Sudan Update July 2010
Dear All,
We’ve now been back in Sudan as a family for 3 weeks. The weather has been amazingly cool and we’re back at our old hotel – the juba grand – home from home.
For those of you who dont know ..
Since the beginning of 2010 Simon started a new contract as a subcontractor on a piece of work for the Government of South Sudan lapping out a new payroll system for all government departments. My contract with Christian Aid was renewed to continue my work as an accompanier with the Episcopal Church for Sudan for another year offering part time assistance to their school building and teacher training programmes in the areas of project and financial management.
Mt Current Work
It’s reporting time so work has involved assisting the Diocese of Malakal, Renk and the Education and Training Commission to report on their last few months. Malakal Diocese have been building teachers residences in four of their school locations in a step towards providing teachers compensation for the fact it’s very difficult to pay the teachers even an incentive for working (let alone a salary). Renk Diocese have been re-roofing existing classrooms that were badly damaged in last year’s severe storms. The Diocese of Malakal are also about to start a new programme of training 6 people how to make soil stabilised bricks and how to build permanent structures in black cotton soil (the soft swampy soil that covers Upper Nile region). A huge deficit in funds had meant the programme had to go on hold but most of the money has now been found. I have been liaising with the Diocese, the donor and contractor on funding, procurement and logistics and I’m hoping that the training will be able to start in the next 6 weeks. It’s a high risk programme for lots of reasons and still a lot could go wrong, it’s also a very exciting programme because potentially the Diocese can take what they learn from building a high spec permanent structure on black cotton soil and (funding available) use that technical knowledge to upgrade the post conflict recovery classrooms (Malakal Basic School is currently constructed out of a steel frame embedded in cement foundations with mudded walls – the school rapid recovery style agreed upon when Christian Aid funded building work began in the Diocese in 2007) with their own bricks in a way that can provide a strong long lasting school that can survive the incredibly hostile environment of Upper Nile for years to come and not be washed away in the next bout of rains.
Thea
Thea is getting on very well at nursery, it’s the first nursery in Juba which is operating at a first world level and currently has only 10 children, all Sudanese and our friends daughter who’s Swedish Zambian so I think she’s going to come back speaking better Juba Arabic than us. she is going 4 days a week and has come back reciting her numbers 1-10 and her ABC much to our surprise. They are very nice there but have had some unusual demands such as ‘she must have white socks on every day!’ and ‘we like to send them home in clean pressed clothes so provide a second set’ and when I said I wasn’t too keen on having more washing it wasn’t taken well. Appearance, I think, is very important amongst the East African Middle Classes and our sloppy attitude towards dress is has clearly been frowned upon by the nursery staff!
I’m due to fly to Malakal on tomorrow to help facilitate a recruitment process to find 2 women to be trained up as literacy trainers for a new Mothers Union Literacy Programme that is due to start in the Diocese in September.
Be in touch again soon
Keren, Simon and Little Thea x
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