REALITY

WARNING: this is a long blog post! You may want to grab a cup of tea if you want to proceed...!!

In England last year, my friend's young son asked me, "What is it like, living in South Sudan?"

I found myself floundering.  It is such a broad question- how could I answer in one sentence? I remember that I gave a vague reply about it being hot and busy with home-schooling. I told him that Andrew was busy helping people in his MAF work, taking people and supplies where they are needed.

I have since had more time to reflect on that question. The reality of living here brings blessings- and challenges. Recently, the challenges have loomed larger. At such times, it is a reminder to count the things which work well.

So here is a reflection on that question: what is life like here for me and my family? The good, the bad and the ugly. My reality.

To start with, the blessings...

• MAF have worked hard to provide us with pleasant homes, on a secure compound. We enjoy our home, the air-conditioners, the fact that we have (mostly) reliable power in the daytime, on a fixed timetable from our generator. At night, the MAF generator is off, but we have batteries in our homes to provide low-level power for fans and lights to work.

Our Juba home:

In our houses, we are privileged to have bore-hole water in our taps, to use for washing and that we do not have to go far to fetch our drinking water. This is held in a huge water-drum on the compound. Andrew fetches it in 20-litre jerrycans daily. Our filter, in the kitchen, helps to flush out germs and disease- we are conscious that this is a blessing, when locals do not always have access to clean water.

• We enjoy the benefits of being on a compound. Guards at the gate, walls to protect us and friends around us. There is a communal playground and small swimming pool which our children love. The children have great freedom to play outdoors, since the compound is closed off and guarded, so they can come and go as they please. Our children can usually find someone to play with. They run outside and I don't worry- there are no busy roads on the compound, their play space has good boundaries and we know the people who live here. 

There's always a friend around somewhere on a compound! Here's a view from our hallway, of a happy conversation happening outside on our front doorstep:

• Our compound location is central in Juba city, so we can walk to local shops or to hotels for swimming. There are cafes and restaurants nearby. As Juba develops, so does the choice of places to eat out or even to swim. Joel's small school is also on the same plot of land as our compound, so I can walk him to class while Esther and Ben remain working in their schoolroom. 

• Living in a small community of people who share our faith and act with kindness and grace is such an encouragement. That is the plus side of being in a Christian community. We can learn so much from each other. This week, I have struggled when our children have upset neighbours- not out of malice, but nevertheless, it was embarrassing when my boys destroyed someone's beautiful tree by climbing on it! Instead of anger, our neighbour responded with grace. Not only that, when she saw that I had had a rough week, this kind neighbour popped by the schoolroom when I was working there alone, bringing a tray with a flask of tea and a bar of chocolate and staying for a much appreciated tea-break. Do you know how much that cheered me up? It is lovely to have such kind people in our lives here.

• Our schoolroom is a MASSIVE benefit, providing us with a place to go to school. Although I wouldn't have said so a year ago, this year I am enjoying homeschooling! I am better able to see the privilege of working alongside my children. I enjoy their progress and getting to know them even better.

• Last, but by no means least, it is an amazing privilege to be part of the work here. Andrew enjoys his flying and the people he meets. It is inspiring to hear the stories and see the photos of how MAF flights make a difference to the people of South Sudan.

  Andrew on a recent medical evacuation:

So what is the bad and ugly side? What is it that has made these last few weeks in Juba a huge challenge? Why have I been strongly tempted to want to get away from this place? That has been my recent reality. Here are some of the very real pressures of Juba:

• Volatile politics! Daily we receive "sitreps" (situation reports) with information of tensions, shootings, crime and possible political instability. Sometimes these advise us to stay inside our compounds, "just in case". This means cancelled swimming outings, postponed shopping trips. In itself, this is not a problem, but I feel the strain of being alert to possible trouble- especially as a Mum concerned for her children's safety. A few weeks ago, we were once again on alert for possible political discord. When I was woken that week, in the wee, small hours, by shooting, my instant reaction was that maybe war was breaking out again. It wasn't! Thankfully. But the tension adds up... and I get tired. 

• The high crime rate. Just over two weeks ago, our neighbour was murdered by another round of shots (a different incident from the shooting listed above). At 2:40am, just a few metres from the MAF gate, our young Ethiopian neighbour, Stephen, was shot dead as his shop was robbed. I know I mentioned this in an earlier blog post, but it shook me deeply. For the first time, someone I know had been shot dead. And only a few steps from our home. It caused me to question deeply- how safe are we? How safe are my children? When God promises to protect us, can I hold on to that promise or in my weakness, will I find it too hard to stay here?

• The physical environment, which I have no control over. It might be the sadness of seeing stark poverty. The extreme heat. Sickness. Overwork. These can make Juba a pressured environment at different times. However, for me this month, it has been the noise from the new 24-hour generator installed by neighbours outside our MAF walls. The noise has literally been driving me insane! I spend so much time on the compound and now my home and schoolroom are flooded with noise I hate. And there is nothing I can do about it- except pray! Sleepless nights disturbed by the noise have made me tearful and irritable. Thankfully, good friends have been faithful in prayer and I am finding it easier to cope. We have also rearranged our bedroom and transformed it into a sort of "bunker" to try and block out the horrible mechanical noise! Wardrobes and a mattress now block the windows... and we run a fan all night to try to cover the external noise with "white noise".

Our new bedroom "sanity-saving arrangement", with windows blocked to reduce noise, meaning natural light is now limited!

.

 These changes are working. The rumble is still audible in our room at night, but much quieter. The rest of the house is still affected...but if I have to live with it for now, I am gradually finding ways to manage... and of course, ear-plugs are a GIFT!! 

Here is the source of the noise! This view is from our wall, next to our schoolroom. The troublesome generator is situated just beyond the brown gate you can see in the wall of the new block of flats. If it is noisy for me, I can only imagine how loud it must be for the people living in the small wooden houses you can see right next to their wall:

• Living on a compound has its ugly side, as well as the positives mentioned above. I feel that the benefits of compound living definitely outweigh the troubles...but sometimes the troubles explode. We all live together here, work together, go to church together, share our social lives. It can feel claustrophobic. It is not a "normal" living environment! Just because we all live together and work for MAF does not mean we can automatically relate easily to each other. Of course, we all try. We have to, to live peacefully and kindly!                                                                                     But we are all human. We all have limits to the pressure we can bear. Sometimes there are misunderstandings- we can lose our temper. I did so this week. An unchecked few minutes of spouting all my frustration and annoyance about an ongoing tension resulted in an upsetting conflict situation. I hate conflict. But I just landed headfirst in the middle of one! It is a huge stress factor for me. I like to resolve conflict as soon as I can, but it is not always possible to sort things out straight away. I could pretend on this blog that we are all lovely mission workers living out Christian principles of love and kindness daily- but we are not! Especially me. I can lose my fuse and blow up under pressure. We need God's help to live well with each other day by day! That is the reality. That is why we need forgiveness and grace to live in a small community. Close quarters can bring strain and stress! BUT if we let it, it can also allow us to grow into kinder, more understanding people. We may inevitably hurt others and be hurt- but we can grow in our faith as we seek God's help to to forgive. I believe this can help change us for the better...but let's be realistic: it is not easy and it is not always comfortable to live in a small, multi-cultural, compound community!

• Constantly shifting friends and neighbours! I have blogged on this before. Suffice to say that losing friends, grieving their loss and then adapting to completely new team-mates can require an energy that is not so easy to summon after 8 years of doing this over and over... 

So there it is. My reality. My life in Juba. I am grateful for the good points...and often they are at the forefront. Yet during these last few weeks, the harder points have given rise to stress. I have had to ask for help from family and friends in England to pray for us; to steady me in my weakness. I have struggled with the uncertainty, the fear, the noise and now the added sadness of misunderstandings. Thank you to all who pray for us. You help to keep us all here- and in so doing, you help to keep a MAF pilot here... and therefore help to keep MAF planes in the air! 

These last few weeks have caused me to question why we are here. I have been challenged to think hard abut why we came and why we should stay. Yesterday, I listened to a song which had encouraged me to come to Juba in the first place. It reminded me why. I don't need to say any more- it's all in this song: (click on the link below to listen + watch)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbyHtq-2sGU

Good News!

We received some very good news this week:

Joel's school in Juba can continue for another year!

After the end of this academic year, we had absolutely NO staff signed up to teach at Joel's school: JCA (Juba Christian Academy). This would mean that Joel's school would have to close at the end of  June.

I was bracing myself, in case I had to extend the home-schooling (from September this year) to include Joel. This would mean teaching Year 1 to Joel while simultaneously trying to teach Year 4 to Ben and Year 6 to Esther. It seemed like that would be quite the challenge!

However we now have the good news that Joel's teacher has signed up to teach for another year at JCA! We are very thankful that Joel can continue with his schooling, alongside a handful of friends. He loves attending JCA! It is wonderful that he can carry on there from September- and even have the same lovely teacher as he has enjoyed this year. Plus it makes the home-schooling more manageable for me next year, as I will only have 2 year groups to teach, instead of 3 very spread-out age groups!

Joel at his JCA desk...

...and with his teacher, Racheli, from Israel, who will continue to teach Joel from September:

Just another week in Juba

Our week in Juba...

Pilot Parker and Perks of the Job

Andrew came home from his flights the other day with a gift from a grateful MAF partner, who regularly use MAF flights to their isolated area of South Sudan.

A gift-box full of mangoes:

There were plenty of these delicious mangoes to share with neighbours and colleagues. It is mango season now, so they tasted fresh and juicy, straight from the tree!

Comings and Goings

Our next-door neighbours left South Sudan this week, to return to their native Holland.

    

We will miss them! They were also part of our MAF team in Tanzania so we knew them before we moved here, although they had been based in Dar es Salaam, a day's drive from our Dodoma home.

They moved to Juba just a few days before we did, so it was strange for us to say "goodbye" to them. It was sad to wave them off.
Esther in particular will miss her friendship with their daughter. There were many tears for Esther on Monday, as she let go of yet another friend.

Tonight, another family moved in, so new next door neighbours are already installed. This time, instead of Dutch neighbours, we have a Norwegian/ Israeli family next door!
It is a privilege in our MAF lives that we live among and learn so much about different cultures from our neighbours.


Another night... another shooting

At 2:40 this morning, the owner of the small shop just outside of the MAF gate was shot and killed.

I thankfully slept through the shooting, although it woke Andrew. We feel sad for the other people who work and live at this small shop. I often nip out of the gate to buy phone credit there or bottles of water or coke. The children usually accompany me, excited to spend their South Sudanese pounds on handfuls of sweets which are sold out of plastic jars, balanced on the wooden shelves. The owners have always been kind to them, so it's horrible to hear that one of them will no longer be there to greet his customers.
The shop is usually open all day and it was sad to see it all boarded up today. I took this photo from the gate of our compound, through the tiny, barred security window (used to verify who is knocking at our gate before allowing any visitors entry to the compound).
The shop is the small, wooden structure on the left of the picture, with the closed, blue doors.

Finally... Local Weather News

The rains have arrived! Everything is cooling off... including our bathroom, which is down to a chilly 29'C. It feels fantastic!!

Let me leave you for now with a quote of the week, stated in all sincerity by Esther, "Oooo, it's only 31'C today! It feels so cold!"

Uncertainty

There has been some uncertainty here this week. The leader of the opposition was expected to return to Juba on Monday and again on Tuesday and then again yesterday, but is yet to arrive. This has created a level of tension.

As a pilot's wife, I do worry about safety for Andrew. Thankfully, all has remained calm despite disruption at the airport due to added security. Life in the city is carrying on as normal. We are careful where we go. At times, we judge it safer to stay on the compound. Of course, that is not the case for our pilots who have a job to do. They are out and about each work day:

Although our days have been continuing without any drama, the nights this week have not.

On Tuesday night, I woke up at 03:30 to the sound of four gun-shots. I sat bolt upright and took deep breaths. It was quickly over and after my heart rate had calmed down, we eventually went back to sleep. It was "just crime" and not the start of any large scale fighting. That was a relief- but I feel sorry for anyone caught up in that event.

Again, on Thursday night, there were gun-shots. Thankfully, we slept through them. Our neighbours described them as a round of 6 shots, then a volley of about 15 shots. Again, it turned out to be "just crime" and nothing more followed. Still, it is unsettling, both to hear it or to hear about it.

I am glad I did not hear Thursday night's noise. It has been a tense and tiring week. One of the reasons I may not have heard it is because I now have to wear ear-plugs every night. Our house is recently surrounded on the 3 sides where we have windows by annoying generators.
The newest generator belongs to a brand new block of flats, which has just been constructed right opposite our bedroom window. The owner proudly told Andrew, "We are installing 2 generators which operate 24 hours". GRRRRRR!!! The other generators operate in the evenings and up to midnight- sometimes a little beyond. They are quiet in the day. But now we have CONSTANT mechanical noise and there is no escape... It sounds like a giant hoover and its sound pollutes the whole air around this end of the compound.

It is stressful.

The only solution I can see is to move to a different house, or to install double glazing. One of those choices is a major hassle. The other is major expense.
So now we have further uncertainty... To move? or to pay for double glazing on our bedroom window? ....We'll keep you posted...

Confused?

I'm confused.

Last week, a new bank note was brought out. Its worth is 20 Pounds.

The trouble is, it looks exactly like the current 25 pound note. The only difference is that one of the notes has been in circulation longer and is therefore more worn. Plus, of course, the number in the corner is different.

Front view:
 

Back view:


I was just getting quite attached to the 25 Pound note. I have never worked with a banknote of this denomination before and I have discovered that it is an excellent aide to teaching decimals! I can use a single note for my pupils to visibly demonstrate 25 as a quarter of 100, to make sense of 0.25.
Since three of the notes equal 75 pounds, this makes a great illustration for 0.75 as three quarters of 100 pounds.

Now, however, I will have to watch out. If I accidentally pick up the wrong note- which will be a very easy mistake to make- I won't be the only one who ends up confused!

Food for Thought

Here are a few random food-related photos from the past week or so in Juba...

Ants, ants everywhere!

Since the hot season began in earnest, around the end of January. a colony of tiny little ants have moved into my kitchen.
They are the same colour as my work surface and hard to detect. It is irritating, as they get into everything. For a while, I moved the sugar bowl into the fridge because the sugar was a magnet for these ants.
When I went to make bread the other day, I was annoyed to find them in the margarine:

I scooped out as many as I could, but I am sure the crunchy particles in our bread were the left-overs!!
The ants also love to climb into our kettle and swim around. Since we drink cup-loads of tea in our house, it is fortunate that we are not too fussy about ants in our tea!

Veggie Tales

I did an experiment the other day and decided to order broccoli from the market, for the first time. I had heard a rumour that someone could source broccoli...

Since we have never had broccoli in Juba, I texted an order to the market stall holder who helpfully brings fruit and vegetables to the compound for us. I was looking forward to having a change from the carrots and courgettes which are regulars at the Juba market.

This was my broccoli:

It was more expensive than other vegetables and I could not glean a single floret of broccoli from the multitude of leaves and thick stems! That is one item I won't bother to order again...

On the other hand, I ordered a kilo of sweet potatoes last Saturday- and the generous size of this one potato fulfilled the entire order!

This sweet potato was absolutely delicious, mashed with butter, milk, salt, pepper, a hint of cinnamon and a tea-spoon of (hopefully) ant-free sugar!

A Sanitary Affair

A few months ago, I was given the task of helping to source sanitary towels for women in local refugee camps who cannot afford this basic necessity.

The ladies on the MAF team here and at our Juba church generously provided packs of sanitary towels and money so that we could help to get these goods to women who need them. I found myself with the rather unorthodox task of sorting and counting boxes of sanitary towels and storing them in our home!

With the cash raised, my friend Sue did some investigation into the best way to spend funds. She organised the purchase of some new products, from Uganda, which have been specially designed for women living in impoverished conditions. These are called, "Afripads".

Afripads are a novel and brilliant way of providing this most essential item- as they can be washed out and used again - and again. Each pack comes with careful instructions that allows ladies to hand wash the towels, dry them in the bleaching, germ-busting African sun and re-use them. What a great idea for ladies living in poverty, who cannot simply buy a new pack once their old ones have been used up.

Unbelievably, political sensitivities and red tape meant that we were sadly refused access to the ladies  who live in the Juba camps and who need these items. It's a long, complicated story which I won't go into...

 However, the need for such a product is also, unfortunately, prevalent among the street girls of Juba- so a friend at MAF contacted a wonderful lady called Cathy Groenendijk-Nabukwasi who works tirelessly for the rights and protection of street kids here. We asked her if she was interested in using the boxes of towels- and the Afri-pads- to distribute them among girls and young ladies who need them.

Cathy was enthusiastic about being able to distribute the goods. She came to collect the Afri-pads, excited to actually have the product to give away; she had previously only heard about them. I was pleased that, finally, this practical product could be given to those who need them (and it was nice to have our office space back, rather than working around boxes of sanitary products!).

(Cathy has pioneered an amazing refuge for vulnerable children in Juba. To read more, visit: www.confidentchildren.org )

Cathy's staff came by to pick up the remaining boxes, all carefully packed in old cardboard boxes from local shops. The products would be carefully given out to those needing them.

It is hard to think that for many women worldwide, basic necessities like these are denied them: they are simply too expensive and inaccessible. But it is also good to know that there are companies in existence who carefully consider the needs of those without means and work to create products such as "Afripads" to provide practical solutions for such basic needs.