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)