Reconcile Consulting

Sudan Update 2 2010

2010-08-12T20:53:00.000-07:00

Malakal

Since I last wrote I have been in Malakal helping the Mothers Union run a recruitment process and assisting the Diocese in planning for their up and coming block building programme. Its rainy season and I think the mud was worse than usual, twice I actually got stuck barefoot in mud unable to move forwards or backwards, the second time I was slipping so much in the mud I couldn’t make it up a small slope to get across a road, I just kept sliding backwards and was starting to panic a little when much to my surprise two women grabbed me under the arms and launched me up the slope which to be honest I was quite embarrassed about and thanked them quickly trying to leave the scene.

The recruitment process proved difficult as there was a general misunderstanding with many of the women applying who had thought because the roles were under the church that they would not be full time and could be fitted around other work - those who perceivably had the skills and experience for the posts said they wouldn’t leave their current jobs! However two women were offered the jobs and between them hopefully have enough of what’s needed to run the new literacy programme provided they are able to build a good working relationship. (The Picture is of me with Mothers Union Leader Tabitha Leek and Headmaster Anyok outside the ECS Malakal Basic School kindergarten)

The Education Commission- Juba
At the Education Commission I have been working with them on salary planning for the next 18 months, am assisting them in recruiting a new finance manager and assisting in planning for a financial management training which is planned for the end of the month for all provincial departments.

Those of you who know me well will know that I have a slightly irrational fear of dogs! There are many stray dogs in Sudan and for a long time there has been one or two of them hanging around the ECS Provincial compound, but, over the last few weeks they have been multiplying at an alarming rate and on some days, the pack (as I like to call them) is as many as 10 all roaming around the compound together in a menacing fashion. Unfortunately the office where I work is on the opposite side of the compound to the toilet and so if I ever need to go, it often takes all my courage to make this journey which by the time I reach the toilet (all of about 30 seconds) I’m usually in a cold sweat and wondering if a day will come when fear will just take over and I will stranded at the toilet unable to return to the office. At the moment – the embarrassment of having to explain such a disappearance to my work colleagues is keeping me in check.

Thea
Thea is doing well and yesterday came home from nursery explaining all her body parts to us. What is very funny is that she says some words with quite a distinct African accent so when she says for example ‘parts of the body’ she says ‘pats o de boor dee’. Heres a picture of her playing in the rain at our hotel.

On asking Simon what he would like to contribute to this blog, he sought of looked up from his lap top and murmured something about ‘battling through’. I will try to get a bit more out of him next time!

Have a look at the pictures below of Malakal and will write again soon

Keren, Simon and Thea xx

Sudan Update 2 2010 More Photos

2010-08-12T04:36:00.000-07:00

Here are some more pictures of my time in Malakal

Me and my friends children Djourbaine and Ethan

Me and Mama Rebecca, the Bishop of Malakal's wife and their youngest Baby Deborah

School Cooks

Malakal Basic School

Centre of Malakal Town

Malakal Mud!

Sudan Update 1 2010 Pictures

2010-07-19T12:29:00.000-07:00

Episcopal Church of Sudan HQ

Picture of our room in Juba

The Nile

Sudan Update 1 2010

2010-07-19T10:56:00.000-07:00

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

2009-10-23T04:30:00.000-07:00

Last Week in Juba

Dear all,

We are now in our last week in Juba. Since my last email myself and the Provincial Education and Training Commission held a workshop for Malakal and Renk Diocese. Main topics were School Building and School Running and HIV/AIDs. It went well, it was particularly nice for me to see people I haven’t seen for a long time and introducing them to Thea. Hopefully both Diocese’ will take away with them ideas and advice from each other on how they can improve their work in these areas. (see picture of workshop)

Simon took a break from his work with the Ministry of Health to do an evaluation of some CMS Ireland programmes running in Yei, Lanyia, Rokon and Kajo Keji, mainly in health and micro finance. He really enjoyed getting out of town and seeing other parts of Sudan, I always thought of Sudan as cracked earth and scorching sun but where he went he said was lush and green and he even needed a blanket for bed!

I visited Malakal for 4 days to see the Diocese and discuss next years school building proposal to Christian Aid. While we were there an almighty storm whipped up and rain and mud were being propelled at some speed. We hunkered down in the Bishop’s office, at one point it the walls felt like they were going to start falling apart and there was a point at which I was sure the roof was about to go but instead the storm took the roof off the Diocesan clinic next to us and some of Malakal Primary schools verandas were also badly damaged. (see picture of the roof off the church clinic). We waded through water and mud to move all the boxes of medicine and medical equipment to somewhere dry but I think some of it might now not be usable. Many people’s huts were very badly damaged which was upsetting to see
People were very unhappy with me that I hadn’t taken Thea but with the incredible heat, no electric, the sheer number of mosquitoes due to the rains I was glad she wasn’t there.

I’m just finishing up my work with the Provincial Education Finance team. (see picture of Thea with Rahila from the finance team). The team work with 10 donors pushing out school building and teacher training programmes across the whole of Sudan, there’s so much do cover with them but never enough time.

Be in touch again soon, Keren, Simon and Thea x

Juba

2009-09-16T05:02:00.001-07:00

Dear All
The three of us have been in Juba just over a month now and loving it.

Juba is the southern Capital of South Sudan which is currently operating like a state in waiting. During the civil war it was a garrison town occupied by SAF, the armed forces of the northern government. It was handed over to the south through the 2005 peace agreement and now the Government of South Sudan is based here as well many UN agencies and NGO’s.

We are living in a hotel; a hotel here means a one room porta-cabin with running water, electric and the all important air conditioning unit. Far more than we ever had in Malakal but it’s made juggling work and looking after Thea in this environment possible. Thea has adapted better than we could have expected, although she’s rarely outdoors at the hottest time of day when she is out she seems to cope with the heat remarkably well. People love her and make a huge fuss of her and she practically gets mobbed when I’ve taken her on the streets in the buggy through the mud (our oversized off-roader buggy has really come into its own here!). I’ve been told by a few women that Thea’s very fat baby for 10 months and that she’ll be very fat when she’s older (this is a complement – I think!). Shes absolutely loving all attention of being unique in her status as only English baby in the city.

I’m working with the Episcopal church’s Education Commission each morning and from our cabin in the afternoons as well as assisting via the phone and visits next month to Malakal and Renk Diocese. This is all project and financial management assistance to their school building and teacher training progammes. The school building programmes have faced the usual myriad of problems, inflation of materials prices due to exchange fluctuations, unexpected classroom repairs after strong winds blew off roofs and rains destroyed mud walls which all needed the repairing so the money that was meant for furniture water pumps and teachers residences had to be turned to repairs instead. Fighting also broke out in Malakal Diocese last week and has been sporadically for over a year, a reminder of the fragile nature of peace here.

And here in Juba you can just as easily be reminded that you’re still in a post war environment as last Wednesday we were stopped from leaving the hotel by the army who were going door to door all over the city doing a weapons sweep and found a fair few on the premises here so we know not to rub any one up the wrong way!

That’s it for now,

Keren, Simon and Thea

Our Mission

2008-08-19T06:47:00.000-07:00

Reconcile believes strongly in the fundamental role the church has in providing practically as well as spiritually for its communities. Our vision is to work directly with local organisations and particularly the church, in areas that have been affected by conflict, supporting and facilitating their missions to their local communities to increase development as a way of reducing conflict.

How do we work?

So far our work focused on capacity building and troubleshooting in the areas of Project and Financial Management, particularly aiding communication and transparency between donors and partners by improving systems and training.

We approach the work through light touch, yet holistic capacity building; improving and developing organisations by building on current ways of working to enable them to manage themselves and their projects successfully. All training and support is biblically routed but takes experience from the best lessons of the private sector and NGOs.

With God’s help we strive to have a faith-based role which dictates the direction of the company’s ministry. We believe that our role with the people we work with should be quiet and partial, not overriding, and should work as quickly as possible towards our redundancy.

We currently work with the church in Sudan, Burundi and Zimbabwe

Mud!

2008-08-18T07:46:00.000-07:00

Picture1: the main streets of Malakal during the rainy season

Picture 2: The bread Shop from my front door

Dear All,

This is my third return to Malakal this year since we left having spent a year living here and I am continually stuck by the changes. And it is not just that things are changing, as everywhere things change, but how quickly they seem to be changing and dare I say it improving.

In expectation of the rains which inflict themselves upon this area between June and September every year, the UN, International and Local NGOs and the Government have been begun to replace the long since disappeared British (circa 1930's) street drainage system. In the main market this has meant brick lined culverts have appeared Suring up what is left of the road and amazingly making them passable even in the hardest rain. For the rest of town a lone big digger is trawling the streets, an automatic beast of mercy, cutting channels wherever it goes to guide the water which will not seep into the land down to the river. Although a small step by most standards, for Malakal this is a huge milestone, for if the stagnant water that sits after the rains can be disbursed it will not only make movement of people and goods possible but remove the breeding ground for the mosquitoes which thrive during August sending Malaria through the roof.

You will see from the photo of the route from the front door where I stay to my shop which I must traverse every morning to get fresh bread for breakfast that the curse of Malakal is mud. Malakal was never intended as a place for people to live. The tribes of the area, both Shilluk and Dinka never settled the area in major numbers knowing that in affect it was a swamp, they preferred the high ground further in land, and across the river to the North. However when the British looked for a resting place while traversing the Nile towards the impenetrable Sud Malakal seemed the perfect spot. Its location just North of the entrance to the Sobot river and just before the Nile begins its course through into the swamps seemed ideal. The land at the rivers edge where the Government buildings were placed is slightly raised and gave good access to the river. However once but 100 metres in from the river bank the land descends almost imperceptibly but those few centimetres make the difference between dry and wet, in a real sense often the difference of life and death during the long rains. Coupled with this the nature of the soil of Malakal known as 'Black Cotton' means that it does not absorb the all the water, it settles on top in large puddles attracting infection and disease. Added again to this is the soils quality of glue likeness, sticking with an iron hold to everything that touches it (except for the most part the barefoot) and refuses to let go. The walk to the shop becomes a workout of mr universe proportions with great balls of mud collecting and being carried along with you.

So as I arrived now in August life has ground to a halt, no cars move, no donkey carts pass, just those people who must venture out to complete those tasks that cannot wait until its truly dry. Now this is of course a mixed blessing for the cool winds that signal the rains which come coupled with a dark yet iridescent sky are one of the true havens of Malakal. For once you have endured the heat and sweat of February through to June to feel that first wind of change is like a wake up call to life, suddenly as the temperature plummets from 45-50 Celsius to 20 Celsius you realise how life can be lived and rejoice.

But of course there is also another story within this for as I am struggling with my bag to traverse the lake which is encircling the place I will stay for my time in Malakal I pass the church and diocesan office and take rest. And in this moment of rest I hear the first news of the projects that we support and am amazed to hear that in this time of mud and rain and difficulty they are on track and well over 50% complete, new classrooms built and new water systems installed. They refuse to be held down by the environment, and by the apathy that has infected so much of post war life. They want change, and they are not the only one, and it is change they are making happen, school by school, child by child.

Every Blessing

Simon

My Visit to Khorfulus

2008-08-10T13:01:00.000-07:00

Picture 1: Khorfulus School - currently constructing they're a food store, pit latrine, a new classroom and verandas.

Picture 2: The Diocesan Boat

Picture 3: The Sobat River

Dear All,
We had aimed to start early to get the boat loaded for the visit to Khor Fulus, the second school of Malakal Diocese. The mud however is here with a vengeance still following the heavy rains of last Sunday, which according to the news reports were the most torrential in years.

The porter, a small man struggled to bring the horse and cart as close to the materials as possible but feared that once stuck in the mud the cart would be lost until it dries (maybe two months from now). So he became the cart, and carried the cement, iron and welding equipment to the road where the horse stood safe. This took three hours and was but only a small element of the days journey. Once cargo was safely at the water edge the process of loading the boat began, quicker by far but as a large generator had now joined the multitude of items to be carried to Khor Fulus it was not without incident.

However by 12.30 once boat driver was found and wounds of the injured (casualties of the ten man triumph which lifted the generator into the boat) were bandaged we set off. The boat is Malakal made, which means that it is welded of iron and looks improbably heavy for its size, but it began to carry us down river along the Nile to the junction of the Sobot were we bear East. The river was swollen with the rains of Ethiopia and the lands of Southern Sudan but it remained calm and the sun shone hard.

After over an hour, and almost half way through the journey a strange towering crane can be seen on the sky line, with steel framed structures bare beside. It looks from a distance as if a business district is being begun in the most unlikely of places. As we come closer and it becomes clear what a first sight seems modern and incongruous on the landscape has been here for some time. We pass the village of which no name is clear but has grown itself around and within the remnants of what was the end point (or start point) of the dream of a Jonglei Canal. The canal original envisaged to by pass the to the East the massive swap known merely as The Sud was never finished. All that remains are broken machinery helpfully left to prove the foundation of a community which now live within and around the strange steel beasts of progress tamed and lying dormant at the water edge. They mess seamlessly together as if bound from birth.

This point also marks the beginning of the chicane of fishing nest which criss cross the river, lain by waiting fishermen. The nets prove almost completely concealed by the water but for the strange regularity of floating sticks which hold them up. Progress becomes slow yet the switch from the great Nile to the smaller Sobot brings with it a thronging waterside almost no part of which is now not owned by virtue of a mud hut being placed near by.

This mass of people that has descended or appeared on this stretch of water is thanks mostly to the founding of Khor Fulus. Khor Fulus was in history not known as a place in itself but merely a crossing point for those going South to Bor. However the war has made it a place of significance and now due to its designation as a congregation point for soldiers of the SPLA (Sudan Peoples Liberation Army) it thrives. As with all boom, without order it goes bust and for most of this year it has suffered continued upheaval as the army is reordered and brought under control. In January almost the whole community was set in flight by the rampage of discordant militia at odds with the Police and not controlled by the army which is supposed to be responsible for them.

Thankfully now life is returning so some sense of normality and as we docked at the Episcopal Church compound the school was massed with children singing and drumming. At first I thought it must have been an elaborate welcome but no, my ego was put back in place they didn't even know we were coming as no phones work in the area and our trip was out of the blue. Once the excitement of our groups presence had been quelled and we left to inspect the new classrooms and latrines the group returned to itself and the games began. They had come on Saturday, as had the teachers simply to sing, dance and play games. On Sunday they all return again to Church. Everyday, the school - which when I last visited over a year ago was being used as a hospital to treat cholera suffers- sits right at the centre of these children's lives at the heart of the community, giving education and hope.

The time was already after 4 and although I had only been in Khor Fulus an hour we needed to start for Malakal if we were to make it before dark. So rather than await the hired boat that was being unloaded and could take along time the Diocesan boat was called forth. This was the same boat and driver with whom almost exactly a year ago I was stranded for three days up river and once the boat had finally given up i'd had to walk the final 5 miles back to Malakal. I was apprehensive to say the least to re-enter the boat I had vowed while floating in the dark away from home that I would not re-enter if I escaped safe. yet the options were none and the day was drawing on, not to mention the thunder clouds were drawing in, so we set off.

The rain came but thankfully just had the driver had learnt (how to use a boat)from that previous first voyage we took together so had I and remembered a rain coat. We arrived untroubled in Malakal as the sun set low in the west gilding the clouds erupted after the rain. As the final light took flight I walked angle deep in mud broken sandals in hand to the house thankful to be back in a day and blessed to have seen what I saw.

Blessings

Simon

Sudan, Burundi and Zimbabwe – Update 13

2008-06-30T06:22:00.000-07:00

Picture 1: Me talking about monitoring and reviewing projects with the Church in Burundi Picture 2: Aftermath of the fighting in Khartoum in May

Picture 3: Simon at the Anglican Bishops Conference

Dear All,

Sorry it’s taken us so long to write our latest update on Sudan. As many of you now know we have reduced our work in Sudan for this year and have been asked by Lambeth Palaces International Development department to assist the Anglican Churches of Burundi and Zimbabwe with their current projects.

Burundi
Burundi is a tiny landlocked country in Central Africa with Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda surrounding it. It is just south of the equator and lush hills and mountains cover the land, it’s a beautiful place, people call it the Switzerland of Africa. It has recently been plagued by civil war between its two main ethnic groups: the majority Hutus and ruling minority Tutsis. All Burundians speak the same language – Kirundi.
Simon and I spent a week in Burundi. Bujumbura, the capital and where we spent our time has a distinctly 70’s feel from the concrete buildings to people’s hairstyles and clothes. It felt a bit like stepping back in time. We were there running a training for all 6 Diocese of the Anglican Church of Burundi which has funding for a large school regeneration project with schools being rebuilt after their destruction during the civil war. Each Diocese is responsible for its own building work. We gave a training focusing on the basics to have in place when implementing a project, also basic Financial Management processes, how to monitoring and evaluate Projects and an introduction to report writing.

While we were in Sudan in March I found out that I was pregnant and by the time we were conducting the Burundi training the morning sickness had well and truly kicked in. Although it wasn’t really morning, it was more like all day nausea which kept coming in waves often when I was talking to the group, I had to make a few dashes to the bathroom but on the whole I don’t think people noticed. Everyone was quite quiet and not very used to the participatory training that we offer. It was difficult to gage how much of the training they would feel able to implement in their own programmes. We hope however that further time with them over the year will help us to see how they are working.

Sudan

Khartoum Fighting
Due to my pregnancy Simon went back to Sudan in May on his own for one month. Unfortunately for him, within his first few days back in the country there was serious fighting in the Omdurman area of the city yesterday between the JEM Darfur rebel group and Government forces. The clashes that took place were right by where he was working. He and other church staff members were face down on the floor until a lul in the fighting when he managed to move to a house nearby and was able to get food and water. Problems continued in the area through the night but subsided in the morning and he was able to leave Omdurman for a safer area. He was fine if a bit shaken up.

Malakal Diocese
Malakal have just received their money for this years school building work which is focusing on the strengthening of the current schools, giving them fences, water guttering and tanks and verandas. Simon spent time with the Diocese helping them revise the current budgets and splitting them up school by school. The work should start this month.

Mothers Union
Rebecca Ator Yor, the Mothers Union worker who was appointed for Malakal Diocese last year is getting on well. She has been making parish visits and plans to run a health workshop for women next month including a session on HIV/AIDS. The Mothers Union are very keen to start their own income generation project and so I have been helping Rebecca look at ways to fundraise to start a café and write her first proposal. The population of Malakal town is growing with large influxes of returnees. Many returnees coming from the camps in Kenya and Ethiopia have an advantage in obtaining work over the general population of the town as their education levels; in particular their English literacy is vastly higher. Because of this they think a cafeteria could generate a small income which the MU hope would help to fund Mothers Union activities.

Zimbabwe
At the beginning of June, Simon was asked to go out to Zimbabwe to participate in a conference for all the Bishops of the Anglican Church of Burundi. The church there is being funded by Lambeth Palace and USPG to run a number of different community development projects.
Simon found his trip to Zimbabwe incredibly easy despite all the current issues going on as it is so more developed than somewhere like Sudan. Things like good infrastructure and very high literacy rates meant that getting places and communicating concepts and discussing ideas was very easy.
Each Diocese is running a project and the Bishops were coming together to discuss their progress with each-other and to think on how they can improve on how they are working. Simon helped to facilitate this forum and also provided some small trainings. The trainings were on:
- Project Management with particular attention given to the basics to consider when implementing a project.
- How to monitor, review and evaluate projects
- The basics of Strategic Planning and Project Planning as well as how to do a capacity assessment in order to aid realistic planning.
Each of these trainings were followed by break-out Sessions in which Participants to split into groups to talk about how they are currently working, how they will monitor and evaluate as they progress with the programmes they currently run, how they planned for their current programmes and what people think they can do in order to improve their own planning processes.
The current situation in Zimbabwe is making it hard for these Diocese to run their programmes, especially the extreme hyper inflation in which the only way to protect some of the value of the project funds is to keep it in British Pounds until the day it needs to be spent. It is thought that the constantly changing prices of goods currently means around 30% of projects funds value is being lost.
Simon is back to Burundi this week and I will update everyone on his return,
Best wishes
Keren xx

Sudan Update 12

2008-03-14T06:21:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Children of Malakal Primary SchoolWe have now been back in Sudan nearly 3 weeks, Here’s the news:

Malakal Diocese
We arrived in Malakal to amazingly cool weather, at only 35 degrees we were very happy, however within in few days the temperature shot up to its normal March time heat of 45 degrees which I find very hard to sleep in. We stayed with a lovely family who let us use their guest tukul (mud hut) which was a real blessing as accommodation in Malakal is crazily high! (there are two hotels, one is a series of tents you can stay in – up to $200 a night! due to UN inflation (Malakal is one of the UN sectors for South Sudan with many UN agencies basing themselves here as well as over 2000 UN Peacekeeping troops).

The family we stayed with were also hosting a YWAM (Youth With A Mission) team who really hadn’t been looking after themselves properly (sleeping without mosquito nets and drinking river water rather than filtering it) consequently 3 of them had become seriously ill with Malaria, Ecoli and Jardia. However all 3 after some very heavy medication

New Schools Project
At the end of last year we helped the Diocese write a new proposal to Christian Aid for 2008, their proposal was approved just before Christmas which means they will receive further funds for their school building work. This year they will be building 4 extra classrooms at 3 of the schools and providing fences, verandas, guttering and water tanks for all 5 schools in the Diocese.

This is one of the 5 schools in a town called Khorfulus. Unfortunately in February there was some heavy fighting in town between the SPLA (Sudan Peoples Liberation Army) and the Police causing many people to flee. The situation has calmed down and we hope will remain so that the school will be able to open at the beginning of term (School in South Sudan runs from April to December). As you can see from the picture this school currently has 2 classrooms, 164 children are being taught here and the 65 in the kindergarten are taught under a nearby tree. One new classroom will be built here, verandas around the building will help to shade children during break times and protect the mud walls during the heavy rains. This area receives up to 5 months a year of rain so guttering and a large water tank will be installed to enable them to have water on site for drinking and cooking. Although this doesn’t deal with the whole problem of water it’s a start. We hope to find some funding for the diocese to be able to buy water filters so that whether collecting rain or Nile water, the children will be able to start drinking clean water.

We are not here for the whole year this time, we are just visiting to assist the diocese at key points during the new project. They are currently at the point of project start up, so we have been giving some follow up training to the Project Management training of last year focusing in on the implementation phase. Things like reviewing the project time line and budget, project governance structure, recruitment, procurement, staff role clarity and project monitoring.

The Diocese have a development committee which will be responsible for overseeing the building project. Last year everyone who worked on the project was a volunteer. However this year there will be money to pay for a Project Manager, an Education Co-ordinator and a part time book keeper. We have been helping to write the job descriptions for these posts. This is the first time anyone has heard of a job descriptions let alone had one and the committee got quite nervous about the idea. There will be no recruitment process this year but we will spent time discussing recruitment processes in the hope that for their next project they will start to feel comfortable with the idea and have the tools to administer it.

Mothers Union Worker
Me with key members of Malakal’s MU. The Bishops wife Rebecca is in blue on my right.
Parishes, gathering and encouraging women in their prayer and bible studies.At the end of last year the Mothers Union of the Diocese actually held the first ever interviews for a Diocesan role very successfully and appointed Rebecca Ator Yor (pictured here) as the first Mothers Union Worker for the Diocese. She will be paid by the Mothers Union UK which will enable her to be full time. She will be visiting the Rebecca herself is a trained nurse who worked with the army throughout the civil war. Now she plans to organise health and hygiene workshops for women in the Diocese. Among many other things Rebecca plans to give much needed support to the many parish kindergartens in the diocese, she will visit them, meet with parents and encourage them to pay school fees for the teachers many of whom are volunteers and struggling to survive, she’ll organise community fundraising for classrooms and apply for and oversee school feeding programmes. The hut pictured above is one of the Parish kindergartens, 60 children currently attend here and this is likely to increase when the new term begins – Rebecca is helping the parish fundraise for a second classroom.

That’s all for now, we have another week in Sudan before we travel to Burundi where we will be spending a week with the Anglican Church giving some assistance with their school building work. Will be in touch again soon,

Best wishes
Keren & Simon xx

Sudan Update 10

2007-11-16T09:58:00.000-08:00

Dear All,

Since I last wrote many things have been happening in Malakal and Renk.

The rainy season has finished and in Malakal the mud has dried up, the funny thing was that during the rains I only had to go out our front door to be caked in mud from the knee down but as you waded your way in to town you would pass men walking through in super white smocks and immaculately clean trainers without so much as a smear of mud on them!?

Renk Flooding
In Renk the flooding from the summer has subsided and people whose homes were washed away have been living in displacement camps. With our assistance the Diocese of Renk have been helping NGO’s (charities) working in the area in their provision of essential goods to the camps. They will also be assisting in the relocation of the people to a new permanent settlement area on higher ground away from the flood plain they had been living on previously.
Training Workshops - The main focus for the last 2 months has been on giving the training workshops on Project Management, Financial Management, Financing the Church and Basic Office Administration to key members of both Diocese. We spent a lot of time looking at Nehemiah and the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem for the work on Project Management which everyone seemed to particularly enjoy.

Malakal Diocese Training
Overall the training seems to have been received well with a good mix of people attending. The training in Malakal took place in the Cathedral which is next to an extremely dirty pit latrine full of flies and maggots, using it is always a very miserable experience. At the end of the training, one man got up to say how much he had enjoyed being able to attend and in particular how much he had appreciated being able to use such wonderful latrine!! I can only presume that he has no latrine at all at home because they don’t get too much worse.

Diocese Art Exhibition
The Church Art Exhibition in Malakal went really well, the Bishop and a number of artists from different tribes around the country came together to display their work in Malakal’s first ever exhibition which was themed ‘The Art of Reconciliation’. It was held in Malakal Primary School and many locals and internationals living in Malakal were invited.

The children of Malakal Primary school were also able to contribute to the exhibition, I ran a series of art classes in which the children produces some fantastic banners depicting their homes and families which have been put up permanently in some of the school classrooms. As well as painting and drawing they produced some beautiful lanterns which where hung from the ceiling on which they wrote what peace meant to them on. The bishop was very keen they should produce some traditional mud sculptures so me and some of the children went off to dig
The children’s work on show at the exhibition up buckets of mud, we just added water and rolled small balls of mud in the dust and handed them out. The mud seemed such poor quality to me that I wasn’t sure would be able to do anything with it, but in minutes children had made the most beautifully smooth and accurate animal figures! It was quite amazing. There are no art classes in school or any opportunities for the children here to draw and paint.

School Building Continues
Renk Diocese is still part way through their Christian Aid funded school building project which we assist with. This is a picture of 2 of the new classrooms built for one of the church’s primary schools in a village called Lathbior. These additional classrooms mean that the school has enough rooms for all its year groups.

On our first visit to Lathbior back in March we had been very concerned about the lack of ownership shown by the local community towards the school which was in very bad disrepair. However after encouragement from the Diocese the community have started to make repairs to the buildings in the pictures on the right.

2008
We have also been helping the diocese of Malakal in making new applications for funding for 2008 for strengthening their existing schools. All their schools have extremely sporadic water supplies which are currently endangering the school feeding programmes as there is not always enough water to cook the children s food. Lack of access to clean water in school also is also causing serious health risks for the children and teachers drinking it so the diocese are hoping to provide all their schools (they currently run 5 in the diocese) with water tanks which would allow the schools to collect and store water which can be used for watering school gardens. None of the schools currently have any perimeter fencing; this leaves the school vulnerable in a number of ways so the diocese hope to put up perimeter fencing which would increase security for the children and allow plots of land to be protected for cultivation inside.

School Gardens
The Diocese is keen to get started on a new school garden project. The purpose for this project is to improve food security for its schools, potentially sell excess produce as income generation for the schools and to teach agriculture classes to the children which hopefully will reduce their food in the future. We have been helping them to forge a partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Christian charity World Vision. Our schools will provide the plots of land and staff to be trained, World Vision will be providing training and agricultural expertise and WFP will provide the seeds and tools.

That’s all our news for now,
Best wishes Keren & Simon x

Sudan Harvest Pack for Churches 2007

2007-10-06T07:00:00.000-07:00

Do you know when the first Harvest Festival took place?

We don’t know the date but it is in the Bible:

“In the course of time Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the LORD. But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock.”
Genesis 4:3-4

From the very beginning we see people bringing to God a portion of what he had given them. After the Flood, the first thing Noah did when he and his family and all the animals touched dry land was to give back to God.
“Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.”
Genesis 8:20

And so in our harvest services there has been a traditional focus is on thanksgiving for the fruits of the earth as God's gift for all humanity and sharing these with others.

Harvest and Hunger in the Sudan

The food security situation in Southern Sudan is a reminder that so often it is man, rather than nature that is the cause of hunger.

Earlier this year, relief agencies working in South Sudan reported that food production was showing an improvement. More than two years after the end of a two-decade civil conflict, people displaced by war have been returning home. With the help of seeds and tools from aid agencies, they have begun cultivating farmlands once more. As livelihoods, transport and trade links have started to get re-established, communities have become more self-sufficient.

However, there have also been warning signs that continued localised conflict could disrupt the process, and tip the area back into widespread dependence on food aid.

Violent inter-tribal cattle raids by local tribes, who make use of the widespread available of firearms, have continued to kill and loot, the violence can often take place while people are working in the fields. This is a major barrier to Southern Sudan's return to self-sufficiency as locals become more reluctant to cultivate their crops, and some may even abandon productive land.

The Hunger Season
Southern Sudan's traditional “hunger season" is an annual cycle that runs from May to August. This happens once the fruits of the previous year's harvest are exhausted, itself the product of the years of conflict. This season has been slowly decreasing since the end of the war due to the increase in the growing of maize, sorghum and groundnuts (peanuts).
However the hunger season may be extended this year in many areas due to the destruction of crops by early flooding that started in July.

Without an ongoing peace and the assurance it brings to the locals working the land, food security in the region will remain perilous!

What the Church is doing about it?

School Feeding and School Gardens

The Episcopal Church of Sudan – Malakal Diocese
In the diocese of Malakal Bishop Hillary and his team are making sure that all their church schools receive UN World Food Programme school feeding. Due to huge food insecurity in the region, especially among children, the World Food Programme distributes food to all schools that are able to fulfil their criteria and distribute the food efficiently. All schools need a toilet, kitchen and lockable store to be eligible; some church schools still don’t have these things so the diocese is raising money to address this.

Malakal Primary School has already started preparing for a school garden by fending off a piece of land behind the school and tilling the land.Even with World Food Programme School Feeding in the church schools, the children are receiving a very limited diet which hinders growth, makes them more vulnerable to illness and affects their concentration at school.

To address this issue Bishop Hillary and the diocese have decided to start some school gardens. School gardens would not only provide supplementary food to the feeding programme and potential income generation through the sale of any excess produce but would also give an opportunity for children to learn to grow produce which would reduce their food insecurity in the future.

The Problems
However, all of the diocese church schools currently have sporadic water supplies which would make maintaining the gardens difficult and currently endanger the school feeding programmes. Lack of access to clean water in school also is also causing serious health risks for the children and teachers drinking it.

None of the schools currently have any perimeter fencing; this leaves the school vulnerable in a number of ways and in the case of school gardens is essential to cordon land off for the cultivation and to keep people and livestock from damaging the produce.

The Solutions
South Sudan has a long rainy season so the diocese would like to be able to provide guttering and water tanks to all their schools which would allow them to collect and store water which can be used for watering the gardens and for drinking and cooking. They would also like to put up perimeter fencing which would allow a plot of land to be protected for cultivation inside.

Sudan Update 9

2007-08-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

We have been back in Malakal a few weeks now; it was great to get back to see everyone. There had been some changes at the bishops house, it is the season for growing and most of the bishops compound is now full of maze (sweet corn), part of the bishops store house has been transformed into a sculptures’ art studio (will explain later) and baby David who was only crawling when we left is now pottering around on his own.

The rains here at the moment are very sporadic one day is baking hot and the earth is cracked and dry and next torrential rain with us wading around in mud fighting the onslaught of mosquitoes (who annoyingly see our pit latrine as a favourite breeding ground).

It’s been a really busy time; we have been helping the diocese in making applications to some external donors for some projects that they hope will begin in the next few months. The first is to make some additions to the schools that have been built this year. All their schools have extremely sporadic water supplies which are currently endangering the school feeding programmes as there is not always enough water to cook the children’s food. Lack of access to clean water in school also is also causing serious health risks for the children and teachers drinking it so the diocese are hoping to provide all their schools (they currently run 5 in the diocese) with water tanks which would allow the schools to collect and store water which can be used for watering school gardens. None of the schools currently have any perimeter fencing; this leaves the school vulnerable in a number of ways so the diocese hope to put up perimeter fencing which would increase security for the children and allow plots of land to be protected for cultivation inside.

School Gardens
The Diocese is keen to get started on a new school garden project. The purpose for this project is to improve food security for its schools, potentially sell excess produce as income generation for the schools and to teach agriculture classes to the children which hopefully will reduce their food in the future. We have been helping them to forge a partnership with the World Food Programme (WFP) and the Christian charity World Vision. Our schools will provide the plots of land and staff to be trained, World Vision will be providing training and agricultural expertise and WFP will provide the seeds and tools. There will be 3 gardens to begin with; the picture is of Malakal Primary school where the teachers there have already fenced off a small plot and begun tilling

Malakal Art Exhibition
The Diocese will be holding an art exhibition in late October, possibly the first one ever to be held in Malakal, possibly the first in South Sudan! Bishop Hillary (who is an artist by training) and other artists from around Sudan will be exhibiting their work here to the local community. The children of Malakal Primary school will also be producing some work which I will be helping them start in September. This exhibition has been funded by Christian Aid and is on the theme of Peace and Reconciliation in Sudan. Photos of the exhibition will become a touring exhibition to churches in the UK. We are currently in the process of working out all the logistical side of putting it on, Malakal is very cut off from anywhere else so getting art work here in one piece from different part of the country will be quite a challenge.

The Mothers Union

I have been meeting with the Mothers Union who are the women’s body of the diocese to encourage and help them recruit a full time worker to help them in their work. We have spent time discussing their needs and hope to be able to find someone who can give their time to be available for women and children to share their problems with, to encourage women in their prayer, Bible study and their church involvement and to organise small group meetings and workshops on issues that affect women in the area.

We travel to Renk Diocese this week and will be in contact again soon,

Best wishes

Keren and Simon

Simons Swamp Story - Sudan Update 8

2007-06-29T06:39:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

Well as you will know Keren is with you in the UK so instead of her normal lucid accounts I thought you might like to hear of my rather longer than expected trips to two of the new school sites. Please excuse somewhat factual account to tired to make proper prose.

As I said we had a hell of a journey, at one point it felt as if I might never return!

The initial journey to Kodok went ok (Kodok under normal circumstances should be about 2 hours by fast boat north of malakal on the Nile), apart from setting off late and the fact they were all so badly organised we made good progress up the river and the boat was roomy enough to sit comfortable and take tea and sandwiches.

After about 4 hours we ran into problems with the engine and ended up drifting with the current towards Kodok for about 30 minutes or so as we had no tools to fix the engine. The Bishop had insisted we take their new boat rather than the usually overcrowded local river boats, it turned out our driver knew nothing about boats or engines. Thankfully a very nice driver of a passenger boat stopped and fixed the engine and then after our driver failed to work it properly jumped back aboard and decided to drive us all the way to Kodok leaving his boat to be driven by his assistant. Turns out the driver was from Nigeria.

When we arrived in Kodok we stopped only briefly before crossing the river and walking to Riang. It was about 4 at this point and the walk to Riang took about an hour through very beautiful forests and countryside very reminiscent of the UK with grazing cattle lush green fields. The path took us south running alongside the river although we were further inland as it is swampy near the river, we had crossed the swamp in a canoe at a very small village further north.

Riang is surprisingly a very lovely place. The word means an area with no trees and that is what it is, an area of slightly higher land in the middle of the forest on which no trees grow. The school looked good and was just being finished when we arrived (photo attached). We left after only about 30mins as light was fading and we had a long walk. Arrived safely to back to Kodok and stayed overnight in the commissioners guest house which was just like Mellut.

On Saturday morning we saw the school at Kodok which just needs the plastering finishing (photo attached) and although a little delayed left at about 1 for home having acquired 4 extra passengers (including the former commissioner of the county and his SPLA bodyguards) and some wooden poles.

After about 3 hours of rain and a few engine problems we arrived at Lul an old catholic mission station and stopped to try and fix the boat and dry off a little (photo attached). The mission is now deserted as the fathers and sisters of the mission were driven out by the Northern army during the war.
The army left when the peace agreement was signed however it seems unlikely that the Catholics will return as Malakal has become the centre of the region. After about 30 mins we left again, the rain had stopped and the boat was surprisingly working again.

However the engine was not working well and we only got about an hour from Lul going very slowly before it stopped altogether and wouldn't work. We managed to get to shore but it wouldn't restart. I made a fire and we tried to dry off as it was getting cold and had been raining solidly. By now it was about 6 o'clock and starting to get dark. We decided to drift back to Lul to try and find shelter. The current and a little rowing with the wooden planks we had been sitting on carried us to lul in the dark of night. At about 9 we arrived at Lul, it was pitch back and we could barely see we were there. A very kind family living in the old mission station (built in 1901) took us in housing us in some school rooms in the right wing of the building. We managed to make a fire and we cooked the fish that had be brought from Kodok with us. We tried to dry off and warm up huddled around the fire. This very poor family were so kind giving me a blanket to sleep on and even some of there food.

We slept the night on the concrete floor (me and the bishop under the same mosquito net!), I slept surprisingly well although I was by this point very sun burnt from the boat and bitten all over from the evening in the open.

The next morning the people of Lul provided us with lovely fresh bread (much better than the stuff you get in town) and we managed to find some tea by cooking up water at the police station (a small hut near to the mission), with some walking to the near market for sugar and milk. Again the family shared food with us and by 11 we were fed and dry as the sun had come out.
We then walked to the waters edge to await a boat which might be able to help us fix ours.

By about 12.30 a boat arrived from Malakal and the driver fixed our boat and we were ready to leave. We left having acquired 3 more passengers and a goat as a gift from the chief! By this point the boat was very full and travelling very slowly. We managed to travel on for about 3 hours when we started to run low on fuel. We stopped a couple of boats but they had no petrol only diesel. Eventually a boat stopped and gave us some petrol for free.

After about another hour we managed to get to Wau Shillock which is only about 30 mins from Malakal by fast boat. We managed to get bottled water there and had some more tea. We then set out again. We got only about 1 hour further before the engine cut out again, we had run out of fuel and were in the middle of the river. Thankfully it started one last time and took us to shore.

However it wasn't land merely an island so we had to wade through the marsh (the water was up to my chin) to dry land. We saw a plane going in and realised we were on the flight path to the airport. We managed to walk up to the road and followed it in towards the airport. We walked for about 2 hours until we had passed the UN log base and the airport, it must have been about
3 miles we walked. I then managed to get a taxi from malakia to home.
Arriving back at 7.30 exhausted. I then slept for 12 hours straight.

Stupidly they had left two people with the boat and were going to try and get back to them last night. They didn't make it but did manage to get a boat to go and tow the boat back this morning although that took 3 hours.

It was quite a journey, and not one I would wish to repeat. I must confess there was a point when we were drifting in the dark on Saturday night that I thought we might never return to Malakal. I think the thing that has remained with me however is that I was never hungry or thirsty and apart from a few bites, some bad sun burn and very tired legs I feel good.

Looking forward to seeing you all over the coming weeks. Love to all

Simon

Sudan Update 7

2007-06-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

We are coming up to our last few weeks before we come home for a summer break, really looking forward to coming home and spending time with family and friends. Here are a few of the things we’ve been doing;

ECS School Building and Feeding

The building work planned for this year at Malakal Primary School is now complete, they now have 4 new classrooms bringing them to a total of 10 including the pre-school.

WFP School Feeding - Malakal diocese has received its food for this term from WFP, we went to view school feeding at Malakal Basic. (Girls between 9 and 11 years receive dry rations as an extra incentive for their parents to allow them to come to school). Unfortunately piped water in Malakal is very sporadic so if no water comes the children do not always get fed that day and the money isn’t available to pay people to fetch it from the Nile. The school needs a water tank and guttering for rain water collection to mitigate this problem – hopefully something for the future.
WFP School Feeding is usually a wheat or lentil mix, children eat this 4 or 5 to each bowl.

The ECS compound in Malakal is being planned out and gradually developed as per the Diocese’s vision, into a combination of church, school and clinic. As well as the primary school and clinic (which is a project the diocese have recently begun) they have been able to start some income generation projects for the church, such as 2 shop spaces which have now been rented out as cafés.

The new ECS school in the small town of Riang just needs its walls mudding and the pit latrine finishing off before the classrooms will be ready to receive their first intake of children. The people are reportedly very excited to have their first ever school opening up and believe that their God, called “Ayangit” (they are largely animists), brought it to them.

Kodok School is just over half way through with currently just the basic framework in place. Simon has been spending time with the Diocesan team going through the finances of the builds ready for them to write their mid-term report to Christian Aid about how the work is progressing.

Other Things

Part of our role here is to help the two diocese build relationships with other NGOs/churches/ministries etc. We have been spending time discussing with them additional projects that would help to strengthen the diocese and its facilities. One of these would be to start some school gardens which would provide supplementary food for the children and a potential extra source of income for the church. I have also been contacting and visiting other NGO’s in the area re: their community outreach programmes, I am hoping the Mother Union might be able to benefit in terms of receiving useful information through training and workshops on subjects such as water and sanitation, HIV/AIDs, Landmines etc as they have a formed network in place that they could use to distribute useful information within their groups and to their family and friends and potentially into schools.

Renk

Renk Diocese are just about to start their building work, extra classrooms at 3 already existing schools. The diocese have taken the decision to close down one of their schools in a place called Wunkur as of this term. This decision was taken as the displaced community that had fled to that area during the war and that the diocese built the school for have been moving back south to their home areas and so it is now felt that the school is no longer serving enough children. This diocese are now considering what they might do with the building.

The diocese have been making visits in the last couple of weeks to Melut, Geiger and Lathbior and have been able to set up committees in those places to speak with the communities about paying school fees. All ECS schools struggle terribly to pay their teachers, many of them are owed months in arrears. They hope these committees will be able to encourage parents to pay a little to the schools when they are able. However the reality is people will never be able to give enough even to pay incentive money to untrained teachers. The only paid teachers are those provided to the schools by the government of South Sudan so the hope is that the government will be able to continue supplying teachers in the future.
The diocese are also encouraging these committees to find the man power to support school feeding through collecting water and fire wood for the school.

Not sure if I’ll manage another e-mail before we’re back but will be in touch with many of you again soon,

Best wishes

Keren

Sudan Update 6

2007-05-11T06:19:00.000-07:00

Dear All,

We have been back in Malakal now for over a week and on Monday we made a trip out to one of the ECS school building sites in the town of kodok, we were luck enough to be able to tag along with a UN trip to take the British and French ambassadors there. This trip had been arranged so that the ambassadors could visit the site of the Fashoda incident – In a nut shell in case you didn’t know (I didn’t) A French force set out from Brazzaville under Major Jean-Baptiste Marchand with orders to secure the area around Fashoda as a French protectorate. After a long trek across central Africa Marchand’s expedition arrived in Fashoda (now Kodok) in 1898. However Sir Horatio Kitchener also arrived there and both sides insisted on their right to Fashoda. News of the meeting reached Paris and London, a crisis erupted and both nations began to prepare their fleets for war. It was resolved however when the French government decided they didn’t want to start a war with Britain and ordered its soldiers to withdraw. The ambassadors wanted photos where the stand off took place.

We were also able to visit the site of the new ECS school which is now in its early building stages, its taken a while to get started as the diocese prioritised the school they are building in Riang as its not accessible during the rains where Kodok is. We were able to fill the ambassadors in on the Episcopal Churches work in school building and education, I have attached a pic of the Group standing at the school site - Pic from left to right – Joseph Nding - Commissioner of Police for Fashoda County, Peter Maxwell – Head of the UN Mission in Sudan Sector 3, Zachariah – Director of Education for Fashoda County and ECS congregant member , British Ambassador Ian Cliff, Simon, Mme Robichon - French Ambassador, the next two men work for Fashoda County’s commissioner, John Chol – Episcopal Church Pastor for the area.)

I have also included a pic of Kodok Town – if you can believe it, I actually took it in the town centre.

Sudan Update 5

2007-05-11T06:17:00.000-07:00

Dinka Christianity
Many of the people we work with in the Episcopal Church of Sudan are Bor Dinka, People of the Dinka tribe who originate from the place called Bor in Jongli State. The Dinka of Bor’s conversion to Christianity is fascinating; of all the tribal groups in South Sudan they represent the most complete religious transformation anywhere in Sudan in current times. There has been an almost total conversion of a people to a Christian identity within a 10 year period.

This seems to stem from the fact that the Bor Dinka probably suffered a more intense and complete destruction of their traditional culture and ways of life than any other people in South Sudan during the civil war. Government assaults and large scale Nuer cattle raids (Nuer are another Sudanese tribal group) in the early 90’s caused the total obliteration of the Bor Dinka cattle herds and consequently their livelihoods and very culture (cattle were fundamental to Dinka life, providing their livelihood, food and wealth). The majority of people were displaced into other areas and refugee camps where many remain today.

This experience led to a total revulsion against their traditional shrine spirits and resulted in the widespread destruction of all artefacts used for traditional religious practices. In February 94 in the town of Bor a vast number of these artefacts were collected together inside the church there and destroyed. Isaiah 18 became a key text of the Bor Dinka church’s identity as it holds a prophecy about Kush (translated ‘Sudan’ in the Good News Bible) which describes both suffering and eventual redemption and a turning to God.

We have just returned from a break in Egypt to Khartoum and plan to travel back to Malakal this week.

Will be in touch again soon

Best wishes

Keren

Sudan Update 4

2007-03-21T06:08:00.001-07:00

Dear All,

We have been back in Malakal for about two weeks now, we came back to find the classroom building at Malakal Basic school had begun which was great to see. However the diocese have had a few problems getting started on the building of the other two school which are out in two rural communities. All the materials have to come to Malakal by barge from a town called Kosti, they then have to be taken by boat and road to the building sites. There’s been a bit of a delay in them arriving here so the labourers in the communities have not been able to begin. The Diocese have just purchased a donkey and cart for the community in Riang as they are far from the Nile, this will help to bring water to mix with mud for the school walls and will then be used to bring river water for the school children.

There are lots of issues the diocese needs to be dealing with in order to build and run these schools and we are assisting them in managing these things which range from helping them to account for everything spent on labour and materials for the building work to making applications to the World Food programme for Food For Work (food to pay unskilled labourers to help with building) and applications for food distributions for the school children. We are in contact with UNICEF regarding school equipment distributions, Simon is putting together an accounts system for the diocese, we are also looking into starting up a boat project to enable the diocese to provide transport to some of the more remote communities in the diocese and would create some much needed income.

Malakal is in some ways almost medieval in feel – I think it’s the way the living quarters are split up. The whole family and sometimes extended family will often live in one or two rooms and then they will have a separate mud hut which is the kitchen where the women will cook often over coal, then there will be a little rukuba – grass/bamboo walled area which you can go behind with a bucket of river water to wash in. Maybe there will be a pit latrine and then one outside tap pumping river water to the compound. Babies, cows, chickens, goats, cats and rats roam freely between house and garden. The bishop has recently acquired a generator which is on after dark but many people don’t have this luxury. Power in the town is sporadic, sometimes a few hours every day sometimes days go by without any. We stayed at the bishops home for a while but decided to move out after the temperature was regularly hitting 50 degrees C and with hardly any electric and occasional water I was getting very ill with heat exhaustion. Some days here it has felt like we’re just surviving rather than getting any work done, luckily we found a room at the Oxfam guest house which we think we will stay in until our house renovations are finished.

Everyone seems to be getting ill at the moment, Cholora has hit town and 16 people have already died. People drink water from the Nile without boiling it so we’re not sure if it will turn into an endemic. Two of the bishop’s children have been ill and in hospital, poor baby David has just been diagnosed with malaria – we pray that he will be ok.

I attach some pics of Malakal and will be putting them and others onto our myspace sight when I am next in Khartoum. There is an update on the site about Renk which I did not send out as I don’t want to bombard you all. You can get onto the site through www.myspace.com/reconcileconsulting

Will be in touch again soon

Keren x

Sudan Update 3

2007-03-07T06:52:00.000-08:00

Renk
Renk is a small town which boarders north and south Sudan and the communities here were amongst those hardest hit by civil war. Because of its geographical position it has been a gathering point for many internally displaced persons or returnees and people continue to be particularly vulnerable on account of human and food security issues.
After receiving the Bishop of Renk’s blessing to visit we went for 3 days to see the schools and facilities that currently exist in Renk town and to speak with those who work for the diocese. It is looking likely that Renk diocese will receive funding for further school building and when the project starts we hope to assist them in managing the process.

Providing schools is a priority for the church, a consequence of Sudan’s long civil war is that southern Sudanese have the lowest access to education in the world, there are so few schools that the government is struggling to build enough to meet the massive need. Gross primary enrolment is at 20% with less than 2% of people completing primary education. An estimated 60% of the Southern Sudanese population is under 18 years old.

We had a very productive time and felt we were able to identify some key needs with the people we spoke to. I think people were surprised by how young we were, we kept being referred to as ‘the boy and his madam’. We stayed in a lovely mud hut at the ECS Renk Guest house and eat some fairly unusual meals (one being packet custard and rice). Every building in Renk town centre for some reason is bright green, desertification seems to be an issue – I’ve never seen so much dust, when the wind is up you get ‘haboob’ – sandstorms and I barely managed the walk into town before breaking into a coughing fit.
You can see some pictures of Renk in the picture gallery.

We have just completed our first session which was mostly focusing on assessing keys needs for the two dioceses. We return to Malakal on Thursday for a month before travelling to Renk again, we hope to be able to move into our accommodation in Malakal soon but for now will be staying again with the Bishop and his family.
Will be in touch again soon

Best
Keren and Simon x

Sudan Update 2

2007-03-05T03:48:00.000-08:00

Dear All,
Another (much shorter you’ll be glad to see) update,

Before leaving Malakal we were invited to a memorial service for a man who died one year ago in a rather nasty cattle rustling incident. We didn’t manage to work out if he was the rustler or the owner of the cattle being rustled. The service consisted of family and friends standing up and eulogising in between songs and prayers for the family left behind (sadly a wife and 5 children). We then went to the widows home; all the men (including myself) went to eat while the women served the food and then waited until we were half way through before taking some of the food for themselves and eating it away from us. Everywhere we go we are served coca cola – called ‘mobile’ in Sudan, it holds the same value as alcohol does in the UK if you were having friends around for dinner. I unfortunately hate coke but people are very insistent that you knock it back and just when you were feeling relieved and proud that you managed to get through it without feeling sick or burping you are presented with another one!
I also had an opportunity to meet with some of the members of Malakal’s Mothers Union – I explained that me and Simon were married and had come to support the churches development projects in their area and was interested in finding out what they were doing to see if I could assist them in some way. However, I made the mistake of telling the women I had been married for 5 years at which point all anyone wanted to discuss was – did I have any children? Why not after such a long period of time? Did I want children? Would I have a child this year? They would pray for me. I thanked them and hope to find out a little more at their next meeting.
After over a week back in Khartoum trying to arrange our trip to Renk, we were granted permission by the Bishop of Renk on Saturday and by Wednesday were on the bus. Our expectations of this bus journey were fairly low, however, instead of the overcrowded, hot, bumpy journey we were expecting we found ourselves on an air-conditioned coach travelling along a tarmac road. Not only this but no sooner had we boarded when breakfast and drinks started to be served and even a kung foo movie with Arabic subtitles to enjoy. I have attached a picture of the kind of views on the way as well as pics of me in Khartoum earlier this week and of Simon this morning sitting in front of the tukul we are staying in here in Renk.

Will e-mail again soon

Keren x

Sudan Update 1

2007-02-15T03:44:00.000-08:00

Khartoum
Although we only came here just over a week ago, it really feels like we’ve already been away for months – this could be interpreted as good or bad (there are plenty of both in Sudan). Khartoum where we spent our first few days is more African than Middle Eastern, although Arabic is written and spoken everywhere and you can pick up falafel and swarma’s on many a street corner, life seems to move at a snails pace and like in Nigeria you are incredibly dependant on other people to get things sorted -you always need to form relationships with local people quickly so they can sort them out for you such as trying to get hold of our freighted luggage (a now long running issue that seems to have needed at least five people to rectify). Apparently Sudan is the most bureaucratic country in the world! You need a permit to do almost anything from travelling around to taking photos and this all takes time, however, the atmosphere in Khartoum is very friendly and relaxed and although you can’t always get the amount of work done you might have hoped, there is always someone on the street who is keen to stop you and tell you their life story.

Malakal
To reach Malakal is not particularly easy - all of South Sudan is very much in the early stages of being a post-conflict environment and you can only really reach Malakal by flying with WFP (the World Food Programme) and these flights are restricted to UN and NGO workers. Civil war raged across the South almost continuously from Sudan’s independence in 1956 until the Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in 2005 making it Africa’s longest running conflict, UNMIS (United Nations Mission in Sudan) has a base here and there are around 3000 peace keeping troops stationed in the area. First impressions of Malakal - Heat, Dust and Insects – lots of them! Every time you walk out the word Khawaja echoes around the streets, in Arabic meaning ‘foreigner’. Everyone we meet is convinced we are brother and sister (twins) and we have even been asked if we are father and daughter (this came as a bit of a shock!), maybe we are also related to all the other white people in town as we all look the same to many people.
We have been staying with the Bishop of Malakal and his family, he is a Dinka Bor and many of his team who we shall also be working with are Dinka. He and his wife have seven lovely children, there are however over 20 extended family members staying in his home some who have to sleep outside. It’s taking time to get used to using pit latrines! especially ones which barely hide you from the view of others. I think I’ll be constantly trying to find excuses to go and see the UN in order to use their fully flushing toilet complete with toilet paper and working taps. People eat twice a day, usually at 11am, usually bread and fuul (beans) with some onion and maybe cheese and them some time in the evening – this has been things like semolina with rice and milk, sometimes a meat broth with a dough-like starch based carbohydrate. We are always made to eat separately from the family – we are told it is traditional for guests to eat alone, I feel that maybe part of this is that the food we are being served is better than that which the family eat. The bishop has so many pulls on his time, there are constantly people here asking for help, his wife Rebecca works incredibly hard, looking after seven children, running a small tea shop and having to provide food for the 20 odd relations who seem to live here on and off and other visitors including ourselves.
The school building program, part of which it is our work to support consists of building 2 schools in two remote areas of the diocese and adding some classrooms to Malakal Basic school which is in the town itself. We have spent the week meeting and getting to know everyone involved in the programme. We have been eating at different peoples homes most evenings, usually congregant members, unfortunately very few of them speak English and I find the Arabic here really hard to understand so we sometimes end up all sitting around looking at each-other in silence. Logistics are very hard here, getting the smallest thing done at all let alone at an agreed time is almost impossible. 2 favourite words in Sudan are undoubtedly inshalla (God Willing) and bokra (tomorrow), meetings and arrangements are constantly postponed, we have no internet access and are not yet sure how to resolve this. Our mobile phones rarely work so when we need to speak to someone we have found ourselves searching the town trying to track them down. Looking for accommodation has proved tough, because there is a large UN peacekeeping mission here the price of even the most basic accommodation is very high and there’s very little available. We have been in negotiations for one house and have just secured it but it needs more work doing to it than our budget allows for so when we move in we just hope that it will have a decent roof and secure front door.

We leave Malakal tomorrow hopefully having agreed our work plan for the next few months with the Bishops Team. We will be flying back to Khartoum to try and arrange a long stay visa and then going to Renk for a week, the other diocese where we will be working.

Will be in touch again soon

Keren and Simon x