe that God is pleased with and smiles upon their efforts, and I blessed their cultivated plots.
Kenyan farmers working in Sudan
In conversations with some of the people who work in administration and development in the diocese, I am slowly coming to understand a little better the situation here in Southern Sudan. There is really no industry here to speak of. It seems that the South was deliberately left undeveloped by the northern government as a way of keeping it in subjection. The importation of communication equipment and other supplies from the US has proven to be very difficult and complicated in the past. I was told about how some of that kind of equipment was seized by US customs when it was about to be shipped for a local diocesan project, and eventually had to be returned to the factory from which it was sent, and so never made it here. While it is largely excluded from the globalized, international market, the rural South Sudanese do have the advantage of producing most of the food they eat. That has helped to shelter them a bit from escalating food prices throughout the world. This exclusion creates other difficulties, though, in terms of things like health care, and getting other needed products (like clothes) that they can't produce on their own.
The big question on the horizon is whether the South will secede from the North in the referendum that will take place in 2011. While there is some indication from sectors in the North that there is a widespread desire for a "New [unified] Sudan," there are still serious doubts about the sincerity and the strength of will of such a desire to bring about real, lasting changes that offer substantial hope for the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment