Children can be Cheated

A recent evaluation report commissioned by the Jesuit Refugee Services in Juba stated: ‘…Key problems that need to be targeted now include the frequent absence of teachers from school, teachers who are present but don’t teach and teachers with limited teaching skills. … Most pupils could neither read nor calculate when they finished their third year of primary education.’  Building schools and giving more children the chance to attend schools is not enough. The children are cheated of their only opportunity to be educated if the teachers in those schools do not teach well. Three years of primary education and most children do not possess basic numeracy and literacy skills. Yet these are not kids of limited ability. Many can communicate already in  several languages. One major problem is that the attendance of many of the children is far better than that of their teachers!  Not that it would be fair to blame the teachers! Most are very poorly paid and sometimes their pay is a month or two delayed in reaching them. So they need to do other work to support their families. The encouraging signs, however, are the large number who generously give up their vacation time to follow our in-service programmes. Solidarity with Southern Sudan is currently delivering the four-year GoSS teacher training curriculum to 176 teachers in three centres – Malakal, Yambio and Leer. An additional 43 teachers are following a Foundation programme in Malakal where they are receiving instruction for eight weeks for 6 periods each day of seventy-minute duration [...]

Who Would Have Thought?

Here I am, a 67 year-old man, who joined the Brothers 49 years ago and now find myself in North West Africa, a continent I had never visited before 2009, living in a religious community of  four members. Having embraced a celibate lifestyle as an eighteen year old and having lived in all male religious communities for 47 years, now I am living with three women, all considerably younger than I am, and I’m feeling virtuous about it! When I left home at that young age, my mother said to me: ‘Promise me that if you are not happy you will come home.’ Neither my mother, nor I, ever thought it would come to this! Hugh Hefner might never believe it but the remarkable thing is that this situation is totally comfortable – and wholly innocent! Mind you, I am confident that those of us in this community have very different values and motivation than that evidenced by the denizens of the Playboy mansion! We mix and interact naturally and easily. Sexuality is simply not an issue. Each of us continues to be who she/he is and it is not greatly different from my years of living in all male communities where each treated the other with mutual respect. We pray together regularly, talk together easily, work together comfortably and we sleep securely – unless the LRA are reported to be in this area! In most of our Solidarity with Southern Sudan communities, we have ensuite rooms but here we share a common bathroom in [...]

Hidden Hazards

Early this week one of the Comboni Sisters from Nzara was driving a carload of people to a gathering in another town, Maridi. Unfortunately she lost control of the vehicle and slid off the gravel road. The solid, four-wheel drive vehicle was badly damaged but no-one was seriously hurt. Here the red gravel is commonly called ‘marrom’, although I can’t find the word in a dictionary and am not sure how to spell it. It is easy to slide on such a road, especially if there are any corrugations or soft patches. The day before this accident, I had driven from Juba to Riimenze, a trip of just over seven hours on unsealed roads. I always say a prayer of thanksgiving after a safe arrival. It is ironic that the really bad roads with massive ditches, too deep to be called potholes, are the safest sections because they force one to go very slowly! The better made sections invite faster driving – and more chance of misadventure! Here in Southern Sudan, I don’t have to worry about hitting an unexpected kangaroo but I have run over two snakes recently, I think. Maybe they took last second evasive action but I surmise I was a lethal hazard to them!The check points on the road are also a hazard. Most of those people on duty at a check point just remove the barrier and wave cars through but occasionally one meets someone who is a bit officious. The recent trip back cost me two packets of cigarettes [...]

Uncertain Times

The referendum has taken place and there is little uncertainty about the result. Although it will be sometime before official results are announced, several states, including Western Equatoria, where I am at present, have announced results close to 99% in favour of secession. Here, in this small region of Riimenze, 671 voted for secession and only 8 for unity. By contrast, the Southern Sudan Referendum Committee (SSRC) states that only 58% of voters in North Sudan opted for secession.The SSRC website stated on 21st January that out of the 3,932,588 people inside and outside the country that registered for voting, an overwhelming number, 3,138,803 had chosen secession while 44,518 voted in favor of unity. Those figures were based on the processing of 100% of the votes in North Sudan and 83.4% of the votes in the South. To that date, 5,972 blank votes had been cast and 7,745 invalid ones had been excluded from calculations. The further requirement that 60 percent of those registered must vote had been easily exceeded by last Wednesday, the fourth day of voting. Fortunately in most places the situation has remained stable and peaceful. There have been few reports of violence and any that have occurred has been given customary prominence by the media. Certainly the country has been no less stable than normal and Southern Sudan has survived the referendum with more calm than most anticipated. Many shops remain closed, however, with no indication of when, and if, they will re-open. In Yambio we have noted extraordinary jumps in [...]

Omar and Omens

In an AAP report following the visit of Sudan President Omar Al-Bashir to Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, on Tuesday, 4th January, it stated:

“I personally will be sad if Sudan splits. But at the same time I will be happy if we have peace in Sudan between the two sides,” Bashir said in a speech to senior southern officials broadcast live on state television. “I am going to celebrate your decision, even if your decision is secession.” He had earlier been greeted by southern leader Salva Kiir on his arrival at Juba airport…Around 500 people gathered outside the airport, shouting slogans for separation such as “no to unity”, and waving southern flags, but the atmosphere was festive.

I was one of the 500, but not intentionally. Fr Joseph took me to the airport just before 8:00am for a 9:30am flight to Juba. The route was lined with police and armed soldiers and several police queried us on our way to the airport. At one stage we were blocked and I got out of the vehicle and began to walk but shortly after, Fr Joseph, having charmed his way past yet another interrogating constable, picked me up again. I did walk the last three hundred metres only to find no-one was being admitted to the terminal and no flights were departing. So there we sat, or stood, about 150 people, until 11:30am. Flights resumed after President Omar Al-Bashir arrived and moved off in his escorted convoy. My flight took off just after 2:00pm.Yes there were people [...]

Faith or Foolishness

Tomorrow, I shall be back in Southern Sudan. At a recent meeting a question was asked about the security and safety of our members during the time of the referendum.  Similar questions have been directed to me outside of the meeting by others interested in our work in Sudan and once or twice there has been almost a suggestion that it may be foolish for us to be in Sudan at this time of uncertainty.My reply has been that those of us living and working in Southern Sudan assess it to be a situation where there is some risk and it is inevitable that there will be varying degrees of anxiety about this. None of us are seeking to be martyrs for the cause but, nevertheless, we have assessed the risk and believe the right decision is for us is to stay. Most NGO personnel left the country during the election. We stayed. In fact many of the missionaries stayed right through the war years and the Church has great credibility in the eyes of the people because the Church, by the presence of both expatriate and local, priests and religious, stood in solidarity with the people during those devastating years. SSS has taken care to establish a clear policy decision. Any individual SSS member who wishes to leave the country during this time of [...]

Plotting Our Path

Over the past few months our management team in Southern Sudan has worked together to produce a draft Strategic Plan for the consideration of the Solidarity with Southern Sudan Board that meets in Rome next month. The Plan is as comprehensive as we can make it and, although written with conciseness in mind, covers some 40 pages plus another 27 pages of Appendices. Yet given the unpredictability we face in Southern Sudan, I think maybe we need a different word to describe this document – maybe a ‘chart’ or a ‘plot’. I’ll settle for the word ‘plot’ but minus most of the sinister overtones this word might suggest. To me the word ’plan’ suggests a reasonable confidence in how and where we are going to achieve our goals in orderly fashion. The uncertainties here, however, are abundant and it almost seems an overstatement to call it a ‘plan’. Rather we are attempting to plot our way through a minefield of possibilities beyond our control. This is a country of developing infrastructure where government ‘forward planning’ is commonly no more than last minute planning. It has just been announced that registrations for the referendum will be extended for another week and there will be extra public holidays to make it easier for officials to register. Late changes of this kind are common in Southern Sudan. There is usually minimum prior notice and key calendar events affecting us such school dates are simply not announced well in advance. There is no postal service in Southern [...]

Choosing Wisely

Now that voter registration for the referendum has begun, there is an increasing air of expectancy in Southern Sudan. There is a large, ongoing exit of Southern Sudanese returning from the north to the south. Outside our parish church in Malakal, buses from Khatoum pull up periodically and tables have been set up to take the names and details of people returning from the north. There is still no diesel available for sale in Malakal and many taxis have now ceased running as petrol supplies have also dried up – and thus the livelihoods of the taxi drivers. I don’t know how the buses get back to the north. Will this be a temporary shortage or is this a long-term strategy to unsettle a population that has been relatively calm? We don’t know. There is no doubt that the people of the south want peaceful secession but how this will be achieved is uncertain. Last Sunday we celebrated the patron feast of the parish, ‘Christ the King’. The Apostolic Administrator of the diocese preached vigorously urging full participation in the referendum. The mass was advertised to start at 9:00. One had to arrive close to that time to secure a seat in the shade but it was 10 to 10 before the celebration  actually began and well after midday when it concluded. The Sudanese celebrate liturgy well and obviously enjoy their participation. The young liturgical dancers display both grace and vigour – and stamina! The choir loves to sing each antiphon twice between [...]

Tested and Tarnished

It takes a lifetime to accumulate wisdom. Those of us who are lucky enough to live long enough have been granted the opportunity to become wise by experience and a personal search for knowledge. Wisdom is not a quality always appreciated by the young who burst upon the world with great enthusiasm and endeavour.  But part of living is always the ‘terribile quotidianum’ (Latin) which translates as ‘the terrible daily grind’. Many saints such as our Lasallian saint, Brother Mutien Marie of Malonne, have become holy by their fidelity to the “daily grind”.  I recall some media reports expressing shock that the saintly Mother Theresa had moments of depression and feeling faithless. Yet she remained cheerful and determined. In Southern Sudan I have come very clearly to appreciate her example. Life is never handed to anyone on a silver platter. It can appear to be but each person must cope with the personal struggle of his or her own limitations as a human being. We may like to act like gods but we have feet of clay. I may be a confident, competent person, but life teaches me my limitations. That is the beginning, I trust, of wisdom.  What a gift it is to be cheerful and enthusiastic! Our Claretian Father Joseph is such a gift as he welcomes people with enthusiasm and warmth, be they Sudanese or expatriate. To shift the image slightly, he is a ‘pied piper’ to the local children, greeting, encouraging and gently chastising when required. I often reflect on the parable [...]

Unite or Divide

It seems to be a simple choice: stay as one country or divide into two countries: unity or secession by the Southern Sudanese people. While the final outcome may be a stark choice of one nation or two, the reality for those in this country is far more complicated and the referendum scheduled for January 9th, 2011, is already impacting on the lives of many people. The most important outcome for which we pray is peace, not war, but even if the peace is maintained, considerable disruption looms to the pattern of daily living.A few days ago, I met Father Caesar, Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Juba. He said:

‘I am always optimistic for peace: we don’t want war. I came from a family of nine. Now they are all dead, except me. There is no-one behind me and no-one in front of me as a result of that stupid war. I am totally on my own!’

So are many of the street children who put out their hands pleading: ‘One pound, one pound!’ to any passing ‘kawadja’ (white person).  Registration of voters begins mid-November. It is critical that those who register do actually vote. There seems to be an almost unanimous conviction emerging in the south that to vote for secession is the way forward. Even if there is an overwhelming vote for secession, there is also a stipulated condition that at least 60 percent of those registered must vote for the outcome to be valid. So not only can results of voting be manipulated, [...]