The Last of the Surveys

(Sunrise on a morning in Northern Bahr el Ghazal)

After countless hours bouncing in Toyota 4x4 Land Cruisers along dusty roads in 3 states for 3 weeks, we finally completed our surveys; 170 of them.

In Northern Bahr el Ghazal, the days were long and hot. In Aweil, the capital of the state, our compound did not have running water, so my fellow surveyors and I opted to stay at the only hotel in town. Luckily, it was under new management and had significantly improved since one of my colleagues had last stayed there. There was usually running water, sometimes a vegetarian option of beans and rice, and air conditioning at night (although the power didn’t come on until around 7pm). Overall though, surprisingly pleasant.


(A mother monkey with her baby hanging on to her underside and a dik dik that hung around the hotel courtyard in Aweil.)

As we interviewed people in the communities, we noticed several differences from Warrap. First, although Northern Bahr el Ghazal is populated mostly by Dinkas, like in Warrap, the language is slightly different and so are the people. The fighting during the war was more intense at time in this area, and many people had recently returned (within the last 2-3 years) from the north of Sudan, most often from Khartoum (the capital city of Sudan). Many people were essentially still rebuilding their lives and livelihoods. While I’m glad people are returning to the areas from which they fled during the war, I sometimes found myself wondering why. The desire to return to the place where you were born after being forced to flee, and working to rebuild and possibly start a new country must have a very strong pull, but it had to be a difficult decision economically. Life in these areas is very hard, and at least one woman I spoke to said her husband had to return to Khartoum to make some money because they could not find the means to sufficiently support their family. In this state, it was the first time I began to hear people foraging for wild leaves and fruits as a means of supporting themselves and their families.

On the governance side of things, most people viewed the government as very strong, and as gatekeepers of sorts for aid. While most services to the communities were provided by NGOs, the government was seen as the one who brought the NGO services to them. This certainly elevated their perception of government, but people’s expectations of government to deliver basic services like education, water and health were still not being met.

(Children carrying water from a nearby borehole (water well). In some communities where boreholes are scarce, people may wait in a line all day to get water.)

The Dinkas of Northern Bahr el Ghazal, however, are very resilient and are trying to make the most of their situation. Two stories in particular come to mind. One is of a woman whose children were taken from her during the war by the arab raiders of the north. (During the war, children were often taken by the opposing forces and made to work for their captors for, I am assuming, very little or no pay.) Once peace had come, she was determined to reunite her family. She made it all the way to Khartoum (at least a 3-4 day journey by vehicle), miraculously managed to find her children, and brought them back home. The journey must have been extremely expensive, long and arduous. She even faced the chance that her children would not want to come back with her. For some families, their children were taken at a young age, grew up with their captors, are already making a living in Khartoum or elsewhere, and find that life is not too bad with their captors. When their parents find them, some do not recognize their parents and/or do not want to leave. Luckily, this was not the case for this woman.

Another personal story was of a woman who benefited from one of BRIDGE’s vegetable growing trainings, and found a creative way to save money. With no nearby borehole (water well), she planted her vegetable garden with the seeds and tools she received from the BRIDGE program on the bank of a river, and after they had grown, she found that tomatoes fetch a good price at the market. She was a wise woman and knew that if she just held on to the cash, it would disappear quickly (as cash does for all of us when it sits in our wallets!). There are no banks in the rural areas (only a few, 1 or 2, in the urban areas), but she needed a way to store her money. While most people I spoke to in Warrap saved money by buying livestock, she decided to put her money in groundnuts (peanuts). With the money she received from tomato sales, she bought groundnuts because they would not spoil. When she needed money, she would go to the market and sell the groundnuts. I do not know how much this scheme helped her monetarily, but most people ate 1-2 meals a day while her family was able to eat 3 meals consistently throughout the year.

After the surveys in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, we flew back to Juba for the weekend and lavished in some decent beer, pizza and Indian food from two of the best restaurants in town. However, the weekend soon ended and we were back on a plane, this time to Unity state.

(A picture of the dust storm that blocked out the sun and stars for three days in Unity state.)

Our experiences in Unity state were again unique from those in other states. First, the land was very swampy, complete with crocodiles, large monitor lizards, snakes, and a great variety of birds (the herons were especially elegant). As a result of the large number of birds, most people grow maize instead of sorghum because it is harder for the birds to eat, and with many rivers, more people fish for a living. Secondly, the majority of people in this state are Nuer, not dinka. (So much for the Dinka language skills I picked up in the other states.) Most people here have markings on their faces from a pattern of incisions made deep into the flesh on their faces, which resulted in slightly raised dots all over their faces (men and women) or lines across their foreheads (men).

Unity state is also where most of the oil in south Sudan is found, although the 2% of the oil revenues that are supposed to stay in the state seem to really stay in a few people’s pockets. On our travels to various communities, we saw many pipelines and the compounds of the oil companies. I even saw the compound of one of the first companies to find oil in Sudan (Chevron or Shell), which subsequently closed after several workers were killed. Some noticeable improvements from the money were seen though. In infrastructure, there was one long paved road through town, better dirt roads in many places, and city power from around 8pm until early morning. However, people’s lives were still very hard, lacking many basic services.

Another difference was that politics are more contentious in Unity than elsewhere. The elections are almost here and the campaigning is in full force. The governor is not very popular, and while the SPLM (Sudan Liberation Movement) is the major party in South Sudan (this party and the SPLA- Sudan People's Liberation Army- were the major entities fighting the war against the north), the wife of the vice president of South Sudan decided to run for governor of Unity as an independent candidate. Her husband, of course, is with the SPLM, but is still supporting her campaign. She, however, has the support of the people and may win. Basically, if she does win, the SPLM will be angry, and if she doesn’t win, the people of Unity will be angry. Either way, it will be very interesting to see what happens. The elections are from 11-13 of April and the results should be announced that week.

During our conversations with communities, the elections and campaigns were at the front of people’s minds, as was peace and security. These issues seemed to be more important and more often mentioned here, than in the other states. It appeared that campaigns were taking up all the time of the government, so there was no time left to listen to community needs. On top of this, a few communities we visited were recently re-established as communities (one within the last year, others within the past few years). This meant that local governments were even newer that the state or national government. The government of Unity state called people to return to the places of their forefathers, and so they did. Some came from the north and others came from towns and areas within Unity state. I’m sure they were promised many services when they returned, but they are still waiting. Needless to say, it is an uphill battle for both the government and the people of these areas. Interestingly enough though, I asked one person if they were considering moving back to where they were before they moved back to their birthplace, and they said no. This was now their home, and despite the hardships, they did not intend to move.

(Large tukuls, or huts. You may thing the largest ones are for large families. On the contrary, people live in smaller tukuls, and they build these large structures for their animals. At times, it seems that animals are worth more than people.)

In addition to the differences in the community and landscape, there were differences in our “off-time” as well. There were quite a number of people who came from Juba to work on monitoring spot checks and other program areas in Unity at the same time we were doing the governance survey. Since I normally work on monitoring and evaluation (M&E), this meant that when I returned from a day of interviews, there would be meetings to attend regarding a specific program area. On the upside, when we finally did stop working, it was great to hang out with that group of people (plenty of entertainment). The generator on the compound could not be run all day, and often, while we waited for city power to kick in at night, we would bring up chairs to the roof of one of the buildings and make it a scotch night. These nights were great until there was a 2-3 day dust storm, which blocked out the sun during the day and the stars at night. (After being out in the dust all day, some people’s hair would look either more gray or more orange, and you would swear that everyone had put powder foundation on their faces.)

One of my favorite aspects of the trip to Unity was the food. When I was there last summer, the food was good (curried vegetables..yum!), but I had heard horror stories of how bad it had become. I heard the cook was stubborn and had to be coaxed into using salt and pepper as seasoning. No matter, I thought, I will use the fear of vegetarians to force some good food to come. (Some cooks, when they hear I am a vegetarian, first tell me that there are no vegetables, and it will be very hard for me to eat. However, I think they get nervous, cook things they normally wouldn’t, and vioala! Delicious food.) It might have been that, or the fact that there was a new team leader in place, there was a large group from Juba coming, and either the cook or the team leader wanted to impress us. Still, I’d like to think it was the fear of the vegetarian… My favourite meal there had to be the foule (or fuul- Egyptian beans- fava beans- with onions, garlic, tomatoes, spices, and olive oil).

Alas, I am now back in Juba, where the food on the compound is not very good, and where I will work from the office for all of April. A week long Easter holiday for local staff was recently declared for the beginning of April, the elections happen the week after, and at the end of the month, we are bringing in every one from the field to Juba for an all staff meeting. Until the all staff meeting, I’ll be working on entering and analyzing the data I collected from my livelihoods survey, taking over for my boss when she is on post-rotation, and hopefully finding the motivation to exercise more and get in shape for the hiking I will do on my trip to Turkey in June.

(Below: Tae Bo is brought to Unity! Me attempting Tae Bo on the roof on our compound in Bentiu, Unity State.)