Northern Bahr el Ghazal M&E Visit and a Quarterly Report

(After one of the many rains in Aweil that week, a rainbow appeared. You can't see it in this picture, but there was a double rainbow!)

From 13-17 July Lutfiyah and I again went to the field; this time to Northern Bahr el Ghazal (NBG) state. The trip started off a bit rocky. As we were checking in our bags at the airport, we discovered that our luggage was too heavy. The limit was 15 kg (around 30 lbs) for everything you are carrying. Normally, they just weigh your checked luggage, but this time they weighed everything. To make matters worse, we were carrying training materials for sessions we would hold with the team in Northern Bahr el Ghazal which added extra weight. After some begging, pleading, angry phone calls to our logistics team for not pre-arranging for the extra weight, we took only the essentials and boarded the plane.

After a quick plane transfer in Wau, we arrived in Aweil, the capital of NBG. Our team in Aweil has no compound yet so most are staying at the UNOCHA (United Nations Organization for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs) compound. A few observations about Aweil and the UNOCHA compound: First, Aweil is HOT; very hot. The only relief is found under the many mango trees (sadly, mango season had ended) on the compound and the area. Even then, when there is no breeze, you simply suffer. The room I was staying in for the first half of the trip didn't have a working air conditioner or a fan. So, I simply could not go into the room during the day, and at night, the humidity and heat in the room was not conducive to sleep. Needless to say, I was awake for far too many hours during this trip. Second, logistics and communication systems in NBG were awful. Since the Winrock compound wasn't finished (or even really started) the program coordinators who we needed to speak to were scattered throughout the compound, either commandeering an open office if available or working under a tree. In this state, the junior staff were all based in the counties and could be up to 2.5 hours away from Aweil. Exacerbating the situation were poor cell phone networks, and terrible/unpredictable internet connection. Lastly, when you hear things that sound like hundreds of birds in the mango trees at night, don't be fooled, they are actually fruit bats. Upon this realization, stop video taping and begin walking faster.

These difficulties aside, we had several good field trip days in the county locations. We met two Community Action Groups, two Women's Support Groups, visited a school identified for rehabilitation by our program, two vegetable producer groups, a couple water points, and attended a PTA training. The vegetable producer groups and the PTA training were the unique aspects of this visit. Vegetable production is not very good in Aweil North or Aweil West (the two target counties in NBG) and it is evident in the lack of locally produced vegetables in the markets. So, the BRIDGE program (Winrock's program name) is going to train several communities on vegetable gardening techniques, and give training on "farming as a business" to the vegetable producer groups we train. Hopefully, these producer groups, as a result of being a group, have more bargaining power to get a better price for those who would sell their produce at local markets. Unfortunately, the message and purpose of these types of groups sometimes get lost or not effectively communicated when BRIDGE is forming the group. Team members continue to work on this, and due to visits such as our M&E visits, we can observe these shortcomings, inform project decision makers, and make recommendations on what needs to be done.

(Below: One of the vegetable producer groups we met. Second Picture: The children that naturally gather when they see outsiders, especially a white person.)

The PTA training was the first activity we have visited that was actually taking place during our visit. Although the training was set to start at 9am and was around 2.5 hours away from Aweil (starting from the UNOCHA compound), this did not seem to phase the coordinator in charge of the education sector. Lutfiyah and I were ready at 7am, but we didn't leave until 8:15 (and they still needed to pick up supplies and other trainers for the PTA training). It had also rained earlier that week so the roads were not the greatest. Several times we had to get out of the car and survey the mud/water puddles to see if the ground was hard enough for the vehicle (SUV with 4-wheel drive) to pass through. We finally made it to an area (called a boma, which is made up of several villages) called Marial Bai. In many societies time is not a huge factor and communities gather for meetings very late, but here, the communities always show up relatively on time. So, we were very late, and some people who had gathered earlier, namely women, had already left to attend to their daily tasks. On the bright side, people did gather after we came and the first of the three day PTA training began. For Lutfiyah and my sakes, translations from dinka/arabic were translated into English during the opening remarks we were observing. After opening remarks, the training continued in either dinka or arabic- training the PTA members on their roles, the role of a PTA as a whole and instructing them on how to create a proper project proposal.

(Below: PTA training sign-in for day 1 in Marial Bai boma.)
















As I mentioned earlier, the roads were not in very good condition due to the rains and communications systems were not good either. We had planned to leave the PTA training after 2 hours and get picked up from another car of Winrock's. It turned out that no one had the thuraya (satellite phone) number or vehicle radio number of the vehicle that was picking us up. We had heard that the vehicle left on time to pick us up, but hadn't arrived when it should have. With its front tires almost bald, we had to assume that the vehicle was stuck in the mud somewhere, which ended up being true.

During the wait, the heat was becoming hotter by the minute it seemed. The only relief we received was standing under a tree and listening to very interesting war-time stories of the area from the Director for Education in this county. The director, Jamesco, who was in his early or mid 30s perhaps, casually described the days of insecurity. People did what they could to maintain some level of a normal life. He was in school (either elementary or secondary) during some of the war and was very dedicated to his studies. Whenever word came that there was insecurity in the area, teachers and students would quickly get up, collect their chalk boards and materials, and run into the woods far enough away to be safe. There, they would set everything up again and continue their lessons. We also heard other, more terrible stories of the war. Schools, such as the one we visited in Wedwill boma a few days earlier, and any other structure within a community was bombed. The goal was total eradication of infrastructure. We were even told the story of a day of celebrations for education in Southern Sudan. Teachers, professors, and leaders within the education center all gathered for a day to celebrate some achievements. That day, with all these great minds of Southern Sudan gathered together, the venue for this event was targeted by the armies of the north and bombed. The director only knew of one person who survived ( a member of the community in Marial Bai where the PTA training was taking place). There was no foresight in this war, as in many. If there weren't any educated people left, then there wouldn't be anyone to lead the people to fight back.

(Below: Classes are most often held outside because buildings are either destroyed or unsafe. Because of this situation, classes are cancelled when it rains. At times, the rainy season lasts from June through September. Second Picture: One of the many buildings of a boarding school in Wedwill Boma that was bombed during the war.)




























Overall, the trip was better than we had expected. We had heard horror stories of a monkey that lived near the Southern Sudan hotel we were originally supposed to stay at that particularly liked to attack women, the team leader's tendency to never stop talking (mostly true), and the disorganization of the program in Northern Bahr el Ghazal (partially true). Whew- thank god the monkey wasn't there! (Below: One of the more serene pictures of Aweil. Mango trees line the streets.)

Unity State M&E Visit

On 28-June my supervisor, Lutfiyah, and I departed for the second of three monitoring and evaluation (M&E) trips. This time it was to Unity state. From the start, I knew it would be an interesting and unique trip. After we had checked into the Juba airport, we boarded a bus that took us to our plane. Every flight I had ever boarded in the past had seated at least 20-30 people, but not this one. This one seated 15 people, maximum, and there was no divider between the pilots and first seat of passengers. (Watching what the pilots actually do during take-off and landing is surprisingly interesting.) Despite the size of the plane, we took off very smoothly. The plane flew lower than other planes, and we were able to see beautiful scenery of Southern Sudan for most of the flight. (Below: A pastoralist tribeswoman, children and their donkey's at a water hole we visited.)

The place we were going to was called Bentiu, the capital of Unity state, where the Winrock BRIDGE team was based. However, the place we had to land was 2 hours away. There is an airport in Bentiu, but apparantly there is a radio tower at the end of the runway which is too close for WFP's (which manages the United Nations Humanitarian Air Service we were flying on) standards. So we instead landed in a small town called Leer, which had no airport, just a dirt runway. On the upside, without an airport, flying is completely hassle free. When the plane landed, we simply got out of the plane, removed our bags from the cargo area at the bottom of the plane, and got in the car to Bentiu.

On our trip to Unity, we wanted to accomplish several things: visit as many groups as possible that were formed by our field teams, speak to community members about the BRIDGE activities they have participated in, and train the field staff on the overall M&E system as well as proper procedures for documenting the work done with communities. I was expecting to find much of the same things I saw in Warrap state. However, as there are different staff members implementing activities, and varying srategies being pursued by the team leaders in each state, the results are not all uniform. Lutfiyah and I spoke to 4 communities where our team had formed Community Action and Women's Support Groups (groups meant to represent the larger community and help to introduce as well as manage self-help community development projects). In most communities we visited, our partner organization PACT had dug a borehole (a well) and formed a water user committee for each water point. While Lutfiyah interviewed the water-user committee, I interviewed the Women's Support Group (WSG), and then we both spoke with the Community Action Group (CAG). Generally, this meant that we would show up at a community, someone from our team would find a group representative, who would gather others from the group, and we would stand/sit under a tree and ask questions about the groups' activities, thoughts, and plans for the future. (Below: Myself interviewing a Women's Support Group in Tong Boma- a boma is a small administrative district)

Unfortunately, we discovered that while the Community Action and Women's Support Groups were formed nearly 2 months ago, none of the people in management positions had been trained on their respectives roles within the group. Despite this, many of the women I spoke to were very inspiring. Generally, the women do the majority of farming work, are responsible for bringing up the children, fetching water and charcoal or firewood for each day, and cooking. I do not know how they have time to be in such a group that BRIDGE has helped form, but they were all happy to be in it. They were eager to learn about their roles, repair or build schools and clinics for their communities, and build stalls for those in the community who sell goods at the market (usually they just sit on the ground to sell their items).

We also took other field trips to explore our agricultural component activities. First we visited a fishing group in a community called Manga. There, gender relations were in a poor state, more intense that in the previous communities we had visited. The men did all the fishing and fish drying. The women's role was to cook them and bring up the children. In this community, the BRIDGE project is focusing on forming fisher groups so that they can combine their efforts in fishing, marketing, and selling their dried fish in order to either get a better price for their fish or to invest in materials needed by all fishermen. We are also going to introduce an improved fish dryer system to them, which will result in more sanitary dried fish (currently they hang them to dry outside among the flies) and get a better price at the market. (Below: A fisherman getting off of his boat.)

However, much to our dismay, the group seemed to be hastily formed, and besides working together for a common interest, no group member really understood why they were in this group or what this group could do for them and the community. As we asked questions about their plans as a group, representatives simply responded by asking for fishing nets and boats.

While supplying fishing nets and boats sounds like a very simple request and a good plan to help meet community needs, these types of activities are characterized as relief, not development.
Throughout the 20 year civil war (that just ended in 2005) between north and south sudan, international organizations focused on supplying people with what they needed; giving hand-outs. After 20 years, many communities became dependent upon these hand-outs, unable to help themselves; unable to sustain themselves. This is one thing our program is trying desparately to avoid and overcome. Instead of simply giving people things, we require that there be some community contribution. Most communities cannot afford to pay for materials, and in those cases, we require that the community or the government, for example, commit to maintaining the borehole (water well) after we install it. For other projects, the community may contribute the labour required to rebuild a school. Unfortunately, we are simply relying on the voiced and signed committment of community leaders and government officials that they will maintain material items we supply them; it is unclear how we will actually ensure that maintenance.

Aside from work, Unity, specifically Bentiu was a decent place. By and large, Unity state is a marshland, which unfortunately makes it quite humid. On top of that, the water is often salty, which makes digging boreholes for communities difficult at times. Our team's compound we stayed on had several buildings recently built, but terribly designed. The building seemed to be made out of plaster and maybe cement, had high cielings, large and loud metal doors, and no air conditioning. Luckily there were cieling fans, but as city power only lasted from 7pm to about 6:00am, and the generators were not switched on all the time, it got hot; not just hot, but humid and sticky. Needless to say, I did not get a lot of sleep on that trip.

Compounding the situation was a plethora of really weird and large bugs, many of them able to fly. I constantly woke up with a jolt during the night, thinking there was bug on me. Half of the time there was. One thing I have found is that there are two insects that I just don't like, and when I see them, would like to run away: large wasps that seemed to be everywhere (their long dangling legs made me cringe every time) and large flying beetles. Luckily the beetles would only fly for a short period of time, drop from whatever height they were at, and if they crawled on you, were easily squashed.

As we departed, I felt like it was a good trip, but I was happy to be going back to Juba to my nice bed where there were fewer bugs. We once again drove to Leer, the plane landed, but the runway was a little wet due to the rains earlier in the week. As a result, the pilot stated that he would only take 6 of the 8 people that were scheduled for the flight to Rumbek (a city in Lakes State where we would transfer to another plane to Juba). As a result of being very vocal and slightly pushy, both Lutfiyah, myself and another BRIDGE employee were able to board the plane. Unfortunately, after we landed in Rumbeck, we discovered that our names were not on the manifest for the next flight to Juba. It turned out that our logistics team instead booked us for a later flight. A later flight wouldn't have been too bad, except that WFP only flies a certain number of planes on certain days to and from specific locations. As this was a friday, the next flight out of Rumbek to Juba was not until Monday. After some furious phone calls, Lutfiyah and I settled into the hotel (more like a campground because we stayed in safari style tents- complete with a full bathroom!) next to the airport. All in all, Rumbek was great. We slept, hung out, and watched the Wimbledon finals. What a final match for the men! On Monday, we made it to Juba, safe and sound. (Below: the plane we flew in from Leer to Rumbek)