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Near Enough Not Enough

During this past week, Sister Ninet and I visited the relatively remote town of Leer in Unity State, a region in which there are close to 20,000 people, mostly of the Nuer tribe. In this area, one is close to the ‘The Sudd’, the world’s largest marsh covering an area of 30,000 km2 in the dry season and 130,000km2 in the wet. This is the dry season and, in fact, very dry. Father Francis, the parish priest of Leer, pointed out several areas that he had never seen dry – until this year! 

Sisters, Adriana from Ecuador and Myriam from Mexico, had urged us to come to Leer. Only two teachers in this large town have had any form of teacher training. Brother Nichola met us at the airport in Thar Jath and then transported us to Leer. Thar Jath is oil territory. Flying into Thar Jath, one cannot but notice the network of towers and power cables that rise above the long grass of the swampy landscape. The roads in this region and the airport at Thar Jath have been improved greatly to service the oil industry.  

As we drove away from Thar Jath, we saw some people walking – and many more fishing, washing, playing or collecting water from the pools and ponds in among the long grass and reeds beside the road. Several times we stopped or slowed to negotiate our way around cattle herded along the road. Was this an example of an idyllic, rural, subsistence for the Nuer people?

When oil was [...]