Mama Land Sudan

Today marks our second full day in Kajo Keji, Southern Sudan. We have fairly regular internet access again, so I can update you on the things that have happened since my last update. Here’s an idea of what a normal day in Adjumani looked like:

Between 7am and 9am – Wake up to the sounds of the children getting ready for school, and either fall back asleep or get up to bathe. Bathing consists of gathering the needed supplies, walking through the compound to the bathrooms (note: bathroom = showering spot, latrine = toilet), pouring a basin of water from the jerry cans that had been carried from the borehole that morning, then splashing water on yourself, soaping, splashing, drying without dropping anything on the damp concrete floor, returning through the compound to the room to finish dressing. The morning routine also includes a trip to the squat latrine and brushing teeth with bottled water out behind the tukuls. (These are separate events.)

Around 9am or so – Breakfast/morning tea usually consisting of cassava, potatoes, or hard-boiled eggs with tea, coffee, or chocolate and home-made bread

Morning hours – Jeremy, Lexie, Edwin, Christine, and I usually spent the mornings reading, journaling, or working on various work-related things like rewriting the background stories of the children, updating the team financial records, or planning for interviews with the children.

Between 1pm and 2pm – Lunch of some protein-centered dish of meat stew or beans and greens and a carbohydrate, usually rice

Afternoon hours – One day we went to the Thiesens’ home to use the internet and drink cold water, another day we played Uno all afternoon, some days we took naps or worked some more

Around 4:30pm – The kids all return from school, so we’d chat with them briefly before they started their chores and we returned to whatever we were doing before, or play games with the little ones

Between 7pm and 8pm – Dinner, very similar to lunch

After 8pm – By the time we finish with dinner, it’s dark outside and the children are finished with their chores, and that’s when the real fun begins. Often we’d sing together, they taught us some new games that were, as Jeremy put it, “like being cast in a musical, but not having the script”, or we’d just spend time hanging out with them.

Between 10pm and 11pm – The kids started preparing for bed, and so do we. After a time of prayer together that could last anywhere from ten minutes to one hour ten minutes, we’d change into pajamas, swat the little bugs out of our beds, extinguish the kerosene lamp, and tuck in our mosquito nets all around to ward off the hordes of blood-thirsty mosquitoes we could hear each night swarming around our beds.

Single greatest collective regret from the trip so far:
- The kids have been trying to teach us to snap the forefinger against the middle finger loud enough to make a noise that means roughly “I’ll beat you”. We’ve been largely unsuccessful thus far, although Lexie practices diligently at really random times, like in the middle of conversations or in the back of the truck carrying us to Kajo Keji.

Speaking of which, on our way toward Kajo Keji, we stopped at Metu Secondary School where some of the Amazing Grace students are boarders. It was really great, although brief, to spend time with Akon, Augustine, Obuu, and Bakata, and they were thrilled to see one of their “mamas”, Margaret, who was travelling with us to Kajo Keji. We passed along some of the calculators and gave them a bit of pocket money to spend over the coming exam weeks and subsequent holiday.