Archive for February, 2012
Oil is a curse
In St John’s Gospel, chapter 11, we read about the death of Lazarus and the grief of his sisters Mary and Martha. The gospel also tells us that ‘Jesus wept’ even though he knew he was going to bring Lazarus back to life. When Jesus saw Mary’s grief, ‘he was deeply moved’. In fact, twice within a few lines, this phrase, ‘deeply moved’ occurs. Last week, this phrase took on new meaning for me. I travelled to the Abyei region in South Sudan, at the request of the parish priest, Father Biong. Fr Biong, is a Dinka, a big man with sparkling eyes, a young priest committed to helping his people. Those same eyes filled briefly with tears as he recalled and described the horrors of witnessing his people fleeing from the ravages of the destruction inflicted on them. Fr Biong was ‘deeply moved’ and indeed, visiting his people I found it deeply moving. These people, victims of war, displaced about 30 kms from Abyei to Agok, are living in very poor circumstances indeed. Abyei is oil rich but is a disputed territory in the northern part of South Sudan. Although most of the South has enjoyed relative autonomy and peace since the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005, Abyei has twice been destroyed, firstly in 2008 and again in 2011 when the destruction was virtually total. The people have been forced to abandon their land which is now patrolled by an Ethiopian United nations force. Fr Biong describes seeing many dead bodies that [...]
The Gift of Hope
The smiles of children and the inquisitive looks are wonderful. They take a wide-eyed view of the world and see everyone and everything as friendly. I enjoy winking at small South Sudanese children. They laugh and smile at my simple facial contortions. It seems winking is not part of the local repertoire of interaction techniques. The children make me laugh when they try hopelessly to wink back. I have come to believe it is unusual in South Sudan to see a woman who is not carrying, or caring for, a child. Grandparents come into play and one often sees a child passed into the arms of another adult – or sometimes to another sibling. Young children help nurse smaller children. There is no doubt that ‘people production’ is the major ‘industry’ of South Sudan. Yet so many children are a great gift of hope. They bring warmth, optimism and create family consolidation. It may be that there is disturbingly high ratio of 187 children out of every 1000 in Western Equatoria who die before the age of five whereas in Italy, it is only 4. The children I see here in South Sudan seem happy and content. Every generation is renewed by children who bring to adults the great gifts of hopefulness and optimism.What is a problem? An opportunity to find a solution! The man within me has several times said to himself here in South Sudan: ‘Now what the hell do I do about this?’ In every crisis, which usually simply results in doing [...]
