Blogg May 24, 2006
Well, I’m still in Lekwongole. We were suppose to fly out on Tuesday at noon, but the plane didn’t come by until 3pm, and of course, it started to rain at 2pm… the plane didn’t even circle, just flew off. So then we were told that we were on an OLS flight today, but no luck it seems, now they are saying nothing until Saturday. It’s pretty frustrating as we were suppose to visit 4 towns, and have only been to one.
Have had some good meetings, but the usual frustrations, poor organization on the ground and even worse communication. Found out that a group of youth waited for us from 2:30 until 4 yesterday, of course I found out at 4:30, and when I rushed there, they had gone. Such is the way of things here, I feel bad that I wasted their time.
The rains are bringing out the snakes and the scorpions… Tom, from Uganda had a snake in his tukul when he woke up yesterday… gave him a pretty good scare, and two others have had scorpion stings. I have to dump out my boots before I put them on, and make sure my tent is tightly sealed always.
Yesterday we visited a village of Nuer who have been displaced here into Murle-land. They told us the story of their displacement. Apparently they had a spiritual leader, a prophet, who they were following, but then a militia group, who wanted to capture their spiritual leader, attacked them. They resisted and he was killed, and they escaped to Murle-land. When they arrived here, the Murle attacked them first, but when they didn’t fight back, the Murle disarmed them, took some of their girls and let them settle in the area. The girls were returned later, and some of them have married Murle. The community is pretty poor compared to their neighbors; they have no cattle (which is difficult for Nuer!) COOPI has provided them with some chickens, which are thriving well, and some seeds and tools, so they are becoming agriculturalists. But life is quite a struggle. But the children seem relatively healthy, if somewhat slim. None of the children go to the school in the town, but they say they plan to soon.
I have to admit, I’m getting frustrated with the daily changing travel plans, and have to keep reminding myself, this is normal, and I just have to do what I can while I can.
I am looking into walking to Pibor, which is about 35 km away, but I’m a bit concerned about my co-worker James, he’s not very used to field work it seems and our little foray to the village yesterday (we did have to cross two streams with water mid-thigh) did him in and he has not been feeling well since then. I don’t think he could handle a long walk with all our gear. But we need to get to the other towns if we are to get an accurate picture of the situation.
Well, I’m still in Lekwongole. We were suppose to fly out on Tuesday at noon, but the plane didn’t come by until 3pm, and of course, it started to rain at 2pm… the plane didn’t even circle, just flew off. So then we were told that we were on an OLS flight today, but no luck it seems, now they are saying nothing until Saturday. It’s pretty frustrating as we were suppose to visit 4 towns, and have only been to one.
Have had some good meetings, but the usual frustrations, poor organization on the ground and even worse communication. Found out that a group of youth waited for us from 2:30 until 4 yesterday, of course I found out at 4:30, and when I rushed there, they had gone. Such is the way of things here, I feel bad that I wasted their time.
The rains are bringing out the snakes and the scorpions… Tom, from Uganda had a snake in his tukul when he woke up yesterday… gave him a pretty good scare, and two others have had scorpion stings. I have to dump out my boots before I put them on, and make sure my tent is tightly sealed always.
Yesterday we visited a village of Nuer who have been displaced here into Murle-land. They told us the story of their displacement. Apparently they had a spiritual leader, a prophet, who they were following, but then a militia group, who wanted to capture their spiritual leader, attacked them. They resisted and he was killed, and they escaped to Murle-land. When they arrived here, the Murle attacked them first, but when they didn’t fight back, the Murle disarmed them, took some of their girls and let them settle in the area. The girls were returned later, and some of them have married Murle. The community is pretty poor compared to their neighbors; they have no cattle (which is difficult for Nuer!) COOPI has provided them with some chickens, which are thriving well, and some seeds and tools, so they are becoming agriculturalists. But life is quite a struggle. But the children seem relatively healthy, if somewhat slim. None of the children go to the school in the town, but they say they plan to soon.
I have to admit, I’m getting frustrated with the daily changing travel plans, and have to keep reminding myself, this is normal, and I just have to do what I can while I can.
I am looking into walking to Pibor, which is about 35 km away, but I’m a bit concerned about my co-worker James, he’s not very used to field work it seems and our little foray to the village yesterday (we did have to cross two streams with water mid-thigh) did him in and he has not been feeling well since then. I don’t think he could handle a long walk with all our gear. But we need to get to the other towns if we are to get an accurate picture of the situation.
posted by Judy McCallum at 3:11 PM
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