South Sudan – Solo In South Sudan

It’s time to build a school!

Its been a while….

But South Sudan has never been far from my thoughts. I keep in contact with my friends there and I try to do what I can from a distance. Sometimes South Sudan feels very close, sometimes like I don’t know it at all.

Fr. Tim is still, of course, a huge part of my life and he agreed to marry me to Stuart in the pouring rain on Our Lady of the Rocks in Montenegro in 2018. Of course, our wedding was special but the fact that it was celebrated by someone who means so much to me was truly wonderful.

Those of you who followed my first two adventures in South Sudan and who supported me with lovely emails and messages while I was there and almost more importantly, messages of encouragement when I returned to London know what we have already achieved.

In 2013, I left Narus in South Sudan having taught maths in St. Bakhita Primary School. A few weeks after I left, the war broke out and parents sent their children to the school in the hope that they would be safe from the fighting that would come. The people in this part of South Sudan have lived through decades of war but it is an unwritten rule, seldom broken, that the two schools, St. Bakhita and St. Daniel Comboni are safe havens for the children.

Children arrived in such numbers that the UN provided temporary shelters almost 100 young girls lived in these canvas structures. It was an acceptable solution for the very short term but the children were not safe. When Fr. Tim told me in January 2014, I asked my friends to rally….and rally you did. A new dormitory was constructed in the following months and it is now home to 75 girls who attend St. Bakhita Primary School. They are safe, they have access to food and education. A job well done I would say.

In 2015, I returned to South Sudan but this time to Riwoto where Fr. Tim had been asked to continue the work on the primary school there. Kapoeta was a centre of fighting during the war as it is a garrison town and Riwoto is a satellite village of Kapoeta on the other side of the dry bed of the Singaita river. This time, my trip was very different. The hope that I had experienced in 2013, hope that peace and autonomy brings was gone. People were once again dealing with the awful consequences of war; the currency was practically worthless, the crops had failed and people were hungry.

I taught in the primary school which was still in its foundation years. At that time, there were only 4 classes. 5 years later, there is a full primary school programme and an over-subscribed kindergarten school.

So, it’s time for me to call on my friends again.

Fr. Tim has just launched a local campaign in Kerry to raise funds to build the secondary school and I’d like you to help. There’s nothing in it for you…you will probably never take the 3-day journey to visit the school, if a building is named in your honour you will probably never see it. It’s unlikely you will ever meet any of the children who benefit.

But what I can tell you is that this work is needed. It is needed in this place because these people have nothing more than education. I have seen first-hand, and shared my stories, about how education offers some prospects to the children, how my students from St. Bakhita have already gone on to study nursing and teaching, how they have returned to South Sudan to do their part.

Yeats said that education is not the filling of a pail but the lighting of a fire. I’ve written about the fire I saw in the girls of St. Bakhita in Narus and in St. Mary Magdalen in Riwoto and how proud I was to do my small part to tend to that fire. Having the opportunity to participate in the education of these children was singularly the luckiest thing that has ever happened to me. And I do not underestimate the impact it had…. on them and on me.

I know it has been a rubbish year for so many. 2020 did not turn out as any of us thought it would but wouldn’t it pretty awesome, if by the end of 2020 we had secured the funds to do this good thing in a place you’ll never go to for people you will never meet. This is how I’m choosing to close out 2020…with something good.

So, you know the drill…click the link below and have your debit card ready xxx

https://www.gofundme.com/f/a-spark-for-tim?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=more&utm_campaign=p_cf+share-flow-1

Click here for the GoFundMe site

Here’s a video from Tim describing Riwoto and the work that he does…enjoy….

“Just twelve deaths”

If twelve people died of hunger in my home town of Abbeyfeale in Co. Limerick or in even in London where I live, what would happen? People would care, right? There would be public outcry and an investigation into how our society could have let this happen.

One evening while I was still in Narus. I went walking with Fr. Emmanuel and Fr. Tommy Gilooley. We walked further from the village than I had been before and I was surprised to learn that about 30 minutes walk from St. Bakhita Girls Primary School, there was another school that I had not heard of before. It was in a place called Nachepo.

I knew that people lived in that direction. I often met the women dressed in the traditional dress with charcoal or wood on their heads walking towards Narus to trade in the market there. They carried jerry cans full of milk on their return the jerrycans were full of aragi.

We came to a school seemingly in the middle of no where. The fences were broken down, the roof was damaged, there was no one to be seen and it looked as though there hadn’t been anyone here for a long time. The cement floors of the classrooms had cracked and in places turned to dust. There were very few benches and the unlocked classrooms were occupied only by hornets and termites.

It felt as though nature was claiming that piece of land back for itself.

I asked if children still came here. The answer came….”they come when there is food”.

This wasn’t an unusual response. I know that food is a large part of the reason parents send their children to school here. The rations provided by the school, sometimes with the help of the World Food Programme, are a huge part of the reason that children are sent to school here. It is not unusual that the only food a child will eat is the food provided in the school.

But what I can’t say is why on that day and in that place, I was so struck and so upset by the answer. The people here are hungry. I will say that the suffering here is nothing when compared to what is happening further north in the areas worst hit by the war.

The Sudan Tribune reported yesterday that there had been a sort of mini-famine in a town a short distance from here. Just twelve deaths were attributed to hunger.

“Just twelve deaths”…lets just let that sink in for a second.

So why is it that here, in a country that has been ravaged by war for decades, there is no outcry? And not just here, but in so many other places across the globe.

Have we too become sensitised to hardship and suffering? We watch the news every evening and we hear about refugees drowning in the Mediterranean, civilians being executed for practising their faiths, war breaking out here, violent clashes there. I’ve grown up through the 80s and 90s with talk of the famines in Kenya, Darfur and Ethopia. Band Aid made us all aware. We were outraged. Where is the outrage now?

During this trip, I have been deeply troubled by the fact that there are children in this world who wake up in the morning and will not eat that day. There are places in this world that we live in where hunger is normal, where the people almost accept the lack of food as a fact of life.

This is the same world where we as Europeans have experienced beef and milk mountains, where supermarkets and restaurants disgard huge amounts of food every day, where we are overweight, where we carry mobile phones which cost almost an entire year of wages for a trained school teacher in somewhere like South Sudan.

I’m sorry that this turned into a loathsome rant. It wasn’t intended. I’ve been trying to write this post for weeks now. I haven’t quite been able to get my feelings out in any intelligable sense. I haven’t been able to make sense of my unexpected outrage or the fact that I’m so troubled by it now more than ever before.

All ready for sports day!

A very quick update because I’m all excited! Tim went to Torit this week and thankfully returned safely but tired this afternoon but not before doing a little shopping for provisions and for this present for me!

It is a punishing drive of about 6 hours on bad and dangerous roads. I had armed him on Monday before he left with two packets of cigarettes. (Nana if you are reading this, I found them on the airplane and they’re definitely not mine!) I figured that if the car was stopped on the way, the cigarettes would be useful in negotiations. Anyway, thankfully they weren’t needed and the journey both ways was fine.

Tim returned with this amazing present for me. Now I’m all ready for tomorrow’s sports day at the school!!

And, I’ll be able to wear it when I’m shouting for South Sudan in the Olympics now that they will be able to enter teams in the future.

Ole South Sudan!!

A lady what lunches in Kapoeta

I’m hopelessly behind with my posts but I’m going to make an effort to rectify that over the next few days. For now though, let me tell you about our day at the market in Kapoeta last Saturday.

Fuel is a rare commodity here now. There is no diesel and we have heard that a permit is now needed to move fuel outside of the capital.

We had heard that there might be fuel in Kapoeta that morning so Fr. Matthew and I went to see if we might be one of the lucky ones who managed to fill the tanks that day. Of course, once wind of the word got out that a car was going to Kapoeta…it was full! We had some teachers from both the primary and secondary schools, all of whom had business to do in the town that day. Tim was busy here working on accounts and making things ready for his trip to Narus this week.

We set off after breakfast. It was already hotter than hell even at 9:30am in the morning. The drive is about an hour and as we crossed the dry river bed we met many villagers who were on their way to the market. Mainly women carrying jerrycans of milk or waragi (the illicit local brew), charcoal or firewood on their heads. The men of course were busy sitting under the trees playing dominoes.

When we arrived, we deposited our passengers and drove out to “the junction” to see about diesel. We were out of luck I’m afraid. The truck had been stopped leaving Juba. I daren’t presume what might have happened to the fuel.

Having failed in our mission to fill the tanks, we decided to have a soda at the bar across the street from the fuel station. One beer for Fr. Matthew and I was more excited that one probably should be about the prospect of a nice cold Coca Cola. The girl brough the drinks and I didn’t notice at first but soon realised that the syrup I was given was not Coca Cola but Juba Cola! To say I was disappointed would be a huge understatement.

Because the South Sudanese Pound is now almost worthless, it is very expensive to import from Kenya. Furthermore, the customs officials at the borders seem to operate a set of rules that change weekly. For example, it is possible to move metal across the border but not wood. It is not unusual for a lorry to be held at the border for weeks. For that reason, some clever entrepreneurs in Juba have started bottling something that looks vaguely like Coca Cola but tastes like the nastiest own brand cola one can buy. Devastating!!

Afterwards we had some errands to run at the market. We went to the bakery where we picked up some bread and then to the veg market where we were again unlucky. No fruit and no eggs. Try again next week they said.

The market is also where currency exchange happens. I had Kenyan Shillings but very few South Sudanese Pounds. Tim had told me that I should expect about 130 SSP for 1000 KSH. In all honesty, the rate is a little higher than this but I wasn’t about to argue. These traders are providing a service and if they cream a little comission off the top then thats more than fair. I wanted to share around a little bit so I asked 5 different traders to change 5000 shillings for me. I expect each trader made about 20SSP from the transaction. I do love a little honest capitalism!

Once our business was done, it was time for lunch. Well, I have no idea what it was but it was delicious! I think it is called angeli which is an Ethopian dish. The restaurant came highly recommended by Tim but I was rather nervous on entering.It was a ramshackle tin building and I’m fairly certain that any health inspector would have had a coronary immediately on entry. I decided I was brave though and ordered the dish from the very handsome Ethopian proprieter. He returned with water and a large tray of some kind of stewed meat with rice, pasta and something orange served on a bed of fermented bread. I think its fair to say that I’ve eaten in some pretty incredible restaurants all over the world but this was right up there!!

It reminded me of my lunch with Tim and John Marren at “The Ritz” in Kapoeta on my first trip here in 2013. Tim and John still laugh at the colour I turned when I walked out the back to find them skinning a goat right beside the latrine. I pride myself on a fairly sturdy constitution but this was enough to make this girl green…and to give the boys something to really laugh about! Since then, we have called that place “The Ritz”.

Night time in the wilderness

There are many things I enjoy about Africa but I am both terrified of and thrilled by night time. Terrified because there are all kinds of nasties that come to life at night time; scorpions, mosquitoes, snakes, big hairy spiders. But I am thrilled by it because it is beautiful. It’s so dark that sometimes I’m not sure whether my eyes are open or closed. Sometimes the moon shines so brightly casting a glow on the world that makes it feel as though it has been snowing. The sky is so full of stars. More stars than I have ever seen. And the Milky Way!! It’s almost as if the universe is rewarding your courage for being outside after the sun sets with the most spectacular show.

And the sun sets! Gosh, each one seems to be more beautiful than the last. Again, the universe rewards your fortitude in getting through a day of punishing heat by putting on a light show which can’t be compared to anything man is capable of producing with fireworks and gunpowder. That burning orange casts a glow on the world and turns trees and anthills into silhouettes.

One of the things that I am enjoying most about this trip is the nighttime visits to the villages for prayers or mass.

This was something we did not do in Narus. The villages are all very long drives from the main town of Narus so it was not practical to go out there at night time. Here in Riwoto, we are in the heart of Toposaland and the villages are accessible.

Night time too is a good time to get people. The villagers have finished their work for the day. The men have been tending their animals. The women have been cultivating their crops of sourghum, caring for the children, bringing water from the borehole, cooking, cutting wood or making charcoal or brewing beer to sell in the villages. Now that the work is done they have time to come and pray in the darkness.

We drive out after dinner, sometimes the village is over an hours drive away. We are always joined by some of the Toposa speaking teachers. Tim goes armed with his iPad and portable projector. He shows pictures of that weeks Gospel story and speaks about it in their native Toposa language. While I still don’t understand the language I am now able to pick out words and phrases. It always makes me smile when I hear Fr. Tim speak Toposa with a thick Kerry accent!

The meetings take place just outside the boundary wall of the village. Each village has a meeting place which is essentially some logs arranged in a circle. Sometimes the people bring firewood and light a fire. Although, I’m not convinced it’s needed…at nighttime it’s still warm here.

We are often joined by over 200 villagers. I suppose we’re the only show in town. We always have teachers from our school too who speak to the people about why it is so important to send their children to school. Most Toposa cannot read or write and very few pursue and education. Part of the challenge here is to express just how important that education is.

On one night, there may have been almost 300 people. We talked about education and not one single person in the group was now going or had gone to school. I found this particularly hard to deal with but it was made worse when one man said “if we send our children to school who will take care of the cattle”.

If I had known what was going on at the time I would have retorted with questions about what would happen if the cattle became diseased or if trouble broke out and their cattle were stolen or killed. Inshallah.

A day as a teacher in St. Bakhita

I stopped off in Narus for a few days on my way to Riwoto to visit my friends there. More to follow on that but I had a great time going back to St. Bakhita Girls Primary School where I had taught maths two years ago.

It was wonderful to see the changes in the school. There are more teachers and the security has been improved. The new Principal Sister Jane has worked wonders on a shoe string and the girls seem so happy.

Sister Jane was quick to jump at the opportunity to have a new maths teacher and I spent one day at the school teaching revision classes. I helped to prepare the girls for their mid-term exams which will take place over the coming weeks.

I must admit, I was completely exhausted by the end of it all. But very happy to be back!

On Friday morning, there was a special assembly for me. The girls danced and sang and presesnted me with letters of appreciation for the domitory as well as beautiful beads. I felt so lucky. There was a sense though that I was moving on to a new adventure.

There are more than 700 girls in the school now which comprise of both borders and day students. About 400 of those girls are borders with many coming from villages and town days away. St. Bakhita is one of the best schools in the province and those parents to value education are always keen to have their children attend.

I will write more about the dormitory later. Theres plenty of news on that front!

60 hours to Narus, the fight for Uisce Beatha and crossing borders

The journey from London to Nairobi to Loki to Narus. Crossing borders, fighting for whiskey and seeing how the world has changed.

Well I think it’s fair to say that it was a marathon journey. My visit this time is shorter than my last so I wanted to get to South Sudan as quickly as possible.

I flew the 9.5 hours from London to Nairobi on August 2nd. All very straightforward and now that the new terminal has opened in Nairobi, it was a mere 1.5 hours to get through the visa queue. I purchased my transit visa and met my taxi outside.

Now….at this point it’s worth saying that the 1.5 hour turnaround it took from when the flight touched down to my being in the car with the taxi driver impressed me. Last year I flew with two friends to Dulles Airport in Washington DC where 3.5 hours after our flight landed we were still in a queue. Nairobi with all its chaos was a great deal more efficient!!!

I made it to the St. Patrick’s house in Nairobi a little before midnight and had tea and a chat with Fr. Sean Cremin who, ever the prefect host, had waited up for me to arrive.

The following morning was an early start. The driver picked us up at 6am to go to Wilson airport to catch the flight to Lokichoggio. I was travelling with Fr. Emmanuel Obi who I had met two years ago during my last visit to Loki where he was spending time with Fr. Tom Laffan and learning the language. Emmanuel is a lovely man and the new Parish Priest of St. Joseph’s Parish in Narus.

Of course there was a little drama. The hangar from which we were supposed to leave was still locked when we arrived. We eventually found someone to let us in and weighed our baggage….and us! We were over weight and it looks like the 10kg of chocolate and cheese that I had safely packed in a frozen thermos bag might fall victim. I was willing to fight for it. Thankfully one person cancelled their trip at the last minute so we were given some of their weight allowance.

But then…disaster struck. A keen eyed official noticed that I had a bottle of whiskey in one bag. This was a problem. The aviation organisation that we flew with are a privately run endeavour for helping missionaries to reach the most isolated areas. They are run by a Protestant team and so alcohol is not welcome. There followed a huge amount of pleading, the application of a not inconsiderable amount of charm and the offer of a donation in return for the officials “unseeing” the bottle. I finally managed to board….with said bottle of very good Jamesons but not before using the last argument that I had in my arsenal…that the bottle actually contained Holy Water. Now, this isn’t entirely a lie. In Irish, the word for whiskey is “uisce beatha” which when translated literally means “water of life” or “Holy water”! It worked so I’m claiming it as a victory!!

Our 8:30am flight took off just after 9:30am. Fr. Emmanuel and I were joined by a young family. The father was a pilot with MAF and he, his wife and their three children were based in Juba. They were soon to move to Madagascar to operate MAF flights there.

We had one stop in El Dorret in central Kenya to pick up another passenger and to allow a pit stop for the smaller children before continuing on to Loki where Emmanuel and I were dropped off before the plane continued to Juba. Fr. Tim was waiting for us. It was great to be back in that part of the world again!

We arrived just in time for lunch.

The following day we planned to leave for Narus. We packed up the Land Cruiser and we departed for Narus.

I think my first taste of how things had changed since the outbreak of war in December 2013 struck me on leaving Loki. We were stopped at the barriers outside the town as we headed for the South Sudan border. One of the local taxis was stopped at the barriers too. There was a bit of to and fro before Tim got out of the vehicle and walked to the small metal hut near the barriers.

When he returned he told me that we were told that we must take an “escort” and that we must pay for the pleasure. The Kenyan army has been increasing its manpower at its border crossing with South Sudan and they use vehicles heading in that direction to get people there. I learned that Mowngi, the driver in Narus, had been arrested on the road when he was found to be travelling without an escort.

There was a certain nervousness in the vehicle as the young soldier joined Fr. Emmanuel and Fr. Matthew in the back armed with the trademark AK-47.

We eventually left Loki and there was silence in the car for what seemed like a long time. We were not soure of how much English the soldier spoke so better not to say anything. After a time, Tim suggested that we say a short prayer for safety on our journey. I think I felt like that might be a good idea.

Some time later, I asked Tim whether there was any point asking the soldier whether the safety switch was activated on his gun. We realised then that he didn’t speak English so the message was communicated in a mixture of Turkana and Swahili. He assured us that his firearm was secured.

We carried on at a snails pace over the Pan-African Highway…a rather lofty name for the glorified dirt track which connects Mombasa to Lagos but runs from Loki to Narus.

On reaching the Kenyan border, I saw that things had changed there too. The soldier left us for his post but I saw that a long fence had been constructed all along the border. This was new. I learned that the fence had been built some time after the war broke out in December 2013. It’s construction had been the source of a great deal of violence. The Toposa tribe grazed their cattle on both sides of the border and the fence would stop that.

After leaving Kenya, we crossed the no mans land to the South Sudanese border town of Nadapal. I will admit that there was not as much laughter or fun this time. I paid my $100 for my one month Visa and waited patiently on an armchair with no cushions near the 22 solar battery cells while the official applied the visa to my passport. Sadly, this time I was not Helena Eireannach but rather Heleba Eireannach. Its a good thing I’m not precious about the pronounciation or the spelling of my name!!

We got to Narus in time for lunch!

Removing extra seats in the Cessna to reduce weight. My first glimpse of the Didinga Mountains An abandoned plane in El Dorret Fr. Tim gets us ready to leave Loki Future and past Narus residents.

Leaving London – 2015 trip to South Sudan

Here we go again!!

I haven’t written in the same way I did last time about leaving London, the preparations and the goodbyes.

I can’t say whether it was more difficult leaving this time or the last. The circumstances were so different in every respect.
Firstly South Sudan was a very different place two years ago. It was enjoying its new found independence. There were tribal factions as always but the country was largely peaceful. There was hope for what the future might bring.

Now, in 2015 it seems that the hope has been drained from the land I left in 2013. My family and friends all knew South Sudan to be a dangerous place where the political situation was volatile and uncertain as a result of the war which broke out shortly after I left in December 2013.

Of course I was nervous about my return. My friends and the people I loved seemed to think that my return visit was badly timed and I was being foolish.

In particular my mother and Nana were very worried. I found this very hard. I hate it when people worry about me. I hate to think that I am causing anyone any distress or discomfort. I internalised it all and felt so selfish and heartless. It was my fault that I had upset my mother and Nana.

There is work to be done here and there are people doing it. I learned on my last visit that the smallest kindnesses shown by one person can be life changing to another.

So here I am in Riwoto in Eastern Equatorial State teaching maths to young Toposa children and happily tagging along with Fr. Tims visits to the outposts.

The second major change in circumstance is my personal life! When I left London in 2013 I was single and paddled my own canoe (so to speak). Now I am blessed with a new relationship which is full of love and promise. My leaving came at a time of transition for us and I had sleepless nights worrying if I was making the right decision or not.

Thankfully, my incredible boyfriend knows me well enough to know that my love for South Sudan is part of who I am. And now the confirmed singleton realises how lucky I am to have someone who will support me in my endeavours.

Sister Susan sends thanks for the new dormitory

This is another post that I should have written months ago but better late than never I guess.

I am proud to say that this is the fruit of my last visit to South Sudan and I am excited about what adventures my next trip holds in store.

Thank you Sister Susan for such a lovely message and to Fr. Tim for his impressive camera work!!

But most of all, thank you to my family and friends for their financial support in making this happen….look what we did!!!

https://vimeo.com/103996040

The Temporary Dorm

As I mentioned in earlier posts, the war broke out shortly after I left South Sudan in 2013. It was during the girls “long holiday” so we feared that they would not be able to return to school when the term started in January.

The opposite was the case. Girls came to school in such numbers that there was not enough dormitory space. In this video, Fr. Tim shows us the tarpaulin tent he constructed to go some way towards protecting these new students from the elements.

https://vimeo.com/103948073