Raw Realities

This week, in addition to the overwhelming and sorrowful news of Fr. Robert’s sudden death, a number of other things took place which reminded me of how vulnerable and fragile life can be here in Sudan.

The first had to do with arranging the transfer of some additional funds here to Torit. Up till now I had been able to make transfers from an account in Nairobi to an account here, and withdraw money as needed for my living and apostolic expenses. I attempted to do this again about three weeks ago, but the transfer never came through. Upon investigation, and after several attempts, I finally discovered that the bank in Nairobi blocked the transfer to the bank here in Torit because the latter was experiencing “liquidity problems.” That left me in some straits. I next tried to arrange a transfer to the diocese’s account in Nairobi so that someone there could bring me the funds. The transfer went through, but the individual couldn’t because most of the major roadways in South Sudan had been blocked for over a week by disabled soldiers wounded in the civil war who had not received their pay for seven months. In the end, the transfer to the bank here eventually came through and the roadblock was lifted, but it was a brief experience of how easily life can become very difficult here. It gave me the chance to identify not only with the soldiers, but other workers I know who have not received salaries for months.

The second incident happened on Monday evening just before receiving the news of Fr. Robert's death. I returned to the compound after making my afternoon Holy Hour in town, carrying some medicine for one of the young laborers the diocese employs in making bricks on the property just adjacent to where I live; he was suffering from malaria. It was dark by the time I arrived, and so I crossed over into the other property using a flashlight. The other workers there cautioned me to be careful because the man I was looking for had become violent and was throwing rocks. As we discovered later, the medication the youth had been given (not by a full-fledged doctor, but instead by a clinical officer, the rough local equivalent of a nurse practitioner) to treat his illness, combined with some alcohol he had consumed, produced a psychotic state with hallucination and extreme disorientation. We had to distract and physically retrain him until another clinical officer was able to inject him with a strong sedative. I ended up staying at the side of the young man for a couple of hours during this episode, and it gave me a lot to think about. He was obviously intelligent; he spoke English well. He was about 20 and engaged in the backbreaking work of making bricks for 12 hours a day in the scorching sun. He was thin but strong – like most Sudanese, and probably subsists on a diet of beans and ugali (corn mash). From the way he reacted, I suspect there is some significant anger pent up inside him, probably due to the constraints of his circumstances. I would guess he drinks in the evenings to try to find some relief from the oppressive reality in which he daily finds himself trapped without escape, and at the end of the day he lies down to sleep on a sheet on the bare ground. And to top it all off, he got malaria and diarrhea and had a psychotic reaction to the medication he was probably mistakenly prescribed, and this incident will likely cost him his job. It’s heartbreaking. Multiply it by millions and you have the cumulative situation of male youth in Africa.

The final incident happened the following day. This time I was heading into town with Dennis – the Ugandan lay missionary who often accompanies me - when we saw a small crowd on the side of the road. As we drove slowly past, we realized that a motorcycle accident had just taken place. A young Toposa man had been struck by a motorcyclist and was lying unconscious on the ground, bleeding but still breathing. The driver, also bleeding, was standing nearby. The accident took place just across the street from the hospital. Two hospital workers came out and grabbed and pulled at the poor man on the ground so roughly that his injuries could have been made worse. They loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him into the hospital. I followed and anointed the man once he had been placed near a bed. Sadly, these kinds of accidents happen almost weekly here. I suppose it’s a combination of the general recklessness of youth with vehicles, but below it is also a greatly diminished sense of the value of human life: one’s own and that of others, which is certainly the byproduct of the war and the raw reality of daily life in an extremely poor and terribly underdeveloped country struggling to get on its feet and move forward.