Isoke to Ikotos, Sudan

September 6 (cont)  Sister Paskwina goes on to tell us the history of the mission here at Isohe. She was actually born and spent her early childhood here. Her family was displaced by the war and she spent many of her early adult years in Uganda.  Italian missionaries first came here in 1926.  They stayed  through 1964, when the government kicked out all missionaries.  They built a small church when they first came, but began construction on a large brick church in the 40’s which was finished in 1949.  It is still standing and the place of Catholic worship here since then.  (The only church around here, as far as we could tell). Paskwina tells many stories about the war and its effects on the people.  She witnessed cluster bombs being dropped on nearby villages by the North, and was in Isoke when bombers regularly scattered bombs onto the village. “Everyone had their hiding place!” She noted the difference between the old and newer bombs which she suspects were provided by the Chinese.  The old bombs exploded several feet into the air, but the newer ones spread into the ground.  Anyone hiding underground could be cut in half!”

    Sister Flo has taken us on an afternoon walk through the local tribal village. Fascinating. We amble at her casual, familiar pace from grass hut to grass hut to mud hut.  There seem to be multiple enclaves of families with endless numbers of kids under 10 and young mothers under 15.  Many men here have 2 wives. At one family we visited, both wives and their mutual children lived together, under one roof.  More commonly, the households are separate but close by. At each group of huts, we are offered chairs to sit and make time a bit. Many of the enclaves are brewing the local, apparently very potent, sorghum-based brew. The local tribe is called Logir, according to Sister Paskwina.  They speak a dialect called Otuho. We’ve learned:  “Angae”, meaning “How are you?”.  “Oyyu”= “I am fine”.  OR, (with a handshake) “Mong”=“How are you?”. “Ogolo”=“I am fine.” “Humo” is “Thank you”. “Humo bebe”=“Thank you very much.”-mw

September 7, 2008 Sunday.  It’s been raining off and on all night. We have our usual breakfast, with the sisters, of hot chapatti (?sp.) and Nescafe or tea in the little dining room.  The rain is still falling when Sunday mass starts at 10.  The inside of the church is spare, but impressive, with 40 foot high, arched roof (now sheet metal, after the tile rotted out).  Due to the rain, the church is sparsely populated with locals.  Mass is celebrated by three priests, the main celebrant visiting from a nearby town. The whole ceremony lasts 2 hours, but is regularly energized by traditional singing and dancing up and down the center aisle by about 30 girls from about 5 years to 12 or 13 all dressed in bright, traditional clothing.  As accompanied by a traditional Djembe drum and ankle bells, this is a rhythmic revelation, and echoes of the roof and walls in a beautiful symphony.  Gaby has been able to record a bit of the singing and dancing on her camera’s video. Cool! There is a segment in the service where local announcements and events are read to the congregation. It is then that our presence at the service is noted and we are thanked for the work we are doing to “help bring information to the outside world” of the situation and needs of Southern Sudan. 
By the time the mass is ended, the church is packed to overflowing.

The rain has stopped after the mass, but the weather is too unstable for us to get anyone to guide us up the mountain behind us.  

Sister Paskwina introduces us to Rebecca and Cecilia, two orphaned sisters of 5 and 7 years, respectively.  They are the second and third of 5 sisters. Along with their older sister, they have lived here at the boarding school, and with the sisters, since their father shot and killed their mother three years ago.  . Their mother was 8 months pregnant with her 6th baby, who also died.  Supposedly, he went into a lethal rage over his lack of sons. The girls not only witnessed their mother being shot, but were threatened with being shot themselves “if they said anything”. Rebecca could only fall asleep in Paskwina’s arms for several months.  “She is much better now. Almost no nightmares.”  The father fled. The younger two sisters are living with the mother’s mother.-mw  

September 8, 2008 Monday. Our getting to Kuron is looking more and more doubtful! The rainy season is honored here as completely changing schedules and plans. No road to Kuron, and no prospect of reliable air transport.  We are waiting to hear the final word (regarding air travel) from Teody today.  If we were to go to Kuron, we would likely need to leave Isoke today to drive to Loki, and take a plane from there tomorrow, flying back to Loki on Thursday. This would leave us only one full, non-travel day in Kuron.
    It’s official. We’re staying in Isoke. Getting to Kuron and the Peace Village will have to wait for another time. Moses, the director of the TB program here, quips: “Kuron is the end of the world!”  For us, the end of the rainbow, ever elusive.  I have a big package from Mary Clark for Sister Angela which also has in it an electronic fetal Doppler which she had wanted. I’ll leave it on Thursday with the sisters in Narus.
    Monday is a busy day at the general clinic.  While I’m seeing patients, Gaby and Dan visit the primary school, where they are serenaded by Sister Selma’s class, and they get a tour of the dorm.  I am feeling like an inadequate student again as I approach the amazing array of symptoms I am confronted with. I see maybe 20 to 25 patients in about 2 hours.  Nearly everyone has fever, cough, diarrhea. Most I end up treating for at least malaria. Often also malnutrition and bacterial diarrhea.  The lab is still closed and I would probably throw all these meds at most of these folks anyway.
    Sister Flo grabs me from the clinic at lunch time. We’re all taking a ride in a couple of the fleet of white Land Cruisers to Ikotos, a small village “not far”.  This phrase is apparently African for “around the mountain, through several rivers, over a single track mud, dirt, and large-rock path, we call the road-to the next village.  Less than a day.”

The trip to Ikotos in a convoy of two (yes) white Land Cruisers, is even more amazing than the road to Isoke from the Torit/Juba road. Five of us are crammed into the back on the two benches in one of the trucks. Dan, our photo-journalist, is in front. 

    Ikotos seems to be on the opposite side of the mountain range that nearly encircles Isoke. Much more open, with savannah to its south and west, and Sudan’s largest mountain range looming in the western distance, Ikotos is home to regional offices for CRS (Catholic Relief Services) and a Lutheran NGO from Norway, NCS.  We have come here as observers of a rescue mission.  Two of the Diocesan workers, Peter and David, have been wrongly accused of burning down the thatched hut in which they were sleeping at the compound in Isoke, nearly a week ago, The “authorities” have placed them under house arrest at the Diocesan compound in Ikotos, pending “further investigation”.  This has drifted on, un-resolved until now (no investigation apparent), forcing many meetings among Sister Flo and Emmanuel Obuoja, the Diocese Health Coordinator, as they await the authorities.  While awaiting the appropriate mucky-mucks, the compound’s driver, Martin, gives us a tour of Ikotos. There is a brand new secondary school for girls, built by ACT funds(a cooperative  venture of CRS and NCS, called Action of Churches Together) . This is a big deal in Sudan.  Keeping girls in school after marriageable age-about 12-has been very difficult, if not impossible. The fact that more and more girls and young women are getting educated and even going on to university may be the one most important post-war cultural shifts.
    We also visit both the CRS and NCS compounds. I am really intrigued by what drives many of these mostly European men and women to spend long periods of time in very primitive situations like these,  doing work that is fraught with frustration and continual glitches and setbacks. Edward Engels is the local food coordinator for CRS. He is Dutch, but his family is in Nairobi.  He works 10 weeks, then takes 10 days off. Last year he “took a break from Africa” and did a stint in Northeast Afghanistan.  “Afghanistan is much easier than here, lots and lots of money pouring in from all over, and high levels of organization.  Really not much of a challenge.”  When I ask him what draws him to this work, he shrugs and says: “We make a little difference, where no one else seems to care.”
    Martin steers the Land Cruiser over fields and ruts and over compacted dirt burms into a jungle grotto, where a concrete, raised stage/altar had been erected during the war. Christian worship was forbidden, and the Christians in the area met secretly in this jungle-hidden grotto, up against a hillside, protected against bomb attacks. Nearby, Martin pointed out several large boulders under which people would hide when they heard the bombers coming from the North. The people here clearly consider the hills and mountains to be more secure, both from modern raiders-bombers from the air, and from the traditional cattle raiders from adjoining tribes or villages. The hillsides are dotted with grass huts in nearly every conceivable nook or cranny or cliff.
    Back at the Youth Center in Ikotos, where the two staff have been held, people are celebrating their overdue release.  Someone must have shown up from the government ministry to hear the facts and saw that they had the wrong guys. Teody later tells us that if this was more than an accident (everyone seems to think that it's not) that "it will never be the tribal people. It must be staff."  The tribal people consider burning down a hut to bring a terrible curse on the offender and their heirs.